ONE OF THE GREAT STRENGTHS OF THIS FOOTBALL CLUB OVER THE YEARS HAS BEEN THE FACT THAT WE HAVE EMPLOYED SOME TOP CLASS GOALKEEPERS. SCOTLAND’S GREATEST EVER ‘KEEPER, JIM LEIGHTON, WAS THE NUMBER ONE THROUGH SOME GOLDEN YEARS HERE BUT DONS FANS HAVE ALSO HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WATCH THE LIKES OF BOBBY CLARK, THEO SNELDERS AND FRED MARTIN CAVORTING BETWEEN THE STICKS AND, FOR SHORTER SPELLS, BRYAN GUNN, PETER KJAER AND DANNY WARD.

For one reason and another though, it’s been a while since the Dons have had a settled presence in goal, Jamie Langfield the last number one to cling to the shirt throughout a full season, but Joe Lewis might well emulate Langers and go through this season as first choice number one for the Dons.

Joe is quickly adding his name to that list of goalkeeping greats at Pittodrie with 17 clean sheets and a host of memorable saves already behind him this term, making him as popular with the fans as he is in the dressing room, and a fixture in goal this term. While that stability is good for the club, it’s great for Joe too, as he explains.

“I think this is the most settled I have felt in my professional career, the most I have enjoyed my football. It is a fantastic club, really well run. My wife and my little boy have settled into the area really well.

“I am thoroughly enjoying it and on the pitch, things are going brilliantly for us. We have to keep the form going and hopefully get ourselves into another cup final and this time do ourselves justice.

“That day at Hampden was really disappointing because we’ve been very sound defensively this season. I’m really pleased with the group we have got back there. We are keeping a good number of clean sheets which helps with the confidence and that confidence is growing all the time at the moment. Whoever plays in the back four or back three has done a great job. Anthony has been out for a little while but he stepped straight back in recently and did really well. I think Ash has been fantastic. He is so dominant in the air and I think you need someone like that who wins everything and commands any long balls that come our way.

“In this league you face all sorts of opposition. One week, a team might play more direct football, the next week you have a team playing a completely different style, so you need all aspects covered and with the defenders we have got in the squad we have got that.

“Anthony is so comfortable on the ball and his distribution is excellent. Ash wins everything in the air and you can’t get past him. Then you have Andy and Mark who are both really consistent players. Andy has been our best player this season from my point of view because you know what you are getting from him every week. He turns up and puts in a solid performance. I have a lot of confidence in all the defenders and hopefully they have confidence in me”.

Goalkeeping is the path that Joe was set on right from day one, though not necessarily from choice as he recalls.

“I have an older brother, he is two and a half years older than me. He used to stick me in goal when we played in the garden! So I have always been a goalkeeper and because of my height, I am sure I would have been put there anyway.

“From there, growing up as a Norwich fan, my hero was a player who was here back in the day, Bryan Gunn. Peter Schmeichel was in his prime when I was growing up as well so he was an influence, and later on Robert Green was also someone I had a lot of respect for. He was a senior keeper at Norwich when was I was 14, 15 coming through. You always look up to up to the person who is playing for the team you support and he was doing brilliantly.

“I learned a lot from him. Robert is very level headed. He never used to let anything worry him. Any mistakes he made, he would not let it bother him. If he had a great game or a nightmare on the Saturday, you would never know on the Monday morning. I think to have that attitude as a player is important, especially as a goalkeeper, because you are always going to have ups and downs. He has made some high profile mistakes but every goalkeeper has made some terrible errors in their time. You can’t really let that affect you too much. That is biggest thing I learned most from him, keep a level head, don’t get too high when things are going well and don’t get too low when it is not.

“My dad was a season ticket holder at Carrow Road for much of his life and I had a season ticket there from seven or eight years of age. I loved being there, it is a great club, it is 20 minutes from my house. I signed for the Norwich Academy when I was ten years old and I was there until I was 20, so it was all I knew for ten years of my life and I still follow their progress closely.

“I was very disappointed at the time that I did not get a chance to play for the first team because I didn’t ever see myself leaving there but that is football. That was my first insight into how ruthless the industry can be. Everything had been quite smooth for me up to then, I had been out on loan and done quite well.

“I came back from a loan spell at Morecombe, I had been there for six months and done really well and Peterborough made a bid for me. I spent a couple of days thinking the move offer and then went back to training with Norwich. Glenn Roeder was the manager and I will never forget when he said to me, “What are you doing here?” I was told pretty much that I needed to go. The finances at Norwich were probably not great at the time, I was not playing and the club wanted the move so they could spend elsewhere. I wasn’t given much choice but it turned out to be a great move for me. I went to Peterborough and enjoyed four and half years there, so it all worked out in the end. But at the time, it was a harsh lesson for me.

“I was lucky that I joined Peterborough at a really good time for the club when things were on the up. I loved working with Darren Ferguson. For me, he was a fantastic manager, his man management was brilliant and I thought he would go on to bigger things.

“When he went to Preston, for whatever reason it did not work out for him, possibly because the club were struggling a bit financially, but I still think he will go on and become a top manager. He is very similar to the manager here, he is very approachable, gets on well with all the players and is very good about the place. I think he will still go to the top in the game.

“I joined Peterborough when they were in League Two half way through the season and we got promoted. I then had a full season in League One and we got promoted straight away. We had a season in the Championship but we got relegated, then next season, we got promoted again. I didn’t play in the same league in consecutive seasons the whole time I was there! You are going to get ups and downs at any football club, but that period was a bit extreme. It was a rollercoaster but it was enjoyable.

“Barry Fry was also there at the time and he is a great guy. The cameras love him. Sky loved having a live game at Peterborough because they could always stick a microphone to Barry’s mouth and you would have no idea what would come out! He is great for the club and he was great for me.

“Things couldn’t really have worked out better for me there because I even got a call up into the England squad from Fabio Capello in 2008. I had just been promoted from League Two at Peterborough. I had done well with the England U21s also that season and Stuart Pearce was the U21 manager and then he was involved with the senior team as well.

“Chris Kirkland had a back injury and pulled out of the squad. I think it was a case of being in the right place at the right time because the season had finished for three or four weeks so most of the keepers had not played for a bit and I was fresh off the back of an U21 squad. It was a great opportunity to go and get involved and the squad at the time was unbelievable. It was a squad that did not achieve what it should have done, but there were some great players in there.

“After Peterborough, I moved on to Cardiff City when they were in the Championship and David Marshall had a great season in goal for them, he was terrific. I went there thinking I might have the chance to start the season but it didn’t happen, which was fine because David did so well. Then he continued that form and never got injured or suspended. That is the life of a goalkeeper. You have to wait for your chance and we all understand that.

“Everywhere I have been, I have got on well with the goalkeepers. That’s how it was with David and it is no different here with Neil. Neil is a great guy and I also really enjoy working with Gordon Marshall. He is a very good coach and he looks after us really well. I am learning every day from the two of them. Neil has a lot of experience and I am constantly learning off both of them. Neil is still a very good goalkeeper and moves really well. He has looked after himself, he is very agile and athletic.

“He is going through what I did at Cardiff when David was playing well. It meant that I did not make my league debut until the following season when David had a little injury, he only missed one game. He was outstanding that whole season and I had no qualms with him playing and with him being ahead of me for the two seasons I was there. It is the best form that I have seen from a goalkeeper. He was fantastic and thoroughly deserved his move to Hull. Although he is not playing there at the moment, I am sure he will get back in soon because he is a top class goalkeeper. I still speak to Marshy quite regularly. He is a really good guy and I pleased to see how well he is doing with Scotland.

“Because of David’s form, to get games, I had some loan spells, one at Blackpool and that was just unbelievable. It was a real struggle. I signed the week before the season started and up until then, they did not have a goalkeeper at all. Throughout the pre-season period they had trialists playing. I saw it as an opportunity to go and play in the Championship but never expected the season to pan out the way it did. It was just one problem after another.

“You had different players falling out with the Chairman or the manager or the Chief Executive. There was a constant battle between the playing staff and those running things behind the scenes. You saw by the end of the season that the fans were completely fed up and the last game got abandoned because the fans went on the pitch and refused to leave. It was that sort of season.

“As a player you just put it down to experience. I played 30 odd games in the Championship that season and personally, I thought I did ok. Sometimes when you are in that situation, you have to concentrate on yourself and try and do as well as you can for yourself when the club is not really helping you, but I would still say it was a good experience though.

“The following season I joined Fulham who are at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of financial backing. They are a superbly run club. They were struggling a little on the pitch but this season they have got it together. At the moment they are probably the in form side in the Championship, they might still make the playoffs”.
With the Dons winning – and often dominating – a lot of games this term, a goalkeeper’s lot isn’t as easy as you might think. Being out of the action for so long is the supreme test of concentration, one that Joe has passed with flying colours thus far.

“The only time you can work on your concentration is during games. When someone says. “Oh you did not have much to do today”, I take that as a bit of a compliment as it means things are organised in front of me and it means that as a defensive unit, we have worked well. It highlights how organised we are as a team and, with the attacking players we have got, if we can stay organised and settled as a back unit we have always got a chance of winning any game because we have goals in the team.

“I have been playing first team football since I went on loan when I was 19 and the game has changed. Goalkeepers dictate a lot of the tempo these days. You see a lot of keepers starting attacks now and they have to be so good with their feet. Some teams such as Manchester City would be as well putting a midfielder in goal! They demand that quality, you have to be a sweeper and need to start off every attack.

“I think because of the way things have changed, you have to put Manuel Neuer as the best in the world at the moment. David de Gea would be up there as well, but Neuer is exceptional. He has a real presence about him. I played against him during my England U21 days and he was a great keeper even at that age. Gianluigi Buffon was the top keeper for many years because of his consistency but Neuer is now the best in the world because he has added that footballing dimension to things, playing as a sweeper.

“I think there has to be a balance. There is a time to do that and a time to play the percentage game a little bit. But all keepers do need to be better with the ball at their feet and it is something I work on all the time with Gordon. As a keeper you have to constantly work at your game and move with the times. I am 29, hopefully I have got another ten years left in me, and the game will change a lot again in those years, from a goalkeeper’s point of view especially. So I keep evolving my game and keep working on it and working on my weaknesses to make me a better goalkeeper”.

The season is heading into the final countdown now, two massive months ahead of us. How doe Joe assess what’s happened so far?

“The original objective for the season was to close the gap on Celtic. You always want to look forward but they have thrown a lot of money at it and have a very good manager in charge so they have pulled away. We had to let them go and not worry about what they were doing as there is a battle going on for second spot and a battle in the Scottish Cup.

“We got to the final of the first cup we were in and everyone said we did not do ourselves justice, so we are very eager to get to another one. I am looking forward to the semi-final against Hibs. That will be a massive game and we will not underestimate how tough a challenge it will be against them. I have watched a lot of Hibs on TV and they are a good team. But between now and then we concentrate on the league and try and keep the gap between second and third spot”.