The subject of goalkeepers has been in the news after Gianluca Buffon’s red card for Juventus against Real Madrid following a hotly-contested penalty.
I thought it was a spot-kick.
You would be looking for the foul outside the box, so it is fair enough.
It is hard to believe but you could even argue that Largs Thistle’s supersonic keeper Stephen Connick had a better farewell than Buffon did with that penalty shoot-out victory in the play-offs in 2013!
I have played with some great goalkeepers over the years.
Big Jim Marner played at Largs and Kilbirnie, and ended up going to Australia and he was some character.
Robert Burns helped us to win the West of Scotland Cup with some timely saves in 1991, and, of course Kenny Barnstaple, who just kept coming for the crosses in our famous Scottish Cup final win in 1994.
Do you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper?
I wouldn’t say mad, but you have to be different. I remember Marner dislocated his finger, and I had to pull it back in so he could play again!
Largs have had some fantastic keepers over the years, and I even remember when Stephen Quigg, who is still knocking the goals in for Largs Thistle AFC, had to go in goal for Largs against Kilwinning in the West of Scotland Cup.
Burns had been sent off, and Quiggy had to go in goal for an hour, and from what I recall, he played very well. Burns had a great attitude, and had a real presence about him and was a winner. 
I played with Jim Leighton for a year at Dalry. It was Erik Sorensen, who managed Largs, and was a goalkeeper at Rangers, who really pushed Leighton at training.
Before I got to training, Sorensen had had Leighton at training for an hour, and I still believe it was Sorensen who made him the keeper he became, as he just trained him, trained him and trained him. Aberdeen actually signed Leighton from Dalry. The letter from Aberdeen to Dalry saying that they were going to pay £200 for him recently surfaced on Twitter.
I have also been lucky enough to meet England’s World Cup winning keeper Gordon Banks at a five-a-side competition for IBM and he was giving out the trophies. We obviously spoke about Gordon’s famous save against Pele, but all the Scottish boys couldn’t resist winding him up, and asked him — ‘why did you not hold on to it?’