Image copyright © 1997 Sports Projects Ltd.

Mark Bosnich - Goalkeeper Date of Birth: January 13, 1971 Birthplace: Fairfield, Australia Nationality: Australian Height: 1.85m / 6'1" Previous Clubs: Manchester United, Sydney United Joined Villa: February 28, 1992 Acquisition Price: Free Debut: April 92 Left Villa (for): Summer 1999 (Manchester United) Transfer fee: Free transfer

'Bozzie' is Australia's national keeper. He's extremely talented, and during his stay at Villa, he has earned more appearances each season, gradually replacing Nigel Spink as Villa's 1st goalie. A lot of his saves during the seasons have been beyond world class. In the 1993-94 season, he was the man who put Villa in the league cup final against Man. Utd., when we faced Tranmere Rovers in the semis. At the second leg at Villa Park, the game went into penalty shoot-out, and Bosnich saved no less than 4 of Tranmere's spot kicks. His weakness is his clearences, which sometimes have made the entire Holte End gasp. After Nigel Spink has left, he's always guarding the goal for Villa, but the start of the 1996-97 season saw two severe injuries for him. During this period, Michael Oakes have earned the long deserved fieldings he deserves, but few Villans doubt that Mark Bosnich is still the first goalie. Peter Schmeichel, Man Utd's Danish national keeper has named him "best goalkeeper in the world", so few doubt his abilities now.

Midway through the 96-97 season, he made an unfortunate joke with Tottenham's supporters. They had been mocking him all through the game, referring to "his Klinsmann-crash" (83K JPEG image) back in the 1994-95 season. Boz thought he'd return some of the stick, and gave the entire stand a nazi-salute for which he was promptly booked by referee Peter Jones. His salute was not looked upon kindly by the Spurs supporters, who happen to have quite a few jews among them. They wanted blood, and Spurs president Alan Sugar didn't consider the case closed at first. Bosnich clearly didn't realise that Tottenham had many jewish supporters, and neither did any other foreigner nor even most people in London. This fact was ignored by the Spurs audience, who started screaming for fines and suspension. In the end, poor Mark Bosnich wrote an open apology to the newspapers for what was considered by most Villa fans as a, if somehow tasteless and unfortunate, completely harmless joke. Although the officials of Spurs were happy by now, the fans kept whining. The FA fortunately looked upon it as sanely as Villa had done, and in the end, Boz was fines £1000.

The 1997-98 season has been a mixed pleasure for Bosnich. The defence in front of him has been poor, and he has had to pick many balls out of the net. His beloved Australian national team was knocked out of the World Cup qualifying competition by Iran with a 2-2 draw, after Australia had been all over them for 90 minutes. Just to rub it in, Australia were also unbeaten in the competition. The season were also marred by small injuries. But as for himself, he performed beautifully, and his saves are as great as ever.

It didn't last, though. Summer of 1999, Manchester United, in need of a replacement for Peter Schmeichel, came in and offered him a contract which he accepted immediately. This obviously made him quite unpopular with Aston Villa fans.

Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats include cup games.

Back to Past Players