Book Review: Glove Story – The Number 1 book for every goalkeeper, past and present by Rob Stokes, Derek Hammond and Gary Silke

This wonderfully crafted 148-page book is a collaboration from Rob Stokes, a former Waterlooville goalkeeper and passionate memorabilia collector and the Got, Not Got book duo, Derek Hammond and Gary Silke.

Having donned the gloves and stood between the posts in my younger days, this was a book that made me smile at every turn of the page and brought memories flooding back, not only of my own days in the number one jersey, but in watching the semi-professional and professional game down the years and to this day.

Amongst the pages, readers will be treated to just about everything you wanted to know about ‘keepers including the development of gloves, shirts and accessories, anecdotes from famous custodians, and a whole cornucopia of goalkeeper related ephemera.

My own personal favourite section covers the development of goalkeeping gloves, with the journey from adapted gardening gloves, through the green cotton basics and the early experiments with table-tennis pimple additions, to the present-day latex creations that are de rigueur for anybody between the sticks at every level of the game.

It has made me yearn for those days when I was the last line of defence.

I simply can’t recommend this book enough.

 

Note: The book is written in support of the Willow Foundation, a charity set up by ex-Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper Bob Wilson, which provides Special Days for seriously ill young adults. More information can be found on their website: www.willowfoundation.org.uk