Beware of goalkeepers. I’ve noticed throughout my career that they tend to be weird people. Why? Firstly they’re a one-off. Think about it. Compared with everyone else in the team, they have their own kit, their own equipment, their own coach – they even have their own rules. So in that respect they’re a bit like the spoilt kid who gets singled out by the rest of the class for special treatment.

But I think the way you become a ’keeper plays a part, too. Let’s be honest, most goalkeepers end up between the sticks because they’re rubbish everywhere else on the pitch, and that they “end up” there says it all. Who starts off actually wanting to be a ’keeper? Most kids dream of being strikers – I certainly started up front.

There is definitely a particular kind of mindset required to do the job of a ’keeper and that’s certainly a contributing factor to the weirdness. For starters, you basically have to be prepared to stick your head where everyone puts their feet and for that you have either to be pretty brave or completely mental. Then there is the pressure. If a striker doesn’t do his job properly and misses an open goal, it soon gets forgotten. But the equivalent mistake for a goalkeeper means he’s conceded and the whole world’s on his back. Goalkeepers can’t get away with mistakes like anyone else can.

But it would be wrong to say that they’re all the same because there are different kinds of weirdness among the goalkeeping ranks of this world. Sometimes they can be the clowns of the dressing-room, the ones always getting into trouble and responsible for all the pranks. Then you get the more mysterious ones who are harder to judge. These kind aren’t usually very outgoing and don’t say too much. Then something just goes in their heads and they suddenly have an outburst and go a bit crazy. You don’t want to be in the room if someone takes Antti Niemi’s death metal CD out of the stereo, I’m telling you.

In the next category are the ones who like to see themselves as super-stars. Rene Higuita is a great example – the guy with the Jimmy Bullard barnet who played for Colombia in the 1990s and did that ridiculous overhead kick/save thing against England. Bruce Grobbelaar with all of his dribbling antics is another example.

Then you’ve got the hard men, the ones who constantly want to show everyone how fearsome they are, and this is where my friend Jens Lehmann comes into play. On the subject of German hard-men ’keepers, we can also claim responsibility for Harald Schumacher. Now there is a nutcase. He should have been charged with attempted murder for that challenge on Patrick Battiston, of France, in the ’82 World Cup semi-final. And having put himself on the map with that little episode, he then brought out a book after he retired, talking about things such as the importance of sex for players during big international tournaments. Only a goalkeeper.

Reading’s Marcus Hahnemann also qualifies in the German hard-man category – on account of the fact that both his parents are from the Motherland and that he could easily take a job as a stand-in for WWE’s Stone Cold Steve Austin. Then there are his guns, of course. All 13 of them. M16s and all sorts. Back home in the US he makes his own ammunition because he doesn’t think the stuff you buy in stores packs enough punch. To Marcus, gun control means hitting the target.

The last category is those goalkeepers who look like they were in Only Fools & Horses. Now you might be thinking that this might sound a little farfetched, but I reckon I’m on to something here. It’s only an elite group at the moment but I think it has to be more than a coincidence that we have Tony “Denzil” Warner, David “Boycie” Seaman and my good mate Edwin “Rodney” van der Sar.

Now Trigger, he must have been a goalkeeper in his day. . .

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