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The best Liverpool first XI ever - Anfield's greatest players
Sunday, 15 April 2012
RAY CLEMENCE
Goalkeeper
Liverpool 1968-81, 666 games
In 1984 the great British abstract painter Howard Hodgkin painted a canvas he titled Clean Sheets. It is a rectangular mass of green that steals the watcher's gaze, the only distraction being a fleck of vivid red. While Hodgkin was born in London (which rarely precludes one from being a Liverpool fan) and has demonstrated little interest in the beautiful game, there is a convincing case to be made that his painting must have been inspired by the great Ray Clemence (pictured here in 1972) and the picture of hulking impermeable green he created in the minds of opposing strikers throughout the 1970s. The title alone gives the game away, in the course of winning 12 major trophies and playing 665 times for the Reds, the former deck-chair attendant from Skegness kept a bleach-inspiring 335 clean sheets.
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Steven Gerrard is the only member of the current crop of players worthy of a place in the all-time XI, although his team-mates can console themselves that far greater players than them, including Torres, Roger Hunt, Emlyn Hughes, John Barnes, Ian Callaghan, Xabi Alonso and Tommy Smith, have failed to make the team.
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