Chris Kirkland

Christopher Edmund Kirkland (born 2 May 1981) is an English football coach and former professional goalkeeper who is the head goalkeeping coach at Colne.

As a player, he made 321 league and cup appearances in an 18-year professional career from 1998 to 2016, and won one cap for the English national team in 2006.

Kirkland started his career at Coventry City, where he was regarded as one of the country's most promising young goalkeepers.

He signed professional terms with the club in July 1998.

Kirkland made his debut for Coventry in the League Cup in a 3–1 victory over Tranmere Rovers at Highfield Road on 22 September 1999.

Manager Gordon Strachan began selecting him in Premier League matches ahead of Swedish international Magnus Hedman despite saying Kirkland was "big Bambi who couldn't kick the ball out of the penalty box".

His performances were rewarded at the end of the 2000–01 season when he made his debut for the England under-21s, and was voted Coventry's Players' Player of the Year by his teammates.

He was later signed by Premier League club Liverpool for £6 million in August 2001.

However, his time at the club was blighted by recurring injuries, which almost caused him to retire from football altogether.

He was linked with moves to Arsenal and Liverpool, despite his relatively limited experience and was eventually bought by Liverpool for £6 million in August 2001.

At the time he was the most expensive goalkeeper in British transfer history, at only 20 years old.

Kirkland made his debut for Liverpool in October 2001, but mostly served as understudy to first-choice goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek during the 2001–02 season.

He was an unused substitute in the 2002 FA Community Shield at the Millennium Stadium, where Liverpool were beaten 1–0 by Arsenal.

During the 2002–03 season, costly errors by Dudek in a league fixture against Manchester United resulted in manager Gérard Houllier handing the first team place to Kirkland in December.

He played 14 consecutive matches, during which he kept six clean sheets, but sustained an ankle injury in January 2003, which ruled him out for the rest of the season, meaning he missed the victorious 2003 League Cup final.

He spent six weeks out of action after tearing his groin whilst on England under-21 duty in September 2003.

He fractured a finger in December 2003, and was ruled out of action for four months after undergoing surgery to repair it.

Kirkland ousted Dudek as first-choice Liverpool keeper at the beginning of the 2004–05 season, and played 14 matches before he was again sidelined in December after succumbing to a long-standing back injury.

He had played four Champions League matches but was unable to be named in the squad for the 2005 final due to injury; Scott Carson, who took his place on the bench in Istanbul, later offered his Champions League winners medal to Kirkland, who refused to accept it.

In July 2005, Kirkland agreed to go on a season-long loan to Bryan Robson's West Bromwich Albion in order to kick-start his career again.

He kept a clean sheet on his Albion debut as the team drew 0–0 away at Manchester City.

An injury to Kirkland in the first half of the 2005–06 season saw Polish goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak replace him, and Kuszczak showed excellent form and therefore remained first-choice goalkeeper at The Hawthorns for the rest of the season.

Kirkland also again spent time out of action with a broken finger, and was told by Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez that he would have to move away from Anfield if he wanted to play regular first team football as new signing Pepe Reina had made an excellent start to his Liverpool career.

He would later sign for Wigan Athletic in July 2006, after a successful loan period, and he had further loan spells at both Leicester City and Doncaster Rovers before being signed by Sheffield Wednesday in May 2012.

In July 2006, Kirkland joined Wigan Athletic on a six-month loan spell.

Manager Paul Jewell said that "He certainly has the potential, but there's the obvious question mark over fitness. It's not just been one thing with him because he's been unlucky with broken ribs, fingers, knee injuries, back."

This move became permanent for a sum of £2.5 million on 27 October when the two clubs and Kirkland made a compromise.

He won the club's Players' Player of the Year and Media Player of the Year awards for the 2007–08 season.

A highlight of this season was saving a Benni McCarthy penalty in a 5–3 win over Blackburn Rovers at the DW Stadium.

Sunderland manager Steve Bruce – Kirkland's former manager at Wigan from November 2007 to June 2009 – was linked with a move for Kirkland in January 2010, but said that "talk of me bidding £5m for Chris Kirkland is garbage, but he is a very good goalkeeper, and I'm a big, big admirer of him".

He committed his future to Wigan in May 2008 when he signed a new contract, tying him to the club until 2012.

On 22 November 2009, Kirkland conceded nine goals in a Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur.

Speaking in March 2010, manager Roberto Martínez said that "if you look at the standard of his performances – week in, week out – it is up there with the best in England".

At the start of the 2010–11 season, Wigan were heavily defeated in their first two matches against Blackpool and Chelsea, and he was replaced in the starting line-up by Ali Al-Habsi.

He joined Preston North End in August 2015, and had a brief spell with Bury before retiring in August 2016.

A year after retirement from playing, Kirkland took up coaching with Port Vale in January 2017.

He subsequently joined the coaching staff of Liverpool Women the following year and was briefly a player-manager for a month and half.

Kirkland was born in Barwell, Leicestershire, where he grew up with his parents, Marie and Eddie, and attended Heathfield School and then Henley College Coventry.

His father, Eddie, was a crane driver and spent many hours helping his son practise his goalkeeping skills.

After an unsuccessful trial with Blackburn Rovers, he accepted a contract offer from Coventry City.