Oggy, that famous FA Cup win, secrets of Anfield’s Boot Room and taking the wicket of legend Viv Richards...with a no-ball!
ASK Steve Ogrizovic for his favourite sporting memory and you may have to wait a while for his answer...
He has plenty to choose from.
There was playing under Bob Paisley at Liverpool, winning the FA Cup with Coventry – and clean bowling a cricketing legend.
For a goalkeeper, Ogrizovic made a pretty good fast bowler.
Good enough to send the great Viv Richards’ stump flying when playing for Shropshire against Somerset in cricket’s NatWest Trophy in June 1983.
“At the time, Viv was probably the best batsman in the world,” said Ogrizovic.
“I knew I’d bowled a good one at him. It swung in and sent his leg stump cartwheeling out of the ground.”
But the joy of Ogrizovic and his team-mates was shortlived.
The umpire signalled a no-ball.
“Viv said to me afterwards, ‘I didn’t change my shot (after he heard the no-ball call)’,” said Ogrizovic. “And the funny thing is, it probably gets talked about more because it didn’t count.
“I think that made him concentrate harder as well. He had only eight or nine at the time and he went on to get 70-odd.”
Ogrizovic, whose dismissals of internationals Chris Broad, Martyn Moxon and Alvin Kallicharran stayed in the scorebooks, is best known as ‘Mr Coventry City’.
For 16 years, he was their goalkeeper and says he owes his career to the lessons he learned from Liverpool’s Boot Room.
Ogrizovic made only 18 appearances for Chesterfield before being sold to Liverpool, at the time the best side in Europe.
“It was all a bit of a whirlwind,” said Ogrizovic, who retired last year after 19 years as Coventry’s goalkeeping coach.
“I went from playing part-time in the police in March, 1977 to playing full-time with Chesterfield in July, then I made my first-team debut in August and was on my way to Liverpool in November to be No.2 behind Ray Clemence.
“I didn’t know what hit me. Liverpool had world-class players, but there were no ‘Billy Big Times’. The Boot Room kept them grounded. If they won a league or cup, the message was, ‘That’s what you were expected to do. Now go out and do it again’.
“I’ve known great players who have underachieved. At Liverpool, nobody underachieved.” Because he was understudy to Clemence, Ogrizovic made only four appearances for Liverpool, but described the England stopper as “a great tutor”.
Master and apprentice were at opposite ends of the pitch in the 1987 FA Cup Final. Clemence played for Spurs, Ogrizovic for Coventry. “Ray said afterwards he was obviously very disappointed to lose, but if losing meant that I got a winner’s medal, that was something,” remembered Oggy, of his side’s 3-2 win in extra time.
The Sky Blues forced extra time with what Ogrizovic calls “one of the great FA Cup Final goals” – a flying header from Keith Houchen – and won the match after Lloyd McGrath’s cross struck Gary Mabbutt’s knee and looped in the net.
“That was no freak result,” said Ogrizovic. “We didn’t just match them, we were better than them. I think every single member of that team was underrated. We were better than people realised at the time.”
Then there was the team’s spirit.
“It was such a good environment to play football,” added Ogrizovic.
“John Sillett and George Curtis built that. “We didn’t have as many internationals as Spurs, but we had that spirit and we had round pegs in round holes. Everyone knew their job.”