Goalkeeper
Jack Butland (born 10 March 1993) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Scottish Premiership club Rangers. Butland began his career with Birmingham City, and made his debut in the Football League in September 2011 while on loan to League Two club Cheltenham Town. Butland established himself as first choice keeper at Birmingham in 2012–13 and was transferred to Premier League club Stoke City in January 2013 for a fee of £3.3 million. He was loaned back to Birmingham and went on to play in every league match in 2012–13. Butland then spent time out on loan at Barnsley before making his Premier League debut in January 2014. He had loan spells with Leeds United and Derby County in 2014 before he became Stoke's number one in 2015–16. Butland spent seven seasons at Stoke, winning their player of the year award twice. He joined Crystal Palace in 2020, but did not play regularly. After a loan spell with Manchester United in the second half of the 2022–23 season, he agreed to sign for Rangers. At international level, he represented England at all age-group levels, playing for the under-17 team that won the 2010 European championships and for the under-20s at the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He was part of the England squad at UEFA Euro 2012, and later that year was the first-choice goalkeeper for the Great Britain team at the Summer Olympics. He became the youngest goalkeeper to play for the senior England team when he made his debut in August 2012, and went on to make nine appearances. Originally named as one of five standby players for England's UEFA Euro 2012 squad, Butland was called into the squad on 25 May after John Ruddy broke a finger in training. He made no appearances, but kept his place when Roy Hodgson named an experimental squad for the first friendly of the 2012–13 season, against Italy in Bern on 15 August. After Joe Hart withdrew from the squad with a back injury, Butland was named in the starting eleven, becoming the youngest ever England international goalkeeper at 19 years 158 days; the previous youngest, Billy Moon, was 64 days older when he first played for England in 1888. Butland conceded once, to a Daniele De Rossi header from a corner, and was replaced at half time by Ruddy. England won the match 2–1. On 12 October 2015, he was handed his second cap and his first competitive international appearance, away to Lithuania at the end of UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying, with England already assured of their place in the tournament. He kept a clean sheet in the 3–0 win in Vilnius, which meant that England's qualification campaign consisted entirely of victories. During the following match, on 26 March, he suffered a fractured ankle after conceding in a friendly away to Germany, ruling him out of the Euros. He was named in England's 23-man squad for the 2018 World Cup. In January 2014, Butland had his car, an Audi RS5, stolen from his house in Walsall. In December 2015, Butland donated £5,000 to the Great Britain women's deaf football team, to go towards funding for their trip to the 2015 Deaf World Cup. Butland is married to Annabel Peyton; their first child, a son, was born in 2019.
