3 Mark Schwarzer
Position Goalkeeper
Clubs Middlesbrough, Fulham

With 430 and counting, Mark Schwarzer has made more Premier League appearances than any non-British player. That is a quite startling fact as longevity in such a tough physical league, even with modern fitness developments in recent years, makes Schwarz’s achievements all the more incredible. 

Despite the marathon Premier League career he has enjoyed, Schwarzer falters where many other Australians have: his lack of accolades. Life at modest outfits Middlesbrough and now Fulham are the cause.

After signing for Boro from Bradford City in 1998, the ever-green stopper proceeded to stay between the Boro sticks for over a decade, making in excess of 350 appearances.
One of his crowning personal moments in Middlesbrough colours came in the final game of the 2004-05 season when Boro hosted Manchester City needing a point to secure UEFA Cup football next season. If City won, they would assume that Euro spot. With the scores locked at 1-1, a stoppage-time penalty to City looked to have doomed Boro. Robbie Fowler stepped up, but was denied by Schwarzer who made the save to seal the place for Boro. Socceroo fans know that feeling well!

His consistent form has been maintained at Fulham, who he joined in 2008, although Arsenal have frequently courted his services for their title push. If only.

2 Tim Cahill
Position Midfielder, Striker
Club Everton

Approaching 200 appearances for a Premier League side where Cahill’s goals, which have come at an incredible rate of nearly one every three games as a midfielder, makes Timmy a worthy runner-up on our list.

You could make a strong case for goal-shy Everton not even being in Premier League at the moment if it was not for Cahill’s continued contribution to The Toffeemen.

Cahill arrived at Everton from Millwall in the summer of 2004 for a paltry £1.5m ($2.4m), making him one of the league’s best value-for-money signings ever.

In his first season at Goodison, Cahill managed to finish as top scorer with eleven goals. Despite being among the relegation favourites at the start of the season, Everton finished the season in fourth place, earning qualification for the UEFA Champions League.

Since then Everton have rotated various strikers with vacillating spells of form, but their leaping Aussie marksman has kept the goals rolling when no-one else at the club looked like getting a shot on target. Cahill can also boast a nomination for the Ballon d’Or in 2006 – a list made by Europe’s top 50 players.

That iconic leap and finish above Premier League defenders who tower over a standing Cahill has become a trademark that no side seems able to stop.

1 Mark Bosnich
Position Goalkeeper
Clubs Aston Villa, Manchester Utd, Chelsea

Mark Bosnich made just short of 300 Premier League appearances, was the league’s finest stopper at his peak, played for the biggest club in the world and won the EPL title while he was there. It may have been a career cut short, but while it lasted it was the finest we have seen by an Aussie in the EPL. We sat down with Bozza to discuss his Premier League foray and topping our list…

Congratulations Bozza, you’re our greatest EPL Aussie!
That is very humbling. If you go off trophies won it would only be Craig Johnston before the Premier League was formed who has more from England. I’m just a goalkeeper though, so coming number one in your list is a great honour.

The 1992 formation of the Premier League also signaled the kick-start of your career as you moved from Manchester United to Aston Villa. What was it like being part of that new format for English football?
It was huge! I made my debut in the old English First Division, but it was fantastic and exciting when the Premier League was created. It was a new format, live Monday night football, the games were more heavily promoted and Sky TV just did a fantastic job of creating this new era. After the crowd troubles that England had in the ’80s, the Premier League made football sexy again. We had better stadiums, there were more females attending games and everything came together.

You spent seven years at Villa, where you battled relegation one season, then chased the title the following. Has that sort of vast changing fortune for clubs left the current Premier League?
Maybe, but look at Tottenham who were struggling a couple of years back and are now in the Champions League. In that first Premier League season we had a great battle with Norwich and Manchester United for the title. We came second that season, then came tenth the following year.

You were widely considered the best stopper in the Premier League after your stellar 1995-96 season with Villa. Were you conscious of your success and what it meant to your fellow Australians?
Not as much as I began to realise later in my career. I love Australia, but when you are in England you are completely immersed in the English way of life. You do begin to realise the global pull of the Premier League when you see quite how many countries it reaches.

When you moved to Manchester United in 1999, how concerned were you with filling Peter Schmeichel’s gloves as the number one at the world’s biggest club?
I knew Schmeichel was one of the all-time greats, but I was not too worried. I was always confident in my ability, it was more that I had a major injury the season before so I was more worried about getting fit. Following Schmeichel was an honour.

You won the Premier League in that first season, talk us through that feeling…
We won by a record amount too! I started the season well, but then got a hamstring injury. When I came back in I only played in two losing games all year. It is always more difficult to retain your title than winning it first time out and that is what we did that season. The pivotal point of the season was beating Leeds 1-0.

There was one final Premier League swansong for you at Chelsea. Did you realise there that your time in the league was coming to a premature end?
As I was coming off the back of a hernia injury and I spent the first six month getting fit. Ed de Goey was first choice until he got injured and I went in for a spell of 11 games where I played as well as I have anywhere. Then I got another muscular injury near the end of the season. The following season I started having the problems off-the-pitch and everything that surrounded that, which was strange to say the least.

A common misconception about your Premier League career was that it was massively short, however you played in the league for over 10 years…
Yeah, it was cut short in what we can call strange circumstances for now. It was still a wonderful time. Look, I still miss it every day. I wish I was still there now, there is no point denying that. The positive is that I had my best playing time in the league. My time in the Premier League was short in terms of what it could have been, but it was still a great time for me.

That said, you made 269 Premier League appearances, while Schwarzer is still heading towards 500. Should you have made more?
I’m happy for Schwarzy as I grew up with him, so I would be happy if he made 600 appearances. As for me personally, I suppose I could say that my Premier League career was quality rather than quantity!

How do you rate the current standard of Premier League goalkeeping compared with your heyday in the mid-’90s?
If you look at the goalkeepers around during that earlier period – Schmeichel, David Seaman, John Lukic, Tim Flowers – I do not think there is the quality in depth these days. However the top goalkeepers today, like Petr Cech and Edwin van der Sar, are as good as anyone who played in my day. If you look at Joe Hart at Manchester City, he is another great prospect today. But when you look further down at the likes of Heurelho Gomes at Tottenham, I mean, come on! They need someone steady. So the depth was deeper before, but these things go in cycles.

Is the EPL the toughest test of a goalkeeper’s ability in Europe?
Definitely. Mainly because of the tough aerial aspect and the speed of the game. When we played in Europe that aerial threat is reduced as on the continent they rarely challenge in the air as they see that as being a foul. You need to be braver and able to dominate your box in the Premier League.

This article appeared in the May 2011 issue of Australian FourFourTwo magazine. To buy back copies of this issue call 03-8317-8121 with a credit card to hand.

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