Ryan Thomas William Boot (born 9 November 1994) is an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

for club

Chesterfield Chesterfield may refer to: Places Canada * Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan * Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom * Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England ** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...

. He turned professional at

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

in April 2013 and played on

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

Worcester City Worcester City Football Club is an English football club based in Worcester, Worcestershire. The club play in the Midland Football League, the ninth tier of English football. Established in 1902, the club play at Claines Lane. Worcester City's ...

, Norton United, Newcastle Town, and

Macclesfield Town Macclesfield Town Football Club was an English professional association football, football club based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, that was liquidation, wound-up after a High Court of Justice, High Court ruling on 16 September 2020. Initially kno ...

. He signed with

Solihull Moors Solihull Moors Football Club is a professional football club based in Solihull, England. The club currently competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system, after achieving promotion from the National Leag ...

in July 2018 and played 225 league and cup games in his five seasons at the club, winning the club's Supporters' Player of the Season award for the 2020–21 campaign. He signed with Chesterfield in August 2023.

Club career

Port Vale

Boot attended the Academy at

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

before he was released in 2010, at which point he joined the

youth system. He signed a two-year professional

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...

with the club in April 2013. He had a trial at

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

in October 2013. He joined Conference North club

in November 2013 and played four games. He was recalled from his loan in March 2014 due to an injury to

Chris Neal Christopher Michael Neal (born 23 October 1985) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club AFC Fylde. He began his career at Preston North End, making his English Football League debut in February 2005, having p ...

. He played a number of

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

games in outfield positions for Vale in the 2014–15 pre-season as

Sam Johnson Samuel Robert Johnson (October 11, 1930May 27, 2020) was an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for in Congress from 1991 to 2019. He was a member of the Republican Party. In October and November 2015, he was the acting ...

and Chris Neal battled for the starting position in goal. He was loaned out to Norton United of the

Northern Premier League The Northern Premier League is an English football league that was founded in 1968. It has four divisions: the Premier Division (which stands at level 7 of the English football league system), Division One East, Division One West and Divisio ...

Division One South in August 2014. The following month he was loaned out to Newcastle Town, also in the Northern Premier League Division One South. He returned on loan to Worcester City in February 2015 until the end of the 2014–15 season. He signed a new two-year contract with Port Vale in June 2015. On 9 September 2016, he returned to Worcester City for a third loan spell. He played two games in the following four days, keeping

clean sheet In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

s on both occasions. Having kept six clean sheets in ten games for Worcester, and then went on to join

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

club

on loan on 11 November. He played two

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

games for the "Silkmen". He returned to Port Vale and made his

EFL League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

debut for the "Valiants" on 20 January, in a 2–2 draw with

Bury Bury may refer to: *The burial of human remains *-bury, a suffix in English placenames Places England * Bury, Cambridgeshire, a village * Bury, Greater Manchester, a town, historically in Lancashire ** Bury (UK Parliament constituency) (1832–19 ...

at Vale Park. He did not feature again in the 2016–17

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

campaign, but was offered a new one-year contract by

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Michael Brown in May 2017. On 29 August, he started his first game of the 2017–18 season, and kept a clean sheet in a 0–0 draw with Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park, before saving two penalties to help Vale win the resulting penalty shoot-out. Despite this, he did not get to feature in the first-team despite injuries to

Rob Lainton Robert Paul Lainton (born 12 October 1989) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club Wrexham. He turned professional at Bolton Wanderers in March 2011 but never played a first team game for the club. He joined Bu ...

Sam Hornby Samuel Connor Hornby (born 2 February 1995) is an English professional association football, footballer who plays as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper for club Colchester United F.C., Colchester United. He spent his youth with He ...

and emergency loan signing

Kelle Roos Kelle Willem Roos (born 31 May 1992) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club Aberdeen. Roos spent his youth with a wide variety of Dutch clubs, including: VV Toxandria, VV Trekvogels, Juliana '31, Quick 1888, PSV ...

, with new manager

Neil Aspin Neil Aspin (born 12 April 1965) is an English football manager and former player. A solid defender who could play at centre-back and right-back, he was a good marker and an adept tackler. He made his debut in the English Football League for L ...

choosing to draft in another emergency loan goalkeeper at the last minute,

Dimitar Evtimov Dimitar Ivanov Evtimov ( bg, Димитър Иванов Евтимов; born 7 September 1993) is a Bulgarian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for First League club CSKA Sofia. A former Bulgaria under-21 international, he w ...

, rather than allowing Boot to reach five appearances and thereby preventing the club from making any further emergency goalkeeping loan signings. Evtimov proved to be a disappointment in his one appearance however, and Boot went on to play the following game and keep a clean sheet in a 2–0 victory over

Oxford United Oxford United Football Club is a professional football club in the city of Oxford, England. The team plays in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The chairman is Grant Ferguson, the manager is Karl Robinson and th ...

on 3 November. Boot retained his first-team place following Lainton's return from injury, whilst Hornby was allowed to leave on loan. On 16 December, he impressed with what Aspin called a "a first-class display" in a 2–1 win at

Carlisle United Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Par ...

. On 24 March, he kept a clean sheet in a 0–0 draw at

Wycombe Wanderers Wycombe Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play their home ...

and his performance earned him a place on the EFL Team of the Week. However, on 2 April he dropped a routine catch to gift Crewe Alexandra the opening goal of a 2–2 draw before he was forced off with a foot injury; he apologised to supporters on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

after the game. Following an inconsistent season and the fact that both Lainton and Hornby were still under contract, Boot was released upon the expiry of his contract in May 2018.

Solihull Moors

On 3 July 2018, Boot was signed by former

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

international goalkeeper Tim Flowers, now manager of National League side

. He made his Moors debut on the opening day of the 2018–19 season, in a 2–1 win at

Eastleigh Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census. The town lies on the River Itchen, o ...

on 4 August, and his performance earned him a place in the National League Team of the Weekend. He signed a contract extension in February 2019 after Flowers felt that Boot had proven himself a more than worthy successor to Max O'Leary. He helped the Moors to a second-place finish in the league, before they were beaten by

AFC Fylde AFC Fylde is a professional football club based in Wesham in the Borough of Fylde, Lancashire, England. They are currently members of the and play at Mill Farm. Originally known as Kirkham & Wesham following a merger of Kirkham Town and Wes ...

in the play-offs. He made 44 appearances in the 2019–20 season, which was permanently suspended on 26 March due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in England The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England are NHS England and Public ...

, with Solihull in eighth-place. He kept 15 clean sheets in the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

campaign, playing every minute of the club's games, and was voted as Supporters' Player of the Season. Despite this, he was released by the club upon the expiry of his contract. However, the club reversed their decision and re-signed Boot in July. After keeping five clean sheets in six matches, Boot was awarded the National League Player of the Month award for October 2021 with manager

Neal Ardley Neal Christopher Ardley (born 1 September 1972) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a right midfielder. He is currently the manager of Solihull Moors. Ardley was capped at Under-21 level by England. Ar ...

getting the league's Manager of the Month award. He made 39 league appearances in the 2021–22 campaign, helping Solihull to qualify for the play-offs with a third-place finish. Solihull lost to Grimsby Town in the

play-off final The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

, with Joe McDonnell keeping goal for the Moors as Boot was ruled out with injury. Boot recovered from his injury at the start of the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season, but struggled to make his way back into the starting eleven due to the good form of highly rated

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

loanee goalkeeper Louie Moulden. He was one of four players to be offered a new contract at the end of the season. He declined the terms and left the club upon the expiry of his contract.

Chesterfield

Boot joined

on trial in July 2023. He signed a one-year deal on 3 August, with the expectation to compete with Harry Tyrer for a first-team place.

International career

Boot was called up to the England C team for a friendly against Wales C in March 2022.

Style of play

Boot is a

who has been praised for his kicking ability by Port Vale manager Neil Aspin and teammate Tom Pope.

Career statistics

Honours

Individual *

Supporters' Player of the Season:

Player of the Month:

October 2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boot, Ryan 1994 births Living people People from Rocester Footballers from Staffordshire English men's footballers England men's semi-pro international footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Port Vale F.C. players Worcester City F.C. players Norton United F.C. players Newcastle Town F.C. players Macclesfield Town F.C. players Solihull Moors F.C. players Chesterfield F.C. players English Football League players National League (English football) players Northern Premier League players