Carlisle Utd's Tony Elliott: "I've failed a lot in my life and football. But it's helped me grow"

He is early for our meeting and I find him with a giant coffee mug already emptied and sheets of coaching plans on the table. Elliott recently came back to Carlisle United, for whom he played in the 1990s, and alongside his academy goalkeeping coach job there he holds positions with the England futsal set-up, the national blind football squad and the England women's deaf futsal team, where he is joint head coach.

Until recently he was also involved with England and Great Britain's cerebral palsy sides, and with England's international women's youth goalkeepers. "I can go from one minute working with an eight-year-old goalkeeper at Carlisle, to a twice Paralympian world-class athlete the next," he says.

Elliott's ability to hop from one format to another, and his diverse findings from them all, are condensed into his book, A Modern Approach to Goalkeeping . While it contains technical detail, it also helps the author set out deeper theories from a challenging personal road. "When you fail, you probably learn more," he says. "I've failed a lot in my life and football. But it's helped me grow."

Elliott uses his own career as background when he talks to young players about hard psychological times. His period with Carlisle is best remembered for an extraordinary performance against Chesterfield in the glorious 1994/5 season but his lesser-known struggles provide stronger source material.

"For example," he says, "I will open up about what I went through just to get on the pitch." This, Elliott explains, was an acute nervousness that led him to find extreme ways of coping. "I had it from a young age, before any big event - school plays, you name it. I couldn't speak. I froze. That continued into my football career. I got so nervous about performing that the only mechanism that helped was to vomit before a game.

"There were occasions when I actually vomited on the pitch. I would rarely eat before a game, so it would sometimes be just a retching. I became clever at covering it up. I'd go into my goal, and get my glove bag, and do it there."

Elliott made nearly 200 Football League appearances, having been highly-regarded as an England youth keeper, before a back injury finished his career just as Nottingham Forest were watching him. Yet he is also honest enough to admit his state of mind may have held him back.

"Looking back, that nervousness was probably the main reason I didn't fulfil my potential. Mentally, perhaps I couldn't deal with that level of grandeur. Perhaps I couldn't manage performing in front of 60-70,000 people, but 8-10,000 was ok."

These unseen demands on a player's mind are expanded when Elliott describes how, at Cardiff, he would also rush from his wife Tracy's bedside, where she was suffering bleeding during pregnancy with their second son, to arrive at the ground just in time to play. Another hard test was retirement, aged 30, whilst with Scarborough.

"I'd got injured two years before, and I had that many jabs I was like a pin cushion. I would sit in an ice bath for 20 minutes, and wear lycra leggings a size too small so it numbed my midriff, just so I could play a game of football. I bought a Playstation and would stay up all night on it because the pain was keeping me awake.

"At Darlington, I went to take a cross, fell on my back and heard a massive clonk in my pelvic area. I couldn’t stand up straight, but hobbled through the second half. I came home crying to Tracy. I knew. Went for a scan and the surgeon said there was another tear. 'If you want to be in a wheelchair, carry on playing'.

"We had a young family, so I didn't continue. It took me a long time to get over it."

Elliott retired with a modest insurance payment and no obvious outlook. He took a night job in Morrison's, on the soft drinks aisles. "A lot of the lads were Carlisle fans and were a bit overawed when they saw me stacking shelves. But I was always very proud. I wanted to work, to provide for Tracy."

After starting his coaching qualifications with the Lancashire FA, driving to Barrow and Rochdale in between supermarket shifts, a coaching career grew, in Roddy Collins' backroom team at Carlisle and later as No2 to Tommy Cassidy and Darren Edmondson at Workington Reds, as well as his own goalkeeping school. He later branched into futsal through an academy role with Liverpool.

Elliott had to "immerse" himself quickly in that smaller-sided, technique-heavy game, and did so to the point where his skills were sought by the Football Association. His range of roles since then has broadened his horizons further beyond the "cut-throat" environment of first-team football.

When I ask which of his achievements have made him proudest, he talks about tournaments attended and medals fought for, but also people he has helped. "Take Ryan Kay, a young goalkeeper I first saw in 2012 when I got the job with the cerebral palsy squad. He was born with CP which affected him in the legs. He wore callipers until he was 10 years old and, when I met him, he couldn't kick the ball off the floor.

"The first thing I said was, 'Me and you are on a mission. I'm not bothered about the football. I want to try and better your life by 30-40 per cent'. Ryan can now strike the ball over the halfway line. He's been to the Paralympics, World Championships, and he's now got his own little goalkeeping school. He's working for Norwich City's foundation. My gratification is seeing the smile on his face, the confidence to go and coach. Medals are just memories, but that's something you can never take away."

Elliott was with Great Britain's CP squad at the Rio Paralympics in 2016, where they finished fifth. He hopes to help the blind squad to Tokyo 2020 and will, along with Luciana Silva, lead the England deaf women's team to the December's European Championships. These are rich experiences for a self-confessed patriot, but Elliott believes there is some resistance to learning from them.

"When we have big tournaments in football, we review and reflect. But I've never once been approached about my experiences of working in Rio - in a Paralympic environment, the Olympic village, looking a mile across the road and people killing each other in the favelas, people jumping in taxis and getting mugged.

"All those things went on. That's another reason I did the book. If nobody's going to ask me about it, I'll share it that way."

Elliott is planning further ventures in futsal, more publications and involvement with the Cumberland FA, whilst delivering coaching courses for the FA nationally. His views on goalkeeping also resonate, for he feels coaching must move closer to the evolving game. "It's not just about being the keeper of the goal now. In mainstream football, they are literally the 11th player. Look at goalkeepers like [Manuel] Neuer, Ederson. They are controlling areas up to 30-40 yards, as good with their feet as with gloves.

"The way we coach has to befit that. We need to spend more time with the goalkeeper playing with their feet, being part of the unit, rather than just shoving them in a corner and being used as target practice."

Elliott brings these principles to United's young goalkeepers, after he was recruited by academy manager Edmondson in October. Elliott was available for the role after returning to Carlisle from Manchester, when he ended his role with the international women's youth keepers. "Daz and I know a lot about each other," he says ."He trusts me. I'm here to help, not to throw ego all over the place. It's about the keepers, driving the programme forward and also developing Nick [Hill, the existing keeper coach].

"It's going to take time, but we'll do it together. We're also going to be pushing forward the talent ID side, trying to cover a broader area of Cumbria. I'd like to think we can produce at least one or two goalkeepers, and provide a service for Carlisle United - a place I'm very fond of."

Elliott's fondness is shared by supporters when they think of United's 2-1 win at Saltergate in 1995. Although understudy to Tony Caig that season, he was selected to play against Chesterfield as Mick Wadsworth shuffled his team after the title had been secured - and produced an incredible string of saves.

"People never forget that," he smiles. "I think I must have only ever played one game in my life - or one good game! But it was about the group, not me. I could have sulked and fallen out with people because I didn't play a lot, but if I hadn't been ready it would have been to the detriment of the team. We were on a crusade, and I stuck at it."

After United's champagne season, Elliott joined the squad on a celebratory night out in Carlisle and, in Buskers nightclub, met Tracy. "Bang. Cupid. Head over heels," he says. They have been married 21 years and, when Tracy talks how Tony helps her with her own daily challenges, as a sufferer of M.E. and fibromyalgia, it is impossible not to notice the tenderness they share. "If it wasn't for Tony and the kids, I would have ended it a long time ago," she says, looking at Tony. "That's how bad it gets. But then you pick me out of it, don't you?"

The United fan in me still wants to talk about Chesterfield - and Tony is used to being asked. "As a goalkeeper it was one of those nights you dream of. There are bits on YouTube. I look back and think, 'Did I really do that?' I was the first player in the history of the paper to get 10 out of 10.

"What people won't know is that, psychologically, all kinds was going off that week. My first marriage was breaking down, but somehow I found the drive and determination to perform to those levels."

He is now stabbing the table with his fingers. "That's playing under pressure," he says. "Do we have enough of that with the modern player? The culture we've created is very fluffy. I don't know if there is that toughness now."

*A Modern Approach to Goalkeeping, by Tony Elliott and Adam Woodage, is out now, priced £14.99