Shilton and the Mysteries of Posterity

Nobody has won more England caps than Peter Shilton, who may be the greatest goalkeeper in English history. Yet that is not his public image

Sunday was the anniversary of the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, when Diego Maradona’s two goals – the first scored with his hand, the second a brilliant dribble – gave Argentina a 2-1 victory over England. Peter Shilton still hasn’t forgiven him, something he made clear on the Daily Mail website about seven hours after Maradona’s death in November 2020. If he still bears a grudge, that’s his business, even if it is notable how rare it is for sportspeople not to be able to forgive on-field transgressions. What was striking was that Shilton was willing to be so strident about it at that point.

But then Shilton has often seemed to struggle to read the room, to lack the capacity to consider how others may feel in any given circumstance. Team-mates remember not only how blunt he could be in critiquing their performances – arguably a necessary marker of high standards – but how Shilton would often stand up in meetings and deliver his opinion, prefacing his words by announcing how many caps he had, “so I know what I’m taking about…” – which is just the mark of a bore. His second autobiography is full of bafflingly blinkered passages, including a lengthy section in which he berates John McGovern for his unreasonableness in asking for a loan to be repaid.

And with the Maradona incident, there is surely an element of Shilton discharging his discomfort. Yes, Maradona cheated, but Shilton played his part in that goal as well. Look at the still shot from side-on: Shilton’s feet have barely left the ground. The top of his head is at roughly the level of Maradona’s collar. Shilton was a touch over six feet tall; Maradona was about five feet five. Even with a seven-inch advantage, even with the goalkeeper’s benefit of being able – legitimately – to use his hands and, in those days, to clatter through an opponent, Shilton was outjumped.

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Perhaps in the heat he was leaden-footed. Perhaps at 36 he no longer had the spring in his legs. Perhaps he misjudged the loop of the spinning ball after Steve Hodge’s miscued clearance. But whatever explanation you find, it was a mistake. Yes, it’s a mistake that wouldn’t have had a consequence if Maradona hadn’t used his hand. Yes, Maradona cheated; but, equally, Shilton allowed himself to be cheated. If he chooses to highlight the cheating element, it’s perhaps an understandable deflection from his own shortcomings.

An awareness of Shilton’s fallibility in that moment, allied to his ungainly backpedal as Andreas Brehme’s free-kick deflected off Paul Parker in the 1990 semi-final and his failure to get close to a single West Germany spot-kick in the subsequent shoot-out has, for many, in conjunction with his overt pro-Brexit stance, sealed Shilton’s reputation. For somebody who still holds England’s all-time caps record, Shilton is a weirdly invisible figure these days. Where his 1990 World Cup room-mate Gary Lineker went on to host Match of the Day and head a podcast empire, a quick google suggests Shilton has been in the news for only three reasons this year: because Harry Kane is targeting his caps record, for meeting Nigel Farage, and for moaning some more about Maradona.

Yet whatever else Shilton may be, he was a top-class goalkeeper. I saw him only once live, at Roker Park in December 1990 when he seemed entirely unbeatable until finally conceding in injury-time as Sunderland lost 2-1 to Derby. It sticks in my mind as one of the truly great goalkeeping performances I’ve ever witnessed – and he was 41 at the time. In the game before the West Germany defeat, the quarter-final against Cameroon, Shilton made a string of fine saves. Should England have phased him out earlier, have trusted in Chris Woods? Possibly, but his selection for Italia 90 certainly wasn’t the absurdity many now seem to believe it to be.

Shilton had seemed almost otherworldly, not only in his excellence but in his devotion to self-improvement. His first autobiography, written in 1982 (in which he comes across as a far more engaging figure than he does in his 2004 book), is entitled The Magnificent Obsession, and details how, as a schoolboy growing up in Leicester, he would play outfield until his side were in the lead, then go in goal to try to protect it, later coming home and drawing diagrams to try to work out what he could have done better.

He was concerned that he was getting bulkier rather than taller, so would draw chalk marks on the garage floor and try to stretch further and further, and would hang from the balcony between his family’s grocer’s shop and the flat above with weights tied to his feet or his parents pulled at his legs, to try to make himself taller. It probably didn’t make any difference to his eventual height, but Shilton’s arms are two inches longer than those of the average man of six foot. He studied boxing to get better at punching the ball clear, jumped on and off a low wall with a bag of shale strapped to his back to improve power and spring, and spent hours working with poles thrust in the ground so he fully understood angles and positioning.

Aged 17, a year after Gordon Banks had won the World Cup with England, Shilton gave Leicester City an ultimatum; they sold Banks. Shilton later moved to Stoke then Nottingham Forest, although only after Manchester United’s board, baulking at the fee, had blocked a bid from Tommy Docherty. It was at Forest that Shilton reached his peak, his gift for organisation a key factor both in the league title win in 1977-78 and in the two European Cup successes that followed. In the 1980 final success over Hamburg in particular, he was exceptional, one save from a swerving long-range effort from Peter Nogly standing out.

But public memory can be a capricious thing. Shilton, without making a howler, did not cover himself in glory in back-to-back World Cup exits. Had he been a more convivial bloke he might have explained them away, created an alternative narrative. As it is, the obsessive nature than made him a great, his career over, now looks like solipsism. A sour public persona curdles everything, so the focus is on the negative.

Shilton was a great goalkeeper, but ability is never enough for posterity.