Yves Ma-Kalambay on Hearts, Drogba & Hibs' goalkeeping curse

Yves Ma-Kalambay made 57 appearances for Hibs in three seasons

In three years as a Hibernian goalkeeper, Yves Ma-Kalambay became an Edinburgh derby hero, an Olympian, and the much-lampooned source of one of Scottish football's most bizarre blunders.

The towering Belgian won two derbies at Tynecastle - where Hibs have only beaten Hearts twice in the last six years - but rightly or wrongly, his name is forever associated with slapstick goalkeeping.

Now 33 and playing for Wycombe Wanderers in England's League One, Ma-Kalambay works as a personal trainer and can boast television presenter Melanie Sykes as one of his clients.

Here, he tells BBC Scotland about his friendship with Didier Drogba, deliberately lashing the ball off an opponent who had touched his "privates", and accepting an invitation to fight manager John Hughes.

Eating Nando's with Drogba

A teenage Ma-Kalambay joined Chelsea in 2003, just as Roman Abramovich pumped in his millions and hired Jose Mourinho.

Ma-Kalambay remembers eating fast food with Andriy Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian forward, on a trip to Miami, and training with Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech. But it was to talismanic striker Didier Drogba that he grew closest, with the African French-speakers bonding to such an extent that the Ivorian is godfather to Ma-Kalambay's son.

"We used to go to his house and watch his clips. He would ask me, 'as a goalkeeper, do you think I should take a touch there? Should I have given the keeper the eyes?'" Ma-Kalambay says. "That gave me a lot of confidence, to have him trust me. The next time, if he gave the goalkeeper the eyes, he'd be like, 'hey, Yves, you were right'.

"Then, he would ask me, 'do you mind if we do some more free-kicks after training? Okay, I'll make you a bet, how many do you think you are going to save? If you win, I'll take you to Nando's'.

"We'd go to his house and eat African food, we'd go shopping together, we went on holiday together, and then I went to his wedding in 2011. We became family."

'A graveyard for Hibs goalkeepers'

Ma-Kalambay arrived in Scotland in 2007, a lithe, gigantic presence whose sprawling hands dwarfed the ball.

To Hibs fans weary of goalkeepers making horrendous mistakes in Edinburgh derbies - Simon Brown, Zbigniew Malkowski, Andy McNeil were all guilty of head-wrecking blunders - it looked hugely promising.

"I did not know how bad the reputation of Hibs goalkeepers was," Ma-Kalambay says. "People would say to me, 'Please don't let the ball through your legs in the derby. Don't make any mistakes against Hearts, and everyone will love you, we don't care about the rest'. I had Hearts fans at the airport telling me, 'You're going to get buried at Tynecastle, it's a graveyard for Hibs goalkeepers, you're going to concede five goals, blah blah blah'."

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Of course, Ma-Kalambay's first game was at Tynecastle. Hearts had an attempt at goal straight from kick-off, presumably hoping to fray the nerves of the debutant, but Ma-Kalambay kept a clean sheet and Hibs began the season with a cherished 1-0 derby win.

"It was scary because the fans were there early, they were really angry when we came off the bus, very aggressive. I had to get escorted in by security - that's when I realised, okay, it's not really a joke, they really don't want us to win," he says. "But I loved playing at Tynecastle. I played three or four games and conceded only one or two goals. My first and last derbies were 1-0 wins there."

'He was touching my privates'

Ma-Kalambay did make mistakes. He did exasperate. He tried to command and sweep and gallop out to help his defenders and he didn't always get it right. At one point, he had the whole of Tynecastle singing his name in a mass wind-up attempt but he insists that only made him "buzzing".

The most bizarre and infuriating howler came at Pittodrie in 2009. Ma-Kalambay went to punt the ball downfield. Instead, he walloped it into Lee Miller. The ball rebounded off the back of the Aberdeen striker, trundled 20 yards behind him and into the net. It was a cataclysmic error - except it wasn't an accident.

"Miller played really well - the whole game he was in my head, on my toes, touching my privates, he was really on my mind. Every kick he was in front of me and I lost it," Ma-Kalambay says. "I meant to kick it on his head or on his body, but I was a bit too accurate and it went in. It was not a miskick. It was the only time in my career where the striker managed to get in my head so badly.

"Miller was a good finisher but he was a pest, very busy, very annoying. I'm not ashamed to talk about it - he got in my head, I lost it, and my reaction was to kick the ball at him. It was a moment of madness."

'The Hibs goalkeeping curse will never go away'

Ma-Kalambay and Hibs manager John Hughes had a tempestuous relationship

Ma-Kalambay is an unflinching character. He was deemed good enough to make the Belgian Olympics squad in 2008 and once accepted an invitation to fight a snarling Hughes over a disputed goal in training. A team-mate stepped in to stop the proposed bout going ahead.

"Hughes liked the fact I was ready to go head-to-head with him. He respected that," the goalkeeper says.

Ma-Kalambay doesn't shirk his mistakes, but he does feel they were given exaggerated and unfair prominence because of the deeds of those who had gone before.

"At Hibs, you could win 4-1, concede one goal from a mistake, and afterwards it's all about the goalkeeping curse," he says. "I do not think the curse will go away as long as the derby is there because the Hearts fans are feeding on that. That's why my biggest achievement in Scottish football was never making a mistake against Hearts.

"Still today, I have the DVDs at home and I watch them. Those are priceless memories; unbelievable moments. Keeping a clean sheet against Hearts on your first league game? It doesn't get better than that."