ACCORDING to football cliche, goalkeepers have their own union.

Judging from this season's performances by many of its members, it appears they got together at the start of the season and voted to be rubbish.

Every season throws up the odd gaffe. Andy Dibble allowing Gary Crosbie to head the ball out of his hands and score against Manchester City 20 years ago was a cracker.

Gary Sprake throwing the ball into his own net in the 1970s is still worth watching when you need a laugh, as is Manchester United's Massimo Taibi allowing the ball to trickle through his legs five years ago.

There has always been the odd mad moment. Goalkeepers are only human.

But this season the trickle of blunders has turned into a flood, begging the question: what has happened to goalkeepers?

David James justified his "Calamity" nickname when the ball went through his legs for England against Austria.

Jens Lehman and Manuel Almunia worry the pants off Arsenal fans whenever the ball goes into the box, United fans are becoming used to seeing their keeper's Tim Howard and Roy Carroll throw the ball into the net or let it bounce out of their hands.

Liverpool's Champions League progress is in the balance thanks to Jerzy Dudek failing to collect a simple Bayer Leverkusen shot in the last minute.

Wanderers fans will be touching wood all over Bolton after I say Jussi Jaaskelainen is about the only keeper who has not made a silly mistake this season. Dean Kiely and Anti Niemi are also two of the few solid Premiership while, to be fair to James, his performances for his club are in stark contrast to his worrying displays for England.

The dodgy keeper syndrome starts with the crossed ball. Where they used to catch anything between the goalline and the penalty spot years ago, now they punch - often flap at - anything above head height.

This punching revolution, which started in foreign leagues and has been adopted by English keepers, is a backward step in the art of goalkeeping.

Keepers hardly ever used to drop crosses, so what is the advantage in punching when it often results in handing possession back to the other team?

This season keepers have moved on from flapping at crosses to committing the kind of elementary mistakes you wouldn't expect from a Sunday league keeper.

I believe they are over-coached. Others might say the pressure is getting to them or they are just not as good as they used to be or maybe the string of blunders has just been a coincidence.

The fact is many of them can no longer be relied upon to perform the basics.

England used to be full of quality keepers. That is no longer the case and the goalkeeping union has a lot of work to do to redress the balance.

A good start would be to start catching crosses again instead of this ridiculous punching.