With the team not conceding a goal in the 2-0 victory
away against Hull City, it was the 209th time Cech had played
in a shut-out performance, beating the 208 clean sheets recorded by Peter Bonetti in his long and distinguished Chelsea career
that spanned 1959 to 1979.
On breaking the record, Cech who joined Chelsea in
2004 and made his 459th appearance today said:
'It is a great personal achievement, a great milestone
that gives you motivation and satisfaction, but I believe this number can
grow and hopefully it will help us win another trophy.
'The most important thing today was to get the three
points but I was thinking in the second half I still have the clean sheet and
in the end we had both the points and the clean sheet.
'I am still young, I can keep playing and I hope I
will so I can add some more clean sheets and we will see where the final number
will stop.
'The pleasing thing is we won a lot of trophies since
I started playing for the club and all those clean sheets helped to achieve
that.'
It was also the 31-year-old's 150th clean sheet in the
Premier League measured by their criteria*. The all-time record in that
competition is 169 by David James and Jose Mourinho is backing his keeper to beat that.
'Petr is almost 10 years playing at the top and there
has been clean sheet after clean sheet,' said the Chelsea manager.
'At this moment he beats the record of Mr Bonetti but
I think probably next year he will beat the record of the Premier League.
'He becomes a historic figure in the Premier League
because all his career has been here since 2004. Also playing with Chelsea he
has a lot of appearances and the best stage for a goalkeeper I think is between
30 and 35.'
Bonetti, who also worked as a goalkeeper coach at
Chelsea during the 1980s and currently is a matchday host in one of the
hospitality areas at Stamford Bridge, reacted to Cech's achievement with praise
for his successor.
'Petr Cech has been brilliant to do what he's done, he's
one of the best goalkeepers I've seen. His record speaks for itself.
'I admire him greatly, he's been incredible, and still
has a long time to go. He is relatively young and could still go on to break
more and more records.
'Clean sheets were a little more rare back in my day
but that takes nothing away from him, he's been brilliant. He's a fantastic
person. When I first met him he was a real gentleman. I went to wish him well
when he first joined and it was like we knew each other from years back.
Whenever I see him he is always lovely, very courteous and always eager to say
hello. He's a
very genuine person.'
Cech recently said he would invite Bonetti for a drink
when the record changed hands and it is an invitation that will be accepted.
'I'm looking forward to him buying that drink when we
cross paths, maybe at the end of the season,' said Bonetti. 'I'm looking
forward to getting that cup of tea once there's no work to worry about!'
Frank Lampard, who set a new goalscoring record for Chelsea last
season and has shared so much success with Cech and played in so many of those
clean-sheet games, joined in the plaudits for his colleague.
'Pete has been one of the best goalkeepers for many,
many years,' said the midfielder.
'He's unbelievable, particularly in the year we won
the Champions League, looking back on the final and the games towards the final
and how much he saved us. I don't think he got enough recognition for it on a
world scale.
'People talk about other goalies in Spain and Italy, but nobody was in Pete's class that year. At Chelsea obviously people recognise him. One of the downsides of being as consistent as him is maybe people do get used to you being that good. We're very lucky to have him.'
'People talk about other goalies in Spain and Italy, but nobody was in Pete's class that year. At Chelsea obviously people recognise him. One of the downsides of being as consistent as him is maybe people do get used to you being that good. We're very lucky to have him.'
Everyone at Chelsea Football Club congratulates Petr
on his huge achievement.
*Chelsea FC awards a clean sheet to the starting goalkeeper when the team does not concede in the complete match. In the event of an outfield player or (since 1992) a substitute keeper replacing an injured or sent-off keeper then they share the clean sheet. Some other organisations' records require the keeper to complete the match before he is given a clean sheet.
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