Neville Southall

Early years

Born and raised in Llandudno to Fred and Rose Southall, he was the middle child of three boys. Southall played youth football for his school team and the Llandudno Swifts, where he played alongside Joey Jones. He was educated at Ysgol John Bright, though left without any qualifications at age 16. At age 14, he toured Germany with the Llandudno Swifts and was offered a chance to play for the youth team of Bundesliga club Fortuna Düsseldorf, but decided against the move to Germany. The Swifts were a poor side that were regularly beaten heavily, though the near-constant barrage of shots he faced enabled Southall to improve on his shot-stopping skills. As a teenager, Southall had unsuccessful trials at Wrexham, Crewe Alexandra and Bolton Wanderers. He aspired to be a postman, and never believed that he would make a living playing football. He then worked as a binman, waiter and hod carrier and therefore entered the game relatively late. He played for Llandudno Town at age 15, before joining Northern Premier League side Bangor City on £10 a week as a semi-professional the following year. Bangor manager Dave Elliott regularly selected veteran goalkeeper Peter Eales ahead of Southall. Everton asked Elliot permission to take Southall on trial, but Elliot left the club shortly after and no trial took place. With Bangor in financial trouble the paid playing staff began to leave the club, and Southall left Bangor and went on to accept an offer of £3 a week to play…

Wales manager Mike England preferred Dai Davies in goal as Southall began to play first-team football at Everton. Southall only got a run of games once Davies retired. His first cap came against Northern Ireland at the Racecourse Ground, Wrexham on 27 May 1982 in the 1982 British Home Championship, Wales won 3–0. Wales came close to qualifying for the 1986 FIFA World Cup despite losing their opening qualifying games away to Iceland and Spain. Wales then beat Iceland at Ninian Park, before recording a surprise 1–0 win over Scotland at Hampden Park with a single Ian Rush goal. A 3–0 win over Spain at the Racecourse Ground meant that Wales could secure qualification by beating Scotland in their final qualification game at Ninian Park. However, a draw would not be enough. The game ended in a 1–1 draw after a late Davie Cooper penalty cancelled out Mark Hughes's opener; Southall got a hand to the penalty, but could not keep it out. However, the result of the game was put into perspective when Scotland manager Jock Stein suffered a heart attack at the end of the game and died shortly afterwards. Wales came close to qualifying for UEFA Euro 1988, which would have been the first UEFA European Football Championship in the nation's history. Going into the final two qualifying games, Wales led their group. Southall was injured and so missed the match against Denmark in Copenhagen, which ended in a 1–0 defeat with Eddie Niedzwiecki in goal. Southall returned to play the final game, a…

Southall was renowned for his shot-stopping ability, particularly in dealing with one-on-one situations, quickly coming off his line to intimidate the onrushing forward and relying on his instinctive reactions to save the ball. He would spend hours reading books about boxing and golf to improve his balance and spring, and would focus on improving minor pieces of kit and behaviour, saying that "If I changed 100 things and got 1% better because of one of them, then it was worth it".

Southall was appointed caretaker manager of Wales, alongside Mark Hughes, following the resignation of Bobby Gould after a 4–0 defeat against Italy on 5 June 1999. In his only game in charge, Wales lost 2–0 to Denmark at Anfield on 9 June 1999, and Mark Hughes was appointed as manager on a full-time basis. During his time playing for Torquay United he also worked as a goalkeeping coach at Huddersfield Town and Tranmere Rovers. He later became a player-coach at York City, Rhyl, Shrewsbury Town and Dagenham & Redbridge. He was appointed manager of Conference club Dover Athletic in December 2001. His managing stint at the Kent club was short, and he was sacked in March 2002, after only a few months in charge, after the club's new owners decided to promote his assistant Clive Walker. He later made cameo appearances as a player at Canvey Island, where he was also a goalkeeping coach from 2002 to 2004. He also began teaching young people from deprived backgrounds how to coach in a community scheme called Soccer Skills, and later worked in the special education sector. He set up his own educational consultancy that specialised in working with NEETs, in partnership with Brooklands College. He had spells as coach with all youth Wales national teams from U16 to U19, but quit his post from Wales U19 in November 2004, claiming he was treated with "a total lack of respect" and that the coaching was compromised because "...as always, it's about money." FAW management committee chairman…