Sport
Distinguished
Bruce Grobbelaar
born 1957
Kept goal for Liverpool through the most decorated decade in English football
Distinguished is level 3 of 4 in the Zimbabwe Hall of Fame: sustained excellence over a career, widely honoured at home. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Thirteen years in the Liverpool goal, six league titles and the 1984 European Cup, won on penalties after he made his legs wobble on the line. He then played for Zimbabwe, the country he had fought a war in.
Bruce David Grobbelaar was born in Durban and raised in Rhodesia, where he was conscripted and served two years in the bush war — an experience he has spoken about with considerable unease since.
He signed for Liverpool in 1981 and played more than six hundred games over thirteen years, winning six First Division titles, three FA Cups and the 1984 European Cup, where his deliberately buckling legs on the goal line unsettled Roma's penalty takers and won the shoot-out. He was in the Liverpool side at Heysel and at Hillsborough. He played for Zimbabwe and later coached there.
He signed for Liverpool in 1981 and played more than six hundred games over thirteen years, winning six First Division titles, three FA Cups and the 1984 European Cup, where his deliberately buckling legs on the goal line unsettled Roma's penalty takers and won the shoot-out. He was in the Liverpool side at Heysel and at Hillsborough. He played for Zimbabwe and later coached there.
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