West Brom coach Dean Kiely driven on by love of the game

Jan 11 2010 By Chris Lepkowski

A deep-seated love and commitment to the beautiful game inspires West Bromwich Albion’s goalkeeping coach Dean Kiely, writes Chris Lepkowski.

Dean Kiely could easily have spent Sunday night with his feet up at home. Instead he spent it in the cold at Prenton Park watching Tranmere Rovers take on Wolverhampton Wanderers in an FA Cup clash.

You’d have to assume that it in his role as West Bromwich Albion’s goalkeeping coach which spurred him into travelling to watch Baggies loanee Luke Daniels.

Either that or he has a serious aversion to weekend television or didn’t trust the FA website’s live streaming of the Sunday night third-round fixture.

So while Kiely joined punters in queuing for his half-time tea, it simply went onto present another, otherwise unseen, part of the 39-year-old’s current responsibilities.

And one of the footballing values which has made him into such a professional campaigner.

Kiely is one of the more diligent footballing people that you will meet. If you want a passionate and frank discussion about football, especially goalkeeping, then the man known as ‘Deano’ is your man.

A willingness to spend a Sunday night watching Albion’s third-choice keeper in an FA Cup clash or the fact that he can reel off statistics about the number of appearances and clean sheets he’s racked up – Kiely takes it all so seriously.

His dedication to his professionalism is commendable and impassioned.

Some footballers play on a Saturday, go home afterwards and don’t think about football again before returning to their job on a Monday morning when they clock in for training.

There have been plenty of footballers over the years – Russell Hoult was one from Albion’s past who springs to mind – who simply disliked football, hard as it is to imagine.

Not so for Kiely, whose tally of clean sheets – 245, he tells me – would amount to about five seasons of his overall career, which currently stands at 756 matches.

Even in his current role as Albion’s part-time goalkeeper coach and back-up to Scott Carson, Kiely continues to mull over his record in football.

He wears it as a badge of honour and it’s that kind of attention to detail which may explain why, at 39, he continues to play at a very high level.

Kiely simply cannot get his head around those footballers who are able to go about their careers without an appreciation for their own statistical figures.

“You ask some players and they’ll say 200-odd or 300-odd – I don’t get it,” said Kiely. “I simply don’t understand people who don’t know their stats.

“The one person who should know about me is me, regardless of opinions.

“My lad was sat in the crowd against Cardiff and when I came on the bloke sat next to him said ‘I like Deano, he’s a good goalkeeper’.

“Everyone has an opinion but you can’t get away from stats.

“I’m proud of them, they stack up well and know I’ve done my professional job to a very high standard. I can hold them in high regard.

“Seeing as you’re asking – it’s 756 games, 245 clean sheets. I add them up as I go along and it’s a clean sheet every 3.07 games.