Cod Almighty | Article

by Miles Moss

25 July 2005

Another season, another keeper, and Steve Mildenhall is this year's model. Mildenhall has a big kick, strong hands, and bloody thick skin - he'll certainly need the latter, as he has signed a two-year deal with the Mariners; his predecessor Anthony Williams had a contract half as long, but received so much flak that towards the end he must have been scratching the remaining days into his bedroom wall with an broken shard of teaspoon.

Still, I reckon our new Steve will have an easy first year. However badly he plays, he'll still bear up well in comparison to our old number one. He's 27 - a good age for a keeper; he's six-foot-five - a good height for a goalkeeper; but Soccerbase lists his weight as 1,501 stone - a good weight for a Minke whale or a mkII Panzer. 

The nine-and-a-half ton goalie joined Town on a free from Oldham, but he's better known for his time at Notts County, where he made 89 appearances between 2001 and 2004. Steve once scored a goal for Notts County, you know. But then so did Mikael Antoine-Curier, so let's not get carried away with that aspect of his game, eh.

As a keeper, Milders seems to be quite promising, if a little injury-prone. He broke his hand while at Oldham, and a quick Google results in mentions of time off work with a dodgy hip, a broken cheekbone, and the infamous torn testicle. Still, if he stays free of injury at Blundell Park, we have a capable goalie this seas... he's what? His ankle? Already? Before even playing? Oh, he recovered? That's good... then he did what...? Injured in the next match...? Indeed, Steve Mildenhall will have a much easier time than Williams - by spending most of his time in the treatment room.