All Whites goalkeeper playing for keeps

"It has been a pretty interesting 12 months," says All Whites goalkeeper James Bannatyne, who appears to do understatement rather well.

A year ago, the 34-year-old Bannatyne was winding down his football career with Petone, the ancient Wellington club where he played his junior football. He was still playing for the senior team in the winter Central League, but also working on the club committee, handling sponsorship and marketing.

What happens next is a remarkable tale of serendipity.

First, Team Wellington goalkeeper Phil Imray is injured, and with coach Stu Jacobs needing two wins from two to make the NZFC playoffs, he turns to Bannatyne and persuades him to make a guest appearance. Bannatyne even scores in the first of those two victories, to earn Wellington a semifinal against Waitakere, landing a 60-metre free kick which bounces over the Canterbury United back four and goalkeeper (he reckons on that being the third goal of his two-decade senior career).

All Whites goalkeeper Glen Moss, meanwhile, cops a draconian suspension, rather focusing Ricki Herbert's mind on the question of his plans for a back-up goalkeeper. The next step is a conversation between Bannatyne and Herbert, on the detail of which Bannatyne is deliberately vague, but which ended with him leapfrogging the much younger Jacob Spoonley and Liam Little in the national goalkeeping ladder and becoming Herbert's third-choice stopper.

"We just had a chat, it came up in conversation, and I just asked what his thinking was," says Bannatyne. "He said he was keen. I was keen."

That's translated into trips to the Confederations Cup, Bahrain and Los Angeles, and with Fifa rules dictating that every team must name three goalkeepers in their 23-man squad for the world cup finals, it means that Bannatyne is one of those All Whites already all but assured of their plane ticket.

And if he's also the one who almost certainly won't get a game, it's still not a bad return for a bloke who was semi-retired. When we talk, it's in the foyer of a Los Angeles hotel, hours before the All Whites take on Mexico. With Moss' rival Mark Paston injured, Bannatyne was in LA again as cover, but ultimately his trip is fruitless as he doesn't get on the field. He's used to it: he has been around national squads since 2001 and won just three caps.

"It depends on the approach you take to it," he says of the frustration. "Mark and Glen are both playing professionally, so they are naturally Ricki's first choice. But given the opportunity, I am confident in my ability to do a good job and put pressure on both of them in training and in games."

Bannatyne's last chance to impress comes next weekend, when Team Wellington begins its NZFC playoff campaign away at either Auckland or Waitakere, depending on results this weekend.

Then he'll be into an extended training camp for the World Cup, and perhaps the occasional game for Petone in between.

He was with Petone, then Miramar after taking a marketing degree at Victoria University. He left New Zealand in 1998 to work a ski season in California and then an extended OE in London. He took his goalkeeping gloves and his cricket gear and ended up at English club Yeading, playing in the sixth tier of the British game. "At that stage, football wasn't the focus: but being surrounded by football certainly fires up the motivation and I came back to New Zealand with the ambition to take football as far as I could."

That translated into a brief professional career with the Football Kingz before he returned to Wellington, where he works as the lower North Island territory manager for Puma.

Since that conversation with Herbert, Puma has had to be fairly relaxed about Bannatyne's hours and Petone (which had a 1982 World Cup All White in Barry Pickering and could double that this year with Bannatyne and midfielder Andy Barron) has seen little of Bannatyne.

But he's still on their committee and while he says the World Cup will probably mark his official retirement, he'd like to play at least a few more games back at Memorial Park to reach 100 appearances for the senior team.

- © Fairfax NZ News