Twenty years ago this week Joe Hart sought special permission from his teachers at Meole Brace School to dodge class and go sit on the bench for his local football team.
Back then the 15-year-old goalkeeper felt like he’d scaled Everest in his footballing journey as he jumped on the Shrews’ first team bus for the 200-mile trek ahead of a 1-1 draw in League Two. Little did he know. Two decades, 75 England caps, two World Cups, seven major trophies and over 700 appearances at club and country level later .. Hart could be forgiven for thinking he’d conquered it all.
But as he reflects on the day he skipped school for his first ever taste of pro football, the Celtic keeper insists he’s still a serious student of the beautiful game. And that is what keeps him young and hungry in the quest for even more success. Reminded of the milestone ahead of the Hoops’ trip to face St Johnstone tomorrow, a delighted Hart said: “That’s a great stat .. great work! Exeter away, I had to come out of school for that. That’s awesome. That’s made me smile that. That’s cool.
“Exeter is a long way from Shrewsbury. League Two at the time, with the majority of the games, if it was under three hours you would travel on the day, but with Exeter a really long way we went the day before.
“It was an amazing experience. I had to get special permission from the school. I wasn’t training regularly with the first team but it was needs must down at League Two at the time. I think it was probably a case of two injured goalkeepers which is one too many for a squad the size we had. I was the next best thing and that was pretty special.
“It was my Everest to be a part of my club Shrewsbury Town. I watched a lot of the guys playing and then being on the coach with them. I was nowhere near ready to play. Jeez, when I really think about it, it would have been frightening. I didn’t see football as a professional game. When I was 15 and from quite a sheltered background it was just a game of football.
“The more time I spent with the guys the more I realised there is a lot more to it than that. I was just a naive kid just buzzing, high on life.”
Hart’s career has come a long way since graduating from Shrewsbury’s youth academy. On top of winning everything on offer south of the border the goalkeeper also boasts four Golden Glove awards - the prize for the Premier League keeper with the most clean sheets every season. If there was a similar award in Scotland Hart, who is chasing a seventh successive shutout for Celtic in Perth tomorrow, would be well on the way to adding it to his cabinet.
But he insists keeping it clean between the sticks doesn’t drive him as much as being heavily involved in what is happening in every area of the park. Ange Postecoglou has entrusted the keeper with starting attacks by playing out from the back as well as being the last line of a defence which often is left one-on-one by the Hoops’ aggressive attacking style.
And it’s a fresh approach which has relit the keeper’s flame in his 18 months in Glasgow.
He said: “To be honest, stats and stuff don’t even register at the time. I didn’t know I was winning those awards. They have only become relevant now with social media. I’ve worked my best when I’ve been in love with what the team is doing, and really heavily involved with what we are trying to achieve.
“I’ve been lucky enough that with those campaigns, a lot of clean sheets have tended to come because we are in a good place and pushing hard. I love being fully engrossed in what my club, my team, are trying to do. Once you are in that mindset, which I am, I don’t think anything like that particularly matters.
“Obviously it does matter that we keep clean sheets because that means we are at nil and need only one goal to win the game. “But I mean in terms of pats on the back, or best runs of forms and things like that. It’s just not that important when there is a bigger goal.
“They are good numbers but it has kinda been the same all the way through, and that is why I enjoy playing here. You park what has happened in the previous game, so whether it is six or none in 10, its all kind of whatever because we have to focus on the job at the weekend.
“In terms of stats and all that, they come into play when the gloves are hung up. But at the moment, in how we like to live in the fast lane of the next game being the most important, it kind of is what it is.
“We are not perfect, we don’t claim to be perfect. Every team we play against has their own way of making it very difficult and potentially winning the game. St Johnstone will be no different but we just have to be on the front foot, ready to work hard and recover if anything doesn’t quite go the way you want.”
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