Eric Steele looks back at how the role of the goalkeeping coach was influenced by Steve McClaren
When Eric Steele’s playing days came to an end in 1988, it was just the start of what was to be a glittering career in coaching.
His story, which has taken him on the training pitches at Carrington, help young ‘keepers on the road to success and further careers in the game and now Goalkeeping Coach of the Year is one that started in the confines of a pub.
Specialist coaching roles were none existent even at this period in history, but whilst he ran a pub, Steele wanted to keep his hands in the game, but this time, as a teacher.
Part time roles were taken up at Wolves, Derby County and Leeds United and whilst he flitted across the country sharing his wisdom, he had to wait nine years until he secured his first full time position in the game in his specialist role.
That came with Derby and he credits the current Head Coach, Steve McClaren, then Assistant to Jim Smith in 1997, as an innovator who studied the Americas and brought specialist roles to the English game.
Sporting his thick Geordie accent, Steele explained to dcfc.co.uk: “I started out with three Clubs a week; it was a difficult period, but since the role has been recognised as an important part of the coaching structure.
“It became a full time role really only 10 or 15 years ago. I started part time here at Derby and it became full time when we arrived in the Premier League in 1997 alongside Jim and Steve.
“That, really, was the beginning of it, when people realised and valued the role of the goalkeeping coach.
“Steve started it here, people don’t know that, he wanted to employ a fitness coach, a masseur and he started to see the way they were doing it in America.
“He studied it and that was the start of specialists being involved in the game. Now, I go back to the great man I worked with Sir Alex Ferguson, he used to look the dressing room and say that he had more staff than Sainsbury’s, but it is the way the game has evolved.
“It’s the same for the goalkeeper coach; it has evolved alongside everything else.”
Whilst the role of the coach has evolved, so has that of that of the goalkeeper itself.
More and more teams pride themselves, just as Derby do, on playing from the back. The goalkeeper is no longer just the man to stop the ball from going into the back of the net, but starting the moves that get the ball in the oppositions.
Just as Sir Alex Ferguson did in his time with Manchester United, McClaren places great importance on the goalkeeper and his involvement with the team.
For Steele, it is all about gains, adapting and re-adapting in order to get the best out of the goalkeepers he has worked with in the past and this is a man that has worked with some of the game’s best after starting his journey from behind the bar of a pub.
He added: “We are all looking for one-two per cent gains. When I worked with Peter Schmeichel, you ask yourself first of all am I going to improve him by 10 per cent as I would a 16-year-old, so that’s where the skill comes in.
“You have to adapt to the level they are at and their own personal development. That’s why I came back to work with Steve, he values the role of the goalkeeper within the team.
“When I was at Manchester United, the way they looked to play, that’s why we had a Dutch goalkeeper rather than a Spanish goalkeeper.
“Your job, as a goalkeeping coach, is to make sure that, whichever philosophy the Manager implements; you have got to provide a goalkeeper that can do that.”
You can watch the full interview with Eric Steele on Rams Player.
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