For perhaps the first time since he put on keeper’s gloves, Joe Hart does not
look a future England No 1. Shots keep crossing his line. He dives over a
trundler, lets a straight one through his legs. The scorers are laughing and
so is Hart.
He is at Hazel Grove High School in Stockport to coach children with
disabilities as part of Manchester City’s award-winning community programme
and is still smiling two hours of activities, autographs and photocalls
later. As when he is on the football field, it’s unusual to find such poise
in someone so young.
Twenty-one is infancy for a top-level goalkeeper but at that age Hart has
played 120 senior games, including 39 in the Premier League, made a full
international appearance and just been called up for his fourth England
squad. His face is still boyish but his frame - 6ft 3in, square-shouldered,
long-limbed, muscled but not muscle-bound - is perfect for a role that, more
than any other on the pitch, is a man’s job.
David James will be two months short of his 40th birthday come the World Cup
and Hart, described as “very interesting” by Fabio Capello, may be the smart
bet to be England’s starting keeper in South Africa. “If that happens I’ll
be the happiest man. But at the same time I don’t assume that it’s going to
happen and don’t put any time lines on it (becoming an England regular),”
Hart says with typical perspective. “I’m more than happy to be involved in
the under-21s. We’ve got a great thing going and a big chance this summer in
the European Championships.”
School settings are a back-drop in the Joe Hart story. There can’t be many
footballers who were a Head Boy, as Hart was at Meole Brace Science College
in Shrewsbury, and there certainly aren’t many schoolboys who are plucked
from the classroom to take part in a Football League game. Hart was 15 and
in Year 11 when he sat on the bench for Shrewsbury Town in a match at
Exeter. His debut came the day after he turned 17. “Of course I was shy. I
was in a dressing room with people I’d read about in my local paper but soon
found out they were just ordinary lads,” he recalls. “They bantered about my
age and the home-work joke came out a lot.” At City, Hart withstands
yokel-themed wisecracks: after Meole Brace he attended agricultural college.
“Shrewsbury used it for their scholars and it ran other courses; I did sports
science and a BTEC. Yes, it was an agri-college and we had horse riders and
such in our class but I know where I’m from and it’s cool,” he says.
“Shrewsbury’s a good place to grow up.”
He was at two sporting academies. Shrewsbury Town’s and that of Worcestershire
County Cricket Club where, as a left-arm seam bowler, he played for the
county’s development XI at 14. Damien D’Oliveira, Worcester’s academy
director, says Hart would have made “a top county cricketer”. He played in
the Birmingham League as recently as 2007 but “I know I can’t play now,
because of injuries. Steve Ogrizovic played for my cricket club when he was
Shrewsbury’s keeper and you could do it in the old days but not now”.
Many of the best goalies start in the lower leagues. Gordon Banks’s first club
was Chesterfield, that of David Seaman, Hart’s boyhood hero, Peterborough.
Other current England prospects - Ben Foster, Scott Carson, Joe Lewis -
began in settings just as unglamorous as Hart. “I think it’s a great way to
come up,” says Hart. “If you grow up in Manchester it’s hard just to boom
straight into Man City’s first team but clubs like Shrewsbury have to look
at local talent. A big club will always go for experience with goalkeepers.
Shrewsbury had no money so they stuck me in.
“Goalkeepers need to develop character. I’d advise any young keeper at a big
club to take the opportunity to go on loan because the difference between
reserve and first-team football is immense. People may not look at a League
Two game as a big game but there’s the build-up, the talk in the town, a
responsibility on you and an intensity you won’t get in the reserves. I’ve
seen another side of football. I’ve seen real togetherness, no one getting
ahead of themselves, the things you get at a smaller club.”
Shrewsbury will earn £500,000 when Hart makes his competitive England debut
under the £1.5m deal struck when Stuart Pearce signed him in 2006.
Sven-Göran Eriksson, Pearce’s successor at City, preferred him to Andreas
Isaksson, the experienced Sweden keeper, and Mark Hughes, despite
speculation that City might use their riches to bid for Gigi Buffon, also
appears to have faith in Hart.
He admits he’s been lucky with managers. “They’ve all been real brave with
their decisions and given me a chance,” Hart says. The Buffon rumours? “They
don’t interest me. There’s an idea because City have got money, we’re
immediately going to buy the whole world but it doesn’t work like that. I’ve
just to keep playing well and give myself a chance of keeping my place -
though now I’d trade playing well for the team to get some results.” City
have lost three consecutive league games. “I’d say to fans that we
appreciate results aren’t good but they’re not through a lack of trying,”
Hart says. “Everyone inside the club knows the direction we’re going in.
There’s a good work ethic, good team-building, we’re trying a new system
with new players, and it’s going to come good.”
He must have been well-behaved to be made Head Boy. “Yeah. I was respectful to
other people. I understood how it worked at school, basically. You don’t
step out of line if you don’t need to. My mum and dad drilled into me that
you should treat people the way you want to be treated. They’ve been so
important in supporting me. They are me. Everything I do reflects on them,
that’s how I look at it. My mum couldn’t care less about the game but her
little boy plays it so she watches it. When I’m home my dad and sister argue
about football so I just go off with mum and chat about whatever she wants
to talk about.”
No wonder City chose Hart for their initiative, run in conjunction with the
Premier League’s Creating Chances scheme. He ticks a lot of boxes: Head Boy,
good son, future England No 1.
England keepers who worked their way to the top
Joe Hart looks likely to follow the pattern of goalkeepers who emerge from
lower league clubs to enjoy England careers.
Gordon Banks England’s World Cup-winning hero, right, played colliery
football and then army football during his year’s National Service before
joining Chesterfield, who were in Division Three. After starring as they
reached the 1956 FA Youth Cup final, Banks had to wait until he was 21
before making his senior debut. He left Chesterfield for Leicester and then
played for Stoke
Ray Clemence From Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast, Clemence played
48 times for Scunthorpe as a teenager. In 1967 he was spotted by Bill
Shankly and signed for Liverpool, soon becoming the club’s No 1. Clemence
made his England debut in 1972 and went on to win 61 caps
David Seaman Hart, who supported Arsenal as a boy, idolised the
mustachioed keeper known as Safe Hands and would appreciate how Seaman had
to fight his way upwards from lowly beginnings. After being released as a
youth by Leeds United, the first two years of his senior career were spent
at Peterborough before he moved to Birmingham City. A spell at Queens Park
Rangers followed before Seaman finally hit the big time with Arsenal
Peter Shilton A teenage prodigy, Shilton played for Leicester in
Division One when he was 16 and was considered good enough to force Banks’s
departure from the club. A couple of unglamorous seasons followed after
Leicester were relegated. On leaving the Foxes he joined Stoke and then
enjoyed great success with Nottingham Forest
