Goalkeeping is about when to commit yourself and not being sent the wrong way. Edwin Van der Sar usually judges things expertly: not in May, 1999, however. He was at Schiphol airport, in the check-in queue for a flight to Turin, heading there to sign for Juventus. The phone rang. It was Sir Alex Ferguson asking if he would join Manchester United. Van der Sar replied with an anguished “no”. A switch to United had been his hope since deciding to leave Ajax and would have been possible had Ferguson called even one day earlier, but he had given Juventus his word.

Scruples delayed a player-club association destined for the annals. It took until 2005 before “Van der Sar (Manchester United)” could be written, but now the listing is all over the record books. Having set new marks for shutouts in the Premier League and in all English league football, today Van der Sar could break a British record, but not the one commonly reported, Chris Woods’ 1,196 minutes unbeaten. Woods’ milestone, achieved with Rangers in 1986-87, is for games in all competitions and Van der Sar is not close to it because of goals conceded in the Club World Cup. What he is

gunning for is the forgotten UK league record, held by Bobby Clark of Aberdeen. In 1970-71, Clark went 1,155 minutes in the Scottish First Division without having a goal scored against him; it is 1,122 minutes and counting since Van der Sar was beaten in the Premier League.

He has two animal-related nicknames in Holland, the elephantine “Flappie”, because of his ears, and “Ice Rabbit” because of his temperament. His attitude to history-making demonstrates the latter. “These are beautiful times, but enjoy it? I’ll enjoy myself in the summer holidays. That’s the only time I can relax,” Van der Sar told a Dutch

magazine. “I’m so proud, of course, but I don’t want the attention to go to me alone. If you consider the number of injuries United have had in defence, the focus should be on more than me. The clean sheets are because of our squad.”

Ferguson also notes the collective effort behind his team’s extraordinary three-month shutout of Premier League allcomers, but does not believe Van der Sar should be too self-effacing. He sees the run as “a personal achievement” of “a very special goalkeeper”. Van der Sar is the first No 1 he can speak of in such terms since Peter Schmeichel. It was Schmeichel whom Ferguson needed to replace in 1999.

“Fergie could have signed Van der Sar. I don’t know why he didn’t,”

Schmeichel said himself. Ferguson conceded: “We really should have gone for him when Peter left. We went in too late. Martin Edwards \ had an agreement with Mark Bosnich which took the wind out of our sails.”

Bosnich was the first in a line of keepers whose form and equilibrium went skew-whiff trying to fill

Schmeichel’s berth. Massimo Taibi, Fabien Barthez, Roy Carroll and Tim Howard followed. Cometh the hour, cometh the Ice Rabbit. “Being a United No 1 is hard because of the intensity of our games and the expectation, and that’s why we went for Van der Sar,” Ferguson said. “Through our experience of trying to replace

Schmeichel, which was very difficult, we decided there were certain criteria to be the goalkeeper here. One was definitely good experience, another was personality. Barthez did well for a while but then had his own . . . situations. So we went for Edwin. But he and Schmeichel? Totally different types. You can’t compare them.”

Schmeichel was a commando, defending his box with muscle and a battle-cry. Van der Sar is more a caretaker, quietly tidying attacks away as if balls played into his area were litter. There have been few spectacular moments in his clean sheets sequence: he doesn’t do Hollywood saves. Neither have there been scares, testimony to his anticipation and positioning. Exercising such qualities requires alertness that can be challenging to maintain as a goalkeeper in a successful team, given that play is usually up the other end.