When Peter Shilton pulled a hamstring with two games of the 1985-86 season to go, manager Chris Nicholl had a problem: Shilton’s established deputy, Phil Kite, had recently gone out on loan, while Tim Flowers, who had popped-in on loan in March, had gone back to Wolverhampton, pending a summer transfer. So Keith Granger was called up. A 17 year-old apprentice, he had yet to play for the Reserves. It was never going to be easy: both games were away – to Everton, chasing Liverpool for the First Division title; and to mid-table Spurs.

Keith had no qualms however as he told the Glove Bag website “as soon as I heard that Peter was not available for selection, I went straight up to the managers office (Nicholl) and told him to play me and said ‘I won’t let you down’ .

I think he was taken back that a young 17 year-old kid had the balls to knock on his door with such confidence. He smiled at me and said ‘I will come back to you Keith’. He then approached me later that day and told me to have a look at the team sheet in the 1st team dressing room. My name was up there in black and white replacing Shilts! (See photo in scrapbook section). I then had an hour to get home find my suit and be back ready to travel up to Everton”. To make the rookie ’keeper’s task even harder, Nicholl had been blooding young defenders and would continue to do so at White Hart Lane. Defeats by 6-1 and 5-3 were the outcomes.

By the time Keith signed pro in October, Flowers had joined permanently and had made his first-team debut. Keith became Tim’s deputy in the Reserves for that 1986-87 season. And when Shilton left at the end of it, in came John Burridge. So when Fourth Division Darlington needed an emergency ’keeper in December 1987, Keith lept at the opportunity. He was ever-present for the rest of the season, during which he signed a three-year contract.

In the second game of the 1988-89 season, however, an injury shattered his left knee – and his League career, with it.

Despite six operations over the next 20 months, he never regained full fitness and so, when his contract expired, he returned to Southampton where he has worked, ever since in the Docks, while finding various ways of staying in football, part-time. He had a succession of non-league clubs – even being loaned by Basingstoke to Southampton, to play once for the Reserves, during a ’keeper crisis – until the knee was seriously damaged again, when he was keeping goal for Farnborough against, ironically, a Saints representative XI. He now turned to coaching: initially just goalkeepers; then outfield players, too.

He has coached at the Saints Academy; coached coaches for the FA; and delivered in-house training to many Premiership clubs and to several national FAs, including countries in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. In partnership with Southampton business-development guru, Martin Brown, another of Keith’s most recent ventures has been to use professional football-training techniques to improve employee performance in the wider business world.

Referring to his time at St Mary’s as a goal-keeper coach….Kelvin Davis had this to say

“Keith Granger came in and opened my eyes to a different side of goalkeeping, the psychological side – motivation, watching videos and improving different parts of my goalkeeping. Performance-wise, I think my best-ever season as a goalkeeper was the year I was working with Keith Granger. Purely from a personal point of view, that’s probably the best level I was at in my career”.

Keith, who holds the highest qualifications for outfield and goalkeeping coaching presently works at the FA as one of three GK scouts reporting to Gareth Southgate. He also owns and runs the “Football Garage”. With so many balls in the air, Keith Granger is more of a juggler than a goalkeeper, these day, but plenty are still benefiting from his vast experience.