Peter Enckelman

Aston Villa

Born in Turku, Varsinais-Suomi, Enckelman signed for his first English club, Aston Villa, from his hometown team, TPS Turku, in February 1999 for a fee of around €1 million (1,7m + 4,3m Finnish markka). He made his debut during a 3–1 defeat against Arsenal on 11 September 1999 as a second-half substitute, his first start coming three days later against Chester City in the League Cup. After David James left the team, Enckelman was pleased when he was called upon in some of the later fixtures, as he expected to be seeing some more first-team action. However, the signing of former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel put a considerable damper on things, as, apart from the matches in Aston Villa's Intertoto Cup campaign of that season, he was left with virtually no playing time. It was only when Graham Taylor took over as manager that Enckelman was installed as first-choice keeper, as Schmeichel was sold to Manchester City. Enckelman was the culprit for a defensive error in a hotly contested local derby (Birmingham City v Aston Villa (3–0) on 16 September 2002); as Olof Mellberg took a quick defensive throw-in to the keeper, Enckelman took his eye off the ball and as he was unable to control it, it slid under his foot and rolled in to the goal. There is some debate over whether the goal should have stood, as the laws state that a goal cannot be scored directly from a throw-in. The ball was adjudged to, yet did not appear to, scrape against the studs…

Enckelman was capped 15 times by the Finland national under-21 team, before being capped on 12 occasions by the Finland national team from 2000 to 2010.

Club

As of 1 September 2014

International

As of 18 August 2011

He is the son of Göran Enckelman, also a former Finland international goalkeeper. He has a keen interest in motorsport, and in January 2007 the Encke Sport team was announced with plans to contest the British Touring Car Championship. This never happened, but the team has competed in smaller racing classes.