MillwallSport

Gary Lineker, Edwin van der Sar and Nick Pope praise makes Millwall goalkeeper Ryan Sandford go viral after amazing quadruple save

Richard Cawley

Ryan Sandford’s quadruple save on his Weymouth debut went viral last week – drawing praise from Gary Lineker, Edwin van der Sar and Nick Pope on Twitter – but the Millwall goalkeeper has revealed why he is not on social media.

The 23-year-old’s first outing for the National League South side ended in a 2-1 defeat at Twerton Park. But the undeniable highlight was Sandford diving to his left to push away Cody Cooke’s late penalty, following up with two saves from Alex Fletcher and Tom Smith with his right and left legs respectfully before racing out to block another Fletcher attempt.

“That’s bloody impressive,” tweeted ex-England striker Lineker to his 8.6million followers.

Former Manchester United, Fulham and Netherlands international Van der Sar, now CEO at Ajax, reacted with “nice one” while ex-Charlton keeper Pope, first choice at Newcastle, tweeted “top class” with an emoji of a cat.

“It’s quietened down now, but for 48 hours after the game on Tuesday it was unbelievable really,” Sandford told the South London Press. “Most of the time people were sending me texts saying: ‘Have you seen this? Have you seen that?’

“I came off social media completely a long time ago, I just prefer being without it. You can’t get too high when you do well and you can’t get too low when you haven’t.

“Social media is positive when everything is going your way, but in football it doesn’t go your way all the time. And when it is going badly then they comment negative things.

“You know it yourself, whether you have had a good game or a bad game. You don’t need other people to tell you. It depends on the individual – if you can take criticism or you can’t.

“Some people want the best of both worlds – they want people to say how well they have done but they don’t want to take the negativity. I’m not saying I was like that, my profile is not massive anyway. I just didn’t think there was a point me being on there, so I sacked it off. Since I’ve done that I feel my performances have been a lot better.”

Sandford reckons it will be tough to ever top his four-save sequence for the Terras.

“Just purely based on the fact it was off a penalty save as well – it all happened so quickly,” he said. “I’ve watched it back a few times, just to amaze myself a little bit. Because you think ‘cor, did I really do that?’

“When everything is going 100 miles per hour like that, my focus was straight on the corner. I didn’t really think ‘wow, what have I just done?’. It was quite late on and we were chasing the game. The disappointing thing was the result, because it amounted to nothing.

“The fourth save was probably the easiest of the lot because the angle was quite narrow. I knew if I charged out and spread myself that nine times out of 10 the ball is probably going to hit me because the angle was against him.

“In those sort of situations you don’t really think. Where it is close-quarters and quick it almost ends up being a little bit easier. When you’ve got time to think about it, that’s when you might change your mind a couple of times before the ball has got to you – like with a shot from distance.”

Sandford was raised in Kennington initially before he moved out to the Dartford area.

Millwall signed him at U13 level.

“I was going to a goalkeeping development school in Rotherhithe and there was a goalie coach there called Lee Heyward who knew the coaches at Millwall,” explained Sandford, capped at three different junior age groups by England. “And we had a coach there at the time who was also one of the Millwall goalie coaches, called Darren Hart. That’s how I ended up going on trial.”

Sandford was in the same England age group as Mason Mount, Trevoh Chalobah, Reiss Nelson and Andre Dozzell with his first call-up coming with the U16s.

“One afternoon one of the vice principles at school pulled me into an office and I remember thinking: ‘God, what have I done now?’ but she read an email to me saying I’d been selected for an England camp,” recalled Sandford.

“I trained with them and they must have liked what they saw. I made my debut in the Victory Shield against Wales, live on Sky Sports. My mum was dead proud.”

Sandford’s mother Kim is a single-parent. And the Lions player is determined to achieve in his career to ensure her efforts were not in vain.

“The England games were almost me giving a little bit back to her and showing what a great job she has done bringing me up,” said Sandford.

“I always say that she gave up her life for me a little bit. She ended up working in my secondary school, just so she had the time off to spend with me in the holidays.

“She ferried me around the country – like if we played Southampton away or Tuesday and Thursday nights with training. Without her I wouldn’t have got to where I am now. I can’t thank her enough for that.”

Millwall took up an option to extend Sandford’s contract in May by a further 12 months.

His only senior action has come at non-league level with Maidstone United and Dover Athletic before he headed to Dorset – a total of nine matches in National League South.

“My goal is to go out on loan this season and play as much football as I can,” said Sandford. “If I play well then the other stuff sort of takes care of itself a little bit.

“I’m not really too sure why my moves have all been short, one-month loans. The last two have been due to injury [to other keepers]. I need to cement my place in the team and hopefully earn a longer loan – it’s the best way for me to learn.

“It’s an important time for me now and I’m fully aware of that.

“You’d like a longer loan to get settled, but the flip of the coin is that  if you can go somewhere else and fit in straight away then it’s also a good experience. It is a challenge in itself, to go a team where you don’t know anyone and two days later you could be playing.

“I’ve been very, very lucky for the last four or five years, since I’ve been at Calmont Road that I’ve had such a good crop of goalkeepers to train with, or if I’ve ever needed advice.

“Bart [Bialkowski] is a fantastic goalkeeper. Some of the stuff you see in training you think ‘how the hell has he saved that?’

“I try to watch little bits of his game and then implement them in my own. The same with Longy [George Long], he is very good with his feet.

“Even with Con [Connal Trueman] coming in now, he’s another fantastic goalkeeper. It’s very good for me, Wrighty [Joe Wright] and Jordan [Gillmore] to see what they do.”

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