Last updated 09:17, Saturday, 10 May 2008

KEIREN Westwood has taken enough trophies, medals, backslaps and plaudits this season to keep him going for many a year, and yet today there is a need to bring even more compelling information to the table on the subject of Carlisle United’s brilliant young goalkeeper.

Keiren Westwood: The United keeper has won five player-of-the-year awards

A second successive ever-present campaign between United’s posts has seen Westwood hoover up five player-of-the-year awards, including the trinket on offer from the News & Star, and a place in League One’s PFA select XI.

It is no longer a rumour or a suspicion, but an unarguable fact that Westwood’s star is ascending at considerable pace, and the point has been reached where we must attempt to place the 23-year-old on the list of Carlisle’s all-time greatest custodians.

Any sensible reckoning here must place Allan Ross at the top of the rankings with Westwood, and every other Blues ‘keeper since the club’s formation, scrambling for places. The incomparable Ross, way out in front as United’s record appearance holder with 466 outings in the league alone, ends the argument the second you consider his longevity and consistency towards the peaks of the English league.

Just now, however, there is one significant criterion which currently puts Westwood ahead of not only Ross but every other goalkeeper who has trotted out at Brunton Park over a decent stretch of games.

It concerns the average number of goals conceded for every Football League game played. And of all United’s ‘keepers who have made 50 appearances or more, Westwood stands proudly at the top of the pile.

Last Saturday’s draw with Bournemouth was Westwood’s 127th game in the league for United. In that time, he has been beaten 131 times, meaning his average goals conceded per game is 1.031.

Remarkably, this ratio is superior to all his predecessors in the number one jersey. Superior to Tony Caig, next on the list, with 257 goals from 223 appearances and an average of 1.152.

Superior to Dave McKellar, who let 179 goals through in his 151 games with an average of 1.185. Superior to the great Ross, whose 466 matches yielded 575 goals with an average of 1.237. And superior to the other established goalkeepers of Carlisle’s past, such as Trevor Swinburne, Jim MacLaren, Matty Glennon, George Thompson, Joe Dean, Kelham O’Hanlon and a cluster of other notable names.

Statistics only tell a fraction of the tale, of course, and some obvious detail needs to be put forward here to fill in the gaps.

Men such as Ross, McKellar and Swinburne operated, for some years, at a higher level than Westwood has yet reached. Should Carlisle rise to the Championship through the play-offs these coming weeks, and should Westwood remain at Brunton Park next season, his numbers would inevitably take a level of punishment unless United managed to spend the season at the top end of the second tier.

And it’s only if Westwood can more than treble his current appearances tally whilst keeping his goals-against ratio at such a miserly level that he may be genuinely compared with Ross – a scenario which is as unlikely as it sounds.

The likes of Glennon, too, deserve honourable mentions for guarding their goal so stoutly when the men in front of him on the pitch were sometimes dramatically inferior; a charge which cannot be laid at the current United side given the presence of defensive experts such as Danny Livesey.

More untold stories emerge from the finer detail of David Steele’s exhaustive research. What of the jobbing, on-loan goalkeepers who descended on United in troubled times, such as Andy Dibble, Richard Knight, a certain Jimmy Glass and the magnificently-named Peter van der Kwaak?

And a moment’s thought, please, for one Billy Cowell, who made a solitary appearance for the Blues back in 1929 but had to fish the ball out of his net eight times.

The more lasting argument here, of course, will rage long and loud, but the evidence is unquestionably growing heavier to suggest Westwood now occupies a high place in the pantheon.

Last season, the former Manchester City discard – whose best attributes will be required to keep Leeds at the gates on Monday – said: “I want to be mentioned by the fans in the same breath as Allan Ross and Dave McKellar, because they are heroes from Carlisle’s history,”

With a respectful nod to Westwood’s forebears, that day may now be upon us.