By Jacob Klinger

Tim Howard induced many a double-take on Wednesday when word spread of his 102 meter goal against Bolton. It was a first for Howard as he became only the fourth man in the Premier League era to score as a keeper, but make no mistake, Howard is far from a pioneer in this department. In fact, there is a long and storied history of shot stoppers becoming goal scorers with a surprising amount of inter-connectedness.

Take Charlie Williams for starters. Officially, he was the first keeper to score when he tallied for Manchester City against against Sunderland in 1900. Williams, a former Arsenal netminder, may have been the first, but he was far from the most famous.

Arsenal stalwart Frank Moss bagged a goal of his own for the then-two-time defending champions on March 16, 1935 against Everton. Moss had injured his shoulder in the first half, but scored in the second while playing as a left winger. His subsequent loss of health and form was largely attributed to that injury, but his name remains on the record books nonetheless.

Soccer's mother island has an especially rich history of adventurous goalkeepers. Far from the heights Moss's Arsenal teams once achieved, Dagenham & Redbridge staple Tony Roberts saved his side's 2001 FA Cup campaign with a last gasp equalizer that helped to see Dag & Red through to the third round.

Carlisle United were dramatically saved from relegation by the goal-scoring exploits of one Jimmy Glass. On May 8, 1999 Glass netted in the dying moments of a League Two game against Plymouth Argyle to keep his side in the Football League (check out the video). Funnily enough, Glass also etched his name in historic stone by bulging his own net in the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy the previous year while playing for Bournemouth.

Oddly enough, these bizarre-o events of goal-scoring goalkeepers in England are all tentatively linked, revolving around America and the blue portion of Merseyside. There are four keepers to have scored since the inception of the Premier League in 1992. Peter Schmeichel first did the trick in 2001 for Aston Villa against Everton.

Simple enough, but consider that while Tim Howard was trying to fill the void Schmeichel had left at Manchester United, Howard's compatriot, Brad Friedel, was performing some goal-scoring heroics of his own. Big Brad knocked in a late equalizer for Blackburn against Charlton, only to be spited by a late winner from Claus Jensen.

Friedel shares some club pedigree with former England and Tottenham man, Paul Robinson, the third netminder to score in the Premier League. Robinson did so against Jay Demerit's Watford in 2007. Though Demerit did not feature in that game, he would go on to feature in front of Howard on numerous occasions before Howard struck for Everton with his wind-aided effort on Wednesday.

Yet the keeper-cum-striker links to Everton and The States stretch far beyond the Premier League. As noted previously, Charlie Williams was a Gunner before defying the norms of his profession for City. 35 years later, it was Arsenal's Frank Moss scoring against who else, but Everton.

Jimmy Glass's non-heroics in the Johnstone Paint Trophy final put him in the esteemed company of Bruce Grobelaar as the only other man to score an own-goal at Wembley. Grobelaar, who was also a teammate of Graeme Souness (the man who gave Friedel his start in Europe) did the damage to his own Liverpool side in the 1984 Charity Shield, sponsored by General Motors, against Neville Southall's Everton.

Enter Tony Roberts. Roberts has been a constant for Dag & Red since 2000, but the vast majority of his international career was spent backing up the Wales and Everton legend Neville Southall. Southall and Roberts were briefly teammates at Dag & Red in 2002. Since then Tim Howard has taken up the unenviable task of chasing down Southall's Everton goalkeeping records - in 2009 Howard broke Southall's record for clean sheets in a Premier League season (15) and of course, on January 4, 2012 Howard did what Southall never did in the Premier League when his clearance sailed right over Adam Bogdan and into the back of the net.

For whatever reason, the quirky phenomenon that is goal-scoring keepers seems to stretch across an ocean and up the Mersey River. All jokes about American strikers and English keepers aside, it really is a small world. 

Jacob Klinger is a regular contributor to Soccer 365 as well as No Short Corners. He is currently a journalism student at Syracuse University. His love for the game goes back as far as he can remember, but was truly christened during the United States' cardiac qualifying campaign for Korea/Japan 2002. Between classes and columns, he still plays. You can follow him on Twitter @MrJacobK or email him at jmklinge@syr.edu.

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