GORDON SHARROCK reports on Fred Barber, who is responsible for keeping the latest Wanderers goalkeeping talent on their toes. FRED Barber hit the headlines as one of the jokers in the football pack when he had Peterborough fans in hysterics with his appearance in a funny mask.

You got the impression that this was not a man who takes life too seriously ... and you weren't wrong.

But watch him work with the Wanderers' goalkeepers and you see a different side to the joker.

The banter never stops and there's a constant stream of leg pulls, which can sometimes border on the downright insulting. Yet Jussi Jaaskelainen, Steve Banks and Matty Glennon are neither amused nor offended.

They just don't have the time.

The training sessions are serious business; they are tough and they are intense ... and the Reebok trio wouldn't have it any other way.

So much so that before Jaaskelainen signed a three-year extension to his contract, he sought assurances that Barber, who is employed by Wanderers on a freelance basis, was being retained.

"I made sure the gaffer was going to keep Fred here," the Finland international confirmed, "He has done a great job for me in the two and a half years I have been here and it is important for me that he stays."

Banks, who worked with Barber at Blackpool for two years before his £50,000 switch from Bloomfield Road in March 1999, regards him as a major influence in his career.

"What I learned under him at Blackpool helped get me my move to Bolton," says the Londoner, who had been lined up for a £500,000 transfer to Celtic earlier that season

"I was just lucky that he was here working with the Bolton keepers. If he hadn't been I would have asked for him to come. That's how much I think of him.

"It was great having him on the American trip because he didn't come to Denmark with us and the training for the keepers just wasn't the same.

"Fred knows what goalkeepers need and he has the abiity to put the ball where he wants it and where you need it for a good session."

Former England keeper Peter Shilton, who played a cameo role in Wanderers' 1995 promotion to the Premiership, was famed in his playing days for being one of the game's great trainers - a claim borne out by the length of his professional career.

But even the great Shilts might have been tested by one of Barber's sessions which the Reebok trio reckon are tougher than those organised for their outfield team-mates.

"I've never had an easy day with Fred," Banks maintains, "even on a Friday when the session is just as intense but lasts only 45 minutes or an hour. Pre-season we were working an hour and a half to two hours - non stop!"

Glennon, just 21 and the junior member of the goalkeepers' union, claims to suffer most from Barber's barbed comments and never hesitates to snap back.

But he has no hesitation in placing his mentor at the top of the coaching charts.

"Fred's probably the best in the country," says the Stockport lad. "He doesn't try to teach you how he played, he teaches you how goalkeeping should be done. A coach doesn't have to have played at the highest level but they have to be able to teach and that's what Fred does.

"We hear stories from other goalkeepers about how they are coached but, unless they are at a club where Fred works, they don't do what we do.

"Of course we work harder than anybody else. My body tells me that after every session."

Barber, who was forced to quit playing at 31 when he smashed his shoulder, isn't one to pass up on a compliment.

"I'm glad people say I'm the best goalkeeping coach in the country because it's recogniton," he responds, "but I know I'm still learning the job.

"I've got high standards though and, although I know I'm not the best in the world, I know there are a lot of bad ones around."

Barber is also attached to Stockport, Rochdale and West Brom but after working with Wanderers for five seasons there is no doubt which club he regards as his number one.

"I'm probably more loyal to my goalkeepers than I am to my clubs," he explains, "but I'd have to say Bolton is my main club. I've had some good goalkeepers here - Keith Branagan, Aidan Davison and Gavin Ward before the three I've got now.

"Last season when Stockport played Bolton I had to sit on the halfway line. I was just hoping both Jussi and Carlo Nash played well."

Barber runs goalkeeping schools in partnership with Malcolm Webster, who has looked after Norwich and Luton but has now gone full-time at Ipswich where he looks after young England keeper Richard Wright.

"I've always said I wouldn't work exclusively for one club," Barber explains. "I don't want to put all my eggs into one basket.

"I turned down the chance of going full-time at Everton and I've just had to turn Wigan down because I have enough on my plate already.

"Malcolm and I have had a lot of good keepers between us and it's starting to happen that when somebody is looking for a goalkeeper, one of ours is usually mentioned."