Andy Goram - Football

Football

Goram joined Oldham Athletic as a teenager and spent seven years with the English club, winning his first Scotland caps and selection for the 1986 World Cup. In 1987, he moved to Hibernian, where his father had also been a goalkeeper, for a fee of £325,000. He was a great success at Hibs and achieved the feat of scoring a goal in a Premier Division match, against Morton.

He was sold to Rangers in 1991 for £1 million and went on to help the club to win six of their nine Scottish League titles in a row between 1989 and 1997. He was also involved in Rangers' notable run in the European Cup in 1992-93, as they came within one point of reaching the final.

During a 2-0 defeat at Celtic Park in January 1998, Goram wore a black armband in tribute to Billy 'King Rat' Wright, leader of the LVF who had been killed by the INLA five days earlier. Goram had been questioned by police after his previous meetings with Wright, but he later suggested that the armband had been a tribute to an aunt who died four months previously. In February 1999 Goram, then at Motherwell, withdrew from a match against Celtic at Fir Park after media reports alleged he had links to the UVF. A later report by the Sunday Mail found that Goram kept many items of Ulster loyalist memorabilia in his game-room, including UVF flags, letters and pictures from various paramilitary groups addressed to him, and a flute with his name engraved on it.

Goram was also an important player for Scotland, winning 43 caps. He had a long-running rivalry with Jim Leighton for the goalkeeping position in the Scotland team. Craig Brown controversially selected Goram ahead of Leighton for Scotland's matches in Euro 96, despite the fact that Leighton had played in most of the qualifiers. Brown then selected Leighton for France 98, which prompted Goram to walk out of the squad completely, 15 days before Scotland were scheduled to play Brazil in the opening game of the World Cup.

After it was reported in the press that Goram had a mild form of schizophrenia, fans responded with a chorus of "Two Andy Gorams, there's only two Andy Gorams". This chant quickly gained popularity, and became the title of a book documenting humorous football chants. Goram had a loan spell with Manchester United during their 2000-01 title run-in, playing in two games. In the summer of 2001 he had a spell on trial with Hamilton Academical then signed for Coventry City and made seven appearances.

While playing for Dumfries club Queen of the South in 2002, he won the Scottish Challenge Cup. This made Goram the first player to collect a full set of winners medals from the four senior Scottish football competitions. A four-game return to Oldham Athletic followed, and he retired at the end of the 2003-04 season after a season-long spell at Elgin City, where he played five league games.

Goram has also worked as a goalkeeping coach, joining Airdrie United in March 2006 and then Clyde in February 2008. Goram left Clyde in September 2008.

In 2010, Goram was inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame. He was the fourth goalkeeper to be inducted, after Jimmy Cowan, Jim Leighton and John Thomson.

On 20 January 2012 Andy Goram is helping out at Hamilton Academical to solve their goalkeeping coach crisis.