Former Chelsea and Arsenal stopper Petr Cech made his ice hockey debut for Guildford Phoenix on Sunday and thanked some fans of his former clubs who he could hear in the crowd.
Cech, 37, was keeping goal for the Phoenix – the reserve side of the British National League outfit Guilford Flames.
The game went to overtime with the score at 2-2 and Cech was the hero in the penalty shootout with the save that secured victory for the Phoenix.
Cech has signed up to play while maintaining his new role with Chelsea as their technical and performance advisor.
“Yeah, you know it was amazing to see there were a few Czech flags and there was quite a big group with the Czech ice hockey jersey,” said the former Premier League icon.
“Some Chelsea fans, Arsenal fans as well. So it was it was pretty nice to see all these people turn up.”
Cech revealed he had actually wanted to play ice hockey instead of football as a kid, adding: “I wanted to play ice hockey over football but as you said we couldn’t afford all the gear, so in the end my parents took me to football.
“So I was skating pretty much all the time but I didn’t (inaudible), you know because of football I didn’t really have time to play ice hockey. So I was doing it as my hobby and when I could.
“And then obviously for about 25 years I couldn’t at all because I didn’t have time and when I was in France and when I came to England I didn’t know this here existed. So for about 25 years I couldn’t really do it.”
