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Liverpool Football ClubRay Clemence




Born 5th August 1948 - Skegness

Games 656

Honours - 3 European Cups, 5 League Championships, 1 FA Cup, 1 League Cups, 2 UEFA Cups, 61 England Caps

Ray Clemence was arguably Liverpools greatest keeper and certainly one of the reasons for Liverpools domination of the game in the seventies.  Clemence was bought by Bill Shankly in 1967 from Scunthorpe as a young nineteen year0old keeper and Clemence improved so much that he became one of the worlds top keepers.  He had to wait a couple of seasons before ousting Tommy Lawrence in goal for the reds.  Clemence always had decent centre backs in front of him but the confidence he put in them was immense.  To know your keeper won't let yu down is a god send to any defender and Ray did this at Anfield.

The only potentail weakness Ray had was kicking and such was his committment he worked onthis until it improved turning him into one of the best around.  Liverpool teams of the time were often very dominant and it often meant that Ray was kept quiet but when the action did come his way he could be counted upon to save virtually anthing hit at him.  In 1978/79 Clemence only collected 16 goals from his net which is a truly outstanding achievement but Clem will be remembered for a series of saves throughout his career at the most important times.  In the semi final first leg of the 1976 UEFA cup he saved a penalty against Dynamo Dresden which in the final analysis would have sent Liverpool out of the cup.

In 1981 Clemence announced his departure for a new challenge and went to Spurs were he made another 250 plus appearances.  Ray had won everything with Liverpool, from all three domestic trophies to two varieties of the European alternative.  He won five European trophies in all, 3 of which were European cups.  The one downside on Clemence's list of honours is the derisory amount of caps he won as England Keeper.  Throughout his career he came up against Peter Shilton to get the number one England jersey and sadly lost out in the main winning only 61 caps in all.  Quite why this was so low can only be explained by England managers who time and again preferred Shilton over Clemence.