Erling Haaland may have turned the Golden Boot into a one-Norse race, but his five goals for Manchester City in a Champions League tie was more old hat than Charlie Chaplin's bowler.
Seven decades before Haaland's bunch of fives against Red Bull Leipzig, Ray Crawford became the first player to achieve the feat for an English club in the European Cup. Back in 1962, when Sir Alf Ramsey had led Ipswich Town to the title, the Tractor Boys announced themselves in Europe with a 10-0 win against Maltese fall-guys Floriana in the preliminary round.
Crawford, now 86, scored five of them as Ipswich completed a 14-1 stroll on aggregate, and Haaland's rampage against Leipzig jogged his memory about the night he became first among equals.
“We had won 4-1 away in Malta in the first leg, so we were expected to win comfortably,” said Crawford, who scored more than 300 goals in club football, mainly for home-town club Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves and Colchester. “But the goals just kept coming at Portman Road - I got five but the whole forward line scored that night. We filled our boots.
“None of my goals was particularly memorable – I think there were a couple of headers and tap-ins – but they all count, and when they had finished counting, we had scored 10. Our reward was to play Inter Milan in the next round, and that was a step up in class. We beat them at home but went out 4-2 on aggregate, and Milan went on to win the European Cup.”
Haaland's trashing of the record books has made City favourites to win the Champions League this season, and Crawford acknowledged: “He's got good players all around him, but you've still got to hit the target. What I like about him is that he's not just a goalscorer – he works hard for the team, and his link-up play is top-class.
“Jimmy Greaves was the greatest goalscorer I've ever seen, the ultimate finisher because he could make something out of nothing, but Haaland is the complete centre-forward. I smiled when he scored five for Manchester City because it's not a common feat and I thought, 'Welcome to the club.'
“There are not many of us who have done it, although his goals came in a tie which was balanced at 1-1 after the first leg. As I said, we were expected to beat Floriana.”
Haaland joins Lionel Messi (for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen in 2012) and Luiz Adriano (for Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov nine years ago) as the only players to score five in a Champions League match.
Before the European Cup was rebranded 31 years ago, Peter Osgood had also bagged five in Chelsea's record 13-0 rout of Luxembourg no-hopers Jeunesse Hautcharage in 1971.
But Crawford, who won two England caps and scored in a 3-1 win against Austria in 1962, will always be our high-five pioneer in Europe – even if they are not his most famous goals. As a 35-year-old raging against the fading light of youth, he famously scored twice as fourth-tier Colchester knocked Don Revie's Leeds out of the FA Cup fifth round 3-2 in 1971 at Layer Road.
The spotlight will never grow dim on non-League Hereford, Sutton, Altrincham and Lincoln's giantkilling feats, nor on Wrexham bridging a 91-place gap to Arsenal in 1992, but Crawford and Colchester's heroic toppling of a colossus is perpetually, and criminally, overlooked.
Crawford even scored one of his goals lying down, hooking the ball past Gary Spake when flat-out. By any yardstick, it was a thunderous upset.
“I am biased, of course, but I've always thought Colchester knocking out Leeds was the greatest FA Cup shock of all,” said Crawford. "I can understand why most people go for the Hereford one against Newcastle, but with respect I thought it was a better achievement for a Fourth Division club to beat Leeds, who were one of the most powerful teams in Europe at the time.
“We were 3-0 up after an hour and playing out of our skins so it was no fluke, but then our legs turned to stone. We had been christened 'Dads Army' because we had a lot of, shall we say, experienced players and we were running on empty for the last 20 minutes.
“In the end we had to rely on our goalkeeper, Graham Smith, to make a brilliant save and deny Leeds a replay, where we would surely have gone out. He got a nice move to Wes Bromwich Albion on the back of it.
“That Leeds team was top of the League, they had 10 internationals and I remember Billy Bremner, the Leeds captain – who missed the game – never let his team-mates forget it. In any dressing room arguments, he would always pipe up, 'Excuse me, lads, but I didn't get beat at Colchester with you lot.'
“For me, that was the bigger than any other shock because we took down a real giant.”
