Published: 17:00, 10 October 2025 | Updated: 17:00, 10 October 2025

First came a punch and then came a pop to puncture the quiet of a sunny afternoon.

It was Wednesday, June 7, 2017. On a training pitch at St George’s Park, England’s Under 21s were gearing up for that summer’s European Championship; away from the main throng, the goalkeepers were working in tandem and it had all been routine until a shot flashed past Jordan Pickford.

Up he sprung from the floor, his face contorted in frustration. The first thing he saw was a blow-up mannequin, being used as a temporary defender. Such was his anger, he threw a left hook that would have impressed his idol Gennady Golovkin, the great Kazakh boxer. The mannequin was no more.

‘I didn’t mean to pop it, like, but I just don’t like conceding really,’ Pickford told us afterwards, with a sheepish smile. ‘It’s as simple as that. Sometimes you can’t help conceding as a keeper but that’s the whole reason you are there – to keep the ball out of the net.’

He’s done a...