Former England goalkeeper Tim Flowers has urged Albion captain Scott Carson not to give up hope of gatecrashing Fabio Capello’s World Cup party this summer.

The Baggies No 1 has not played for his country since winning his third cap in November 2008 as a substitute against Germany in Berlin, where a mix-up with John Terry led to conceding a soft goal.

That came almost a year after his most infamous international incident, spilling Niko Kranjcar’s speculative shot at Wembley for one of the goals that saw England eliminated from Euro 2008.

But the 24-year-old has reinvented himself at the Hawthorns since joining that summer, becoming the Baggies’ trusted custodian and skipper when Jonathan Greening left for Fulham last August.

And Carson has popped up on the England radar as recently as last October, when Capello sounded out his availability for a World Cup qualifying match only for the player to be carrying an ankle injury.

Manchester United’s Ben Foster has filled the breach since but is not playing for his club, while the likes of Robert Green, Joe Hart and former first-choice David James continue to jostle for position.

All leaves the goalkeeping spots on the plane to South Africa still up in the air months before the tournament begins and Flowers, who went to the World Cup in 1998, believes it’s still up for grabs.

He said: “Whoever has been in and around the squad, as Scott has, will consider themselves in with a shout. You have got to think that way.

“Every time I go to a game where an English goalkeeper is between the sticks, there is usually an England scout in the stands.

“It appears that the national coach is keeping an open mind on that position and halfway through a season you never know what is going to happen.

“Injuries, loss of form, all sorts of different factors come into the equation.”

Carson’s probable main disadvantage is Albion’s standing in the second-tier of English football, while his main rivals are Premier League goalkeepers.

But the Baggies skipper has made over 100 appearances in the top-flight over the course of his career, and was for a time England’s most capped player at under-21 level.

Flowers believes that Carson has already gone a long way to proving his worth.

The 43-year-old said: “People know what Scott can do, it’s not like he is a secret, he is someone that everybody recognises.

“He may not be playing in the Premier League but he is captain at a big Championship club, Albion are fancied to come back up and he is playing under pressure every week.”

By Craig Birch