Once again I am indebted to the invaluable work of Steve Tirebuck and his magnificently compiled statistics
Blues have been blessed with some fine keepers over the years – in recent times alone England international Jack Butland follows in the footsteps of Ben Foster and Joe Hart; Myhill plays for Wales, Doyle has played for Ireland and Maik Taylor played for Northern Ireland internationally. Even the non-internationally recognised keepers like Benno and Nico Vaesen were more than decent. The subject of today’s article however isn’t one of those players, but he has played in goal for Blues in the last twenty years – it is of course Bart Griemink.
Bart Griemink
Bart Griemink came to the Blues in the last year of Barry Fry’s era at Blues from Dutch club WKE as cover for Ian Bennett. He had had a promising career as younger player, making twenty appearances as a teenager for second tier team FC Emmen in his native Holland and then another eighteen appearances across two seasons for Willem II in the Eredivisie, which is the top flight of the Netherlands. However, he clearly didn’t make the grade at the Tricolores, and he dropped down to the amateur ranks to play for WKE for a year before he came to Blues.
Had Ian Bennett not got injured in the 95/96 season I don’t think that Griemink would have ever made a league appearance for Blues. However, Benno broke two of his fingers and after two games with on-loan Paul Sansome between the sticks Griemink was thrust into the team. Griemink went on to make twenty-six appearances for Blues and whilst his name didn’t set the world alight I don’t recall people speaking of him as the worst player in the world ever.
Bazza got sacked at the end of the season to make way for the return of Trevor Francis and that spelt the end for Griemink too. Steve Sutton was brought in on a free from Derby County and after spending a month on loan at Barnsley Griemink went to join Barry Fry at Peterborough for £25,000.
Griemink made sixty-three appearances for the Posh but as time went on he slowly faded from the first team, to be replaced by Mark Tyler and the Dutchman spent a month on loan at Swindon Town in the second half of the 99/00 season making four appearances before moving to the County Ground on a permanent transfer for the 00/01 season.
Bart spent four years in Wiltshire, making 140 appearances as their first choice keeper in what is now League One. He then moved on to Southend United where he made a further twenty-six appearances for the Shrimpers in two seasons before he left professional football entirely.
Griemink played for two seasons at United Counties League side Boston Town whilst building up his next career, as owner of a chauffeur services company. In 2008 Bart gave up football entirely to fully concentrate on his business which has slowly grown and which he still runs today.
However, his goalkeeping skills haven’t left him and despite claiming not to have played for four years he was the star of the show in a charity match between Peterborough United legends and Arsenal Legends. Posh won 4-2 but that was largely down to the Dutchman stopping the Arsenal side from all angles in what was described by the Peterborough Today as a “goalkeeping tour de force”.
Tags: Bart Griemink
Absolutely awful keeper. One of Barry Fry’s worst signings.
Bit harsh rich I thought he was a decent at the time
On the subject of keepers is it correct that Colin Doyle has spent more time on the subs bench than any other Blues player ever?
6ft 3in and got lobbed numerous times when he was a Peterborough, Not the best keeper we have ever had. Hard for a keeper who doesnt play week in week out, He was at London Road earlier this season as a special guest didnt get a bad reception from the crowd.
Was he better than Roger Hansbury?
Griemink was ok, Tho thought Sutton was class just shame injury ruined his career, never understood how Chris Woods was number 2 for England when Sutton was at Forest, of all keepers Kevin Miller scared me!
We also had an Alan Miller from Arsenal on loan.
But the most memorable GK was Roger Kingson , who had a mare against Portsmouth in 2008 relegation season & never played again .
David Sullivan didn’t sugar the pill either , describing Kingson as a complete waste of space.
None were as bad as Andy Gosney. I remember him injuring his shoulder mid-way through a game against Wolves when we were one down and he convinced the physio he was fine to carry on. Think we were 0-3 by half-time. He may have been replaced in that game by midfield legend Nigel Gleghorn.
Barry Fry has since said that Griemink was erratic at Blues. God knows why he took him to Peterborough. My mate, who’s a Bluenose, was at an Enfield v Peterborough FA Cup tie with Griemink in goal. My mate was stood behind the goal and as Griemink ran up to take a goal kick, he shouted “Griemink, you cost Birminhgam promotion!” A bemused Bart stopped his run up and looked around for the perpetrator.
http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/tranmere-rovers-fc/tranmere-rovers-fc-news/2012/10/23/80491-32084822/
article on Jake Jervis’ debut for Tranmere
griemink was terrible. he always used to go down feet first. he could kick the ball well though,and the best thing he did was set kevin francis up when he scored against leeds utd in the FA Cup from the half way line!
Can’t remember a lot about this guy,other than Fry called him Bart Simpson,although strangely i still remember John Cheesewright making his only app in goal for us at Bournemouth in 1991,he was quickly despatched to room 101 and is currently a ‘wealth planning manager for a major bank’.
some of my earliest memories of watching the blues involved griemink……. after a stand up debut against Norwich (if I remember correctly) he became pretty dire and had some kind of aversion to using his hands…… instead launching at everything with his feet!!
Bart Griemink? Now we’re talking! I remember Barry Fry billing him as a Dutch Peter Schmeichel. Well, he was definitely Dutch! To my memory he’d pull off a great save one minute and let in a howler the next. When my brother and I get nostalgic about Blues we’ll always bring up Griemink, not sure why but he made an impression on me when I was 11 so I’m delighted you’ve featured him, Almajir!
I remember he couldn’t kick straight and would constantly kick the ball out for a throw in. Wasn’t a bad shot stopper though
[…] Are They Now? Part XXV After looking at Bart Griemink last week I thought I’d look at another player from a similar sort of era, signed from a […]
My best memory of Bart-man was when he played against us for Swindon at the County Ground. Grainger saw him out of position for a free kick 30 odd yards out on the right and curled the ball inside the near post leaving him hopelessly beaten. ‘Nuff said.