Eric Gill kept fellow goalkeeper Dave Hollins out of the Brighton team for years but more than six decades later they remain pals
This is a story that came dangerously close to never being told. In May 2020, in my capacity as a freelance writer, I interviewed a man called Eric Gill. Way back when, Eric had been one of the finest goalkeepers in Britain, a Londoner who made headlines around the world by appearing in 247 consecutive matches for Brighton & Hove Albion between February 1953 and February 1958, equalling a Football League record for goalies.
Given football’s intensely physical nature in those days, that achievement took some doing. Besides keeping the ball out of the net, goalkeepers had to make do with being, to all intents and purposes, beaten black and blue by opposing centre-forwards, along with anyone else on the field who fancied having a go. Look up ‘brutal’ in the Oxford English Dictionary and it will say ‘the art of goalkeeping circa 1875 to 1960’. Or at least it should.
