When Nigel Martyn came back: ‘That reception will stay with me forever’ - The Square Ball 11/2/22

NIGEL, GIVE US A GOAL

Written by: Rob Conlon

Leeds United is a club of what ifs. What if the West Stand didn’t burn down and we didn’t need to sell John Charles? What if Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer decided to have a night in? What if we didn’t always get shit refs? We’ll never know the answer to those, but we do have an answer to the question, what if we kept Nigel Martyn instead of giving him to Everton in 2003/04?

Maybe the better question is, what if Terry Venables wasn’t such a monumental tit? When Martyn was returning from the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Venables was still filming ‘Wish You Were Here?’ while he was meant to be taking over from David O’Leary as Leeds manager. Martyn was still worn out from the previous season’s exertions when he asked Venables if he could stay in Leeds, training at Thorp Arch, rather than joining the squad on a pre-season tour of Asia, where he had just been with England twelve days earlier. Venables took umbrage, even if he was too busy filming a TV show to take a training session himself, and left Leeds United’s greatest ever goalkeeper on the bench for the entirety of the 2002/03 campaign.

In an interview with our The Extra Ball podcast, Martyn talked about his frustration at being forced to play in the reserves, worrying his career was fizzling out, while his friend and protégé Paul Robinson was given responsibility of being undisputed number one that was too much, too young. Peter Reid brought hope of a fairer selection policy, promising the two goalkeepers that whoever performed better in pre-season ahead of 2003/04 would get first dibs. But Reid was forced to play Robinson regardless, the board hoping his younger age and some decent performances would put him in the shop window and command a higher fee. Instead, a move for Robinson failed to materialise, prompting Martyn to join Everton, where Richard Wright’s dodgy knees created a chance to end his career by playing regularly.

“I didn’t want to leave the club,” Martyn says. “If they’d have said, ‘You’re playing,’ I’d have been out there doing it. And it seemed to make sense to me to have sold Paul and kept me on those two or three seasons, which would have brought Scott [Carson] through. That seemed to make sense in my mind. But obviously they sell me first, then they sell Paul, and then they put Scott in probably before he was ready as well.”

Martyn returned to Elland Road for a game in April 2004 with a point to prove. Everton were hovering perilously close to the final relegation spot that was occupied by a Leeds side buoyed by three victories in four games. Eddie Gray was banking on Leeds winning their home fixtures to stay up, but he didn’t account for 37-year-old Martyn rolling back the years with a series of fine saves, earning his new employers a 1-1 draw.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted to play well in that game,” Martyn says. “Not against the supporters, not even against my teammates, just against the decision-making at that point really. I’d happily have been playing in that game but starting in the other goal, but such is life, such is football, I wasn’t able to do that. I just wanted to play well to show I could still do it. What David Moyes and Everton gave me was a bit of respect back in the game, because I felt that had been taken away. I’m not the sort of player that’s gobbing off all the time in the press and slagging off ex-teams and things like that. I’m just the guy that goes in, works hard and tries my best for whatever team I play in. I try to be just one of the team, not be the star of the team, just be happy in the pack.”

Headlines were focusing on the two prodigious teenagers who traded goals, James Milner and Wayne Rooney, but Martyn was the game’s decisive player, denying Milner, Mark Viduka and twice Alan Smith. It’s not the saves that stand out for Martyn, but a moment he shared with Smith.

“I was running out and cleared it, and Smithy’s chasing it down and he’s doing it in a typical Alan Smith way. He’s fully committed, he’s at full pelt. I kick the ball, and then the realisation is neither of us can stop at this point, and we just clattered into each other. He actually split my knee open, I needed stitches after the game. We both go down in a heap and the physio has come running on. I was a bit dazed but I was okay. I got up and Baz the physio said, ‘You’re alright, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ Smithy was down a little bit longer, and then he got up and said that he was okay to carry on.

“It was two good old fashioned pros that had both had a whack, and there’s no way either one of us were going to go off. We did that, then looked at each other and had a massive hug in the middle of the pitch. It was purely because it’s two players going for an honest ball and the consequence is you just banged into each other, but the respect was still there. It was a 1-1 draw, probably politically the best result for me!”

The result halted Leeds’ momentum and was followed by a spectacular collapse as defeats in their next three fixtures confirmed relegation, meaning Everton finished six points clear of the bottom three. With Martyn between the posts, they conceded 22 fewer goals than Leeds. During the draw with Everton, the Kop chanted, ‘Nigel, give us a goal,’ because it felt like the only way Leeds were going to score past him. The frustration wasn’t a joke, but we couldn’t get angry at the opposition goalkeeper when he was Nigel Martyn.

“I’m forever thankful for that [reception], that was one of those brilliant moments in sport,” he says. “It’s purely personal to me and you guys as supporters because it’s not to any other player. That reception will stay with me forever, it was incredible.

“The sad thing was I’m playing and staying up with an Everton team who, in all honesty, weren’t as good as the side that I’d left at Leeds, but Leeds go down. That was the only disappointing thing in the whole thing for me. I think had Leeds stayed up as well I’d have been happier with that situation.”