Aloof solitary impassive the crack goalie is followed in the streets by entranced small boys. He vies with the matador & the flying aces an object of thrilled adulation. He is the lone eagle the man of mystery the last defender. Nabokov (quoted here) Camus Sir Arthur Conan Doyle James Joyce even Julian Barnes.. .its safe to say the goalkeeper hasnt always been a team player. In THE OUTSIDER Jonathan Wilson traces the sometimes dangerous intellectual & literary preoccupations of the keeper & looks at how the position has secured a certain existential cool as well as taking a deep tactical & technical look at the history of goalkeeping. There has been the odd minor work on goalkeeping in the past but nothing like this in scope or depth.