In years gone by James Trafford has spent chunks of the off-season surrounded by livestock, sitting on a combine harvester or shifting hay bales on the family farm in Greysouthen, a village on the edge of the Lake District. But, this summer, he has not been helping his parents but preserving England’s impeccable defensive record at the European Under-21 Championship.
The semi-final final on Wednesday against Israel in Batumi, Georgia, will be his 57th game across the past 12 months and a year that started with the goalkeeper lining up in League One on loan at Bolton Wanderers is expected to end with a £19m move to the Premier League newcomers Burnley. And hopefully a winners’ medal to boot.
England’s squad is decorated with high-profile Premier League talents such as Noni Madueke, Morgan Gibbs-White, Anthony Gordon, an attacking trio who switched clubs last season for a combined fee of more than £100m, and Levi Colwill, another 20-year-old with a burnishing reputation. But Trafford, who has been on the books of Manchester City since signing from Carlisle United aged 12, has been the breakthrough performer. England are yet to concede at the tournament, with Trafford making a raft of eye-catching saves.
Trafford, who learned to drive by taking the tractor through barley fields at home in Cumbria, spent the past couple of years furthering his education on loan in the third tier. First with Accrington Stanley as an 18-year-old and then Bolton, where he has spent the last season and a half, setting a record of nine straight home clean sheets along the way. His first loan was challenging, if not character-building, after an injury and losing his place as first-choice goalkeeper.
“When you take young goalkeepers on loan you accept that you have to take a bit of their pain, because even at his age now he’ll still make mistakes,” says the Accrington manager, John Coleman. “You don’t get a fully accomplished goalkeeper at 21.”
Bolton’s technical director, Chris Markham, was aware of Trafford from his four years at the Football Association and the club made their move in January last year. “I was still playing at the time and the manager [Ian Evatt] was thinking about rolling me out again, but I was looking to transition into coaching and I said: ‘I think we need to go and get somebody,’” says Bolton’s 41-year-old goalkeeper coach, Matt Gilks, who played in the top flight with Blackpool.
“There were days at training where he’d say: ‘Can you just shoot at me and I’ll save it?’ A bit like in the playground as a kid when you want to dive around. He’d say: ‘Can you just take shots?’ I’d say: ‘Well, it doesn’t really work like that Traff, we’ve got to warm up first.’ He loves being a keeper.”
Trafford started out as a midfielder at Carlisle but volunteered to go in goal as a nine-year-old and the rest is history. He impressed Pep Guardiola in a post-training penalty shootout in 2020, denying his manager from 12 yards and was part of the travelling City squad for the Champions League final the following year. Confidence has rarely been an issue for Trafford, who has long stated his belief that, one day, he can be England’s No 1 and more recently insisted he could deputise for Ederson if required.
“To have that confidence at such a young age is brilliant because a lot of people shy away from it and start thinking: ‘I hope I don’t do this wrong, I hope I don’t do that wrong,’” says Gilks. “He’s completely the other way, but he’s also very grounded.”
Trafford is hungry to achieve. An incredible save at Port Vale last August, to divert the ball round a post went a long way to recording the second of his 22 clean sheets in League One last season, one short of sharing the golden glove award with Ipswich’s Christian Walton. “He had one eye on that,” says Gilks. “He didn’t play the last game at Bristol Rovers away and he was saying: ‘Well, if I play …’ We had to say: ‘The playoffs are slightly more important than your clean-sheet record.’
“There were a lot of games where he made match-winning saves for us, and with the size and stature of him he could pull saves out from nowhere. He was a massive part of us getting to the playoffs last year.”
Gilks liaised with Xabier Mancisidor and Richard Wright, City’s first-team goalkeeper coaches, and all three would analyse clips with Trafford, with the youngster returning to City for the odd session a couple of times a month. Tim Dittmer, England’s head of coaching, was also tuned into Trafford’s progress.
“I remember Richard coming in here after the first four games and I sat in on the meeting and he kind of tore James’s game apart a little bit within certain aspects of the game,” Gilks says. “I said: ‘Bloody hell, we’ve just kept four clean sheets on the bounce and won all four, we’re absolutely delighted.’ But that’s their standards and that’s why they’re the best. The details do matter.”
Coleman remembers Trafford telling his teammates of his first-day nerves before his league debut at Wycombe but now the feelgood factor is very much in full flow and those who have aided his development believe he can thrive at the highest level.
“It is a different sport, the Premier League compared to League One, a totally different style of football. It is not as direct so you probably don’t have to come for as many crosses but you certainly have to better with your feet and I think that’s something he has developed,” Coleman says.
The sense is that a glittering past few weeks are only just the beginning of a fine career. “I truly believe he can be a top England goalkeeper, there’s no doubt about that,” Gilks says.
