Recently featured by BBC Sport, we dug down into the story of an 82 year old from London who can't stop goalkeeping.
Leo Gottesman speaks with the authority of someone who knows everything there is to know about goalkeeping. Having been pulling on the gloves in amateur leagues across north London for the best part of fifty years, who is going to argue with the 82-year-old?
Leo’s story is a remarkable testament to the longevity and resilience that is part and parcel of being a goalkeeper. His love for the game and the position has sustained him – year after year, decade after decade – through parenthood, grandparenthood, a heart attack, multiple broken bones, and a recent bout of serious illness for his wife.
“It’s the camaraderie, it’s seeing the guys every Sunday morning and we have a laugh,” Leo said when asked what exactly it is that keeps him playing well into his ninth decade. “The fact that I’m still playing is physically good for me as well. While I can continue to do so, and I’m holding my end up, there’s no reason why I can’t carry on. The rest of the team are quite happy to have me play in goal.”
Leo keeps returning to the notion of a sense of duty to his team-mates as motivation for playing. This speaks to the weight of responsibility that lies on all goalkeepers, arguably the loneliest position in any team sport, so often the one bearing the can for goals conceded or mistakes made.
“I enjoy winning, obviously – everybody does – but if we don’t win, I don’t care particularly, as long I don’t let the side down, that’s my first priority,” he explained. “If I mess up, I really take it badly, because it’s a team and everybody has to do their bit. But it happens, you can’t be perfect in this game, especially not in goal. If you make a mistake, it’s more obvious than any player on the field and you’ll get punished for it.”
Equally important, though, is the social aspect of amateur football, keeping Leo in contact with a valuable and diverse support network, for whenever the pressures of life stack up.
“It’s nice that I’m playing with people I wouldn’t know otherwise, all different ages and walks of life. We’re always on time and we’re keen. Whatever the weather, we play 52 weeks of the year.
“I’ve been running a business for over forty years, and we’ve had recessions and business can be very difficult during recessions. But at least on a Sunday morning for two or three hours, my mind was off business problems. And when my wife was very ill recently, playing football was a great distraction for me. It saw me through a very difficult period.”
Leo insists religiously on stretching every morning to keep him in condition to play but has had his own health scares, not least a heart attack 25 years ago that threatened to put an end to his playing days.
“It was when we went to Denmark to see Arsenal lose in the UEFA Cup final against Galatasaray. About a week later I had a heart attack. The cardiologist said to me, ‘You really need to give up now.’ I was 57 at the time, so I stopped, but it was killing me not playing. Other than that, my heart was fine, I didn’t need a stent, and my arteries were clear, so within two or three months, I was back playing.”
The not-insignificant matter of a heart attack aside, Leo claims it is down to luck that he’s been able to stay ‘relatively’ injury free all this time. And if luck has, to a certain extent, been on his side, then it’s also clear as he reels off the various digits which have been broken or dislocated, that bravery and a high pain threshold are qualities that have stood him in good stead.
“You have to be brave,” he added. “To be good, you’ve got to be prepared to put your head where it shouldn’t be.
“Interestingly, it was only in the last two or three years I’ve found I just can’t do a double save anymore, because I can’t get up quickly enough! Once I’m down, I’ll get up, but it takes me a split second longer, not like it used to when I was down and re-diving.”
Leo shows no signs of retiring any time soon. He’s still passionate about goalkeeping and gets visibly animated recounting some of his most memorable saves – like recently when a full-length dive and fingertip effort drew applause from every player on the pitch or the time he saved three penalties in a semi-final shootout (“That’s my claim to fame!”). This is all the more remarkable considering he was a late-comer to the position, only taking up goalkeeping in his mid-thirties when most people are thinking about winding down altogether.
“It happened because I cracked a bone in my foot when I was about 37. I was out of action for quite a while and when I came back, I was a bit worried about running around, so I went in goal. Before then I was always a winger. I’ve remained in goal ever since; I took to it like a duck to water. As the years go by, I’m getting older and older and everybody else is getting younger!”
While his wife worries that every time he plays, he is going to come back with something else broken, Leo remains a source of inspiration and amazement for the rest of his family and his peers.
“All my friends think it’s great. They’re astonished I’m still playing. Some of them thought it must be walking football. It’s not, it’s the real stuff. This comes as proof that I do play football and I am 82.”
It was only fitting to wrap up with some words of counsel from someone with nearly half a century of experience between the sticks. Leo’s answer – unfussy and succinct – summed up the man:
“My advice to an up-and-coming keeper is to stay fit, learn your angles and be brave.”