Gareth Sprake (3 April 1945 – 18 October 2016) was a Welsh professional footballer. A goalkeeper, he played for Leeds United and Birmingham City and also won 37 caps for Wales.
Sprake was a good goalkeeper who made occasional high-profile mistakes. He was especially known for his ability to come out to catch crossed balls floating into the box and his shot stopping. At Leeds, Sprake played 504 times, keeping more than 200 clean sheets. He spent more than a decade at Leeds, much of it as number-one choice, during a period when the club was a dominant side in domestic and European football.
Club career
Sprake represented Swansea Schoolboys and was noticed by Leeds United soon after he left school and was playing for a local works team.
Sprake joined Leeds as an apprentice and made a last-minute debut in 1962 when the regular goalkeeper went down with a stomach complaint on the day of a game at Southampton. Over the next two seasons Sprake became a regular as Leeds won the Second Division in 1964 and then challenged for the Football League championship title and FA Cup double the following year. Sprake only missed one game in both competitions that season, but Leeds ended with nothing. At Leeds, he was also known to be sick before each match but managed to play regularly and keep the starting goalkeeper position.
The first of Sprake's two major errors came in 1967 when Leeds played Liverpool in a League game at Anfield. Sprake was holding the ball and was set to throw it to left back Terry Cooper, only to curtail his throw when he spotted Liverpool winger Ian Callaghan running towards the area he planned to throw the ball. Unfortunately for Sprake, the ball slipped out of his hands behind him and ended up in the net. At half-time, the Liverpool tannoy-announcer played "Careless Hands", a record by Des O'Connor, apparently in reference to Sprake's mistake, and during the second half Liverpool supporters on the Kop sang the song repeatedly to Sprake. Fans of rival clubs gave Sprake the nickname "Careless Hands" as a result.
In the same season Sprake kept a clean sheet as Leeds beat Arsenal in the League Cup final. He was also in goals when Leeds won the Fairs Cup, the club's first European honour.
Retirement
A back injury brought Sprake's career to an end at the age of 30, the injury resulting from a near fatal blood clot in his back which forced him to undergo spinal fusion surgery. Sprake worked as a salesman for a short period before becoming a borough council training officer in Solihull, where he remained for over 14 years.
In 1978, Sprake was paid a substantial fee by the Daily Mirror to make allegations against former Leeds manager Don Revie and club captain Billy Bremner regarding match-fixing, though no charges ever arose from his accusations. Sprake, who said in court that he "couldn't remember" Bremner offering a bribe, later claimed that the Mirror paid him £7,500. Harrison quoted Bremner saying of Sprake that he should have "tried harder" and "concentrated more" on improving his game because, "instead of believing he was the best, he would then have made a decent keeper". Bremner made it clear that he had little respect for Sprake because of "things he has done in his life", and pointed out that, among professional footballers, Sprake was "not one of the wisest or most respected". Comparing Sprake with David Harvey, Bremner said Harvey was the better goalkeeper because he was reliable.
Sprake died at the age of 71 on 18 October 2016.
Honours
Leeds United
- Football League First Division: 1968–69
- Football League Second Division: 1963–64
- Football League Cup: 1967–68
- FA Charity Shield: 1969
- Inter-Cities Fairs Cup: 1967–68, 1970–71
- FA Cup runner-up: 1964–65