Vince Bartram
Personal information
Full name	Vincent Lee Bartram
Date of birth	August 7, 1968 (1968-08-07) (age 41)
Place of birth	Birmingham, England
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Youth career
1985–1986	Oldswinford FC Wolverhampton Wanderers
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1986–1991 1989 1990 1991 1991–1994 1994–1998 1997 1998–2004	Wolverhampton Wanderers → Blackpool (loan) → Cheltenham Town (loan) → West Bromwich Albion (loan) Bournemouth Arsenal → Huddersfield Town (loan) Gillingham	005 (0) 009 (0) 005 (0) 000 (0) 132 (0) 011 (0) 012 (0) 187 (0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Vincent Lee Bartram (born August 7, 1968 in Birmingham) is an English former professional footballer, who played as a goalkeeper.

[edit] Career

Bartram's first professional club was Wolverhampton Wanderers who in 1985 signed him from non-league, making his first team debut on 23 August 1986 in a 2-1 home defeat to Cambridge United, that marked the club's first-ever game in the fourth tier. However, this proved his only Wolves league outing until April 1991 as the club brought in Mark Kendall, and later Mike Stowell, who were both virtual ever-presents.

Instead, Bartram had loan spells with Blackpool, Cheltenham Town and West Bromwich Albion, before finally leaving Molineux for Bournemouth in July 1991 for £35,000. He played 132 league games for Bournemouth before moving to Arsenal for £250,000 in 1994. At Arsenal he was David Seaman's understudy, and played just 11 games in four seasons (all in 1994/95). To gain playing time, he spent 12 games on loan with Huddersfield Town in late 1997.

He signed for Gillingham in March 1998 initially signing on loan. He firmly established himself as the first-choice goalkeeper at the Priestfield Stadium and helped them to the Division Two play-off final in his first full season, where they lost out to Manchester City on penalties. The following season saw them go one step further as they beat Wigan Athletic in the play-off final to reach the second tier for the first time in the club's history.

In total, he made over 200 appearances for the "Gills", before his retirement from the game in February 2004 due to a wrist injury. Bizarrely, the injury was caused by a collision with the opposition goalkeeper, Tony Warner, who had come upfield to try and score a goal from a last-minute corner.

He is now a level 3 FA Coach and runs KeeperstarsUK and SoccerstarsUK in Bournemouth, a soccer school/fun club for under 12's and a keeper school. He has recently started work as a goalkeeper coach at Portsmouth FC's Academy.

[edit] External links

• Vince Bartram career stats at Soccerbase

[edit] References