Nigel Martyn’s 20-year professional career saw him play for club and country at the very highest level, as he turned out for Leeds United in the Champions League and for England in the European Championship.
Consistently one of the best goalkeepers in English football during the 1990s and early 2000s, Martyn took in stints at Crystal Palace, Leeds and Everton before hanging up his gloves in 2006.
But it could all have been very different for the Cornishman, who has one of the more unlikely football origin stories that you’ll ever hear.
Speaking to FourFourTwo, Martyn recalled how his big break came via the Bristol Rovers tea lady.
“A man called Gordon Rowland owned the carpet shop in St Blazey, where I was playing non-league football, and he knew Vi Harris, the tea lady at Bristol Rovers,” Martyn recalled. “He rang her and said, “We have a decent young goalie down here who perhaps you should be looking at.” Vi spoke to Gerry [Francis, Rovers boss at the time] and he replied, “Get him up and we’ll have a look, then.”
“My family had driven from Cornwall to watch the trial but nobody said anything to us in the clubhouse afterwards, so we were heading off en masse when Gerry came darting out, saying, “Where are you going?!” He asked what I was earning and I told him that I was on 95 quid a week at a plastics factory. He said, “Right, we’ll give you £105.” So, for £10 a week more, I chose to have a change of career.”
That decision to change career path would pay off for Martyn, who quickly established himself in the Rovers first-team before Crystal Palace made him the first £1million goalkeeper after their promotion to the top flight in 1989.
[It felt] very strange,” added Martyn as he reflected on his landmark transfer. “I don’t think I’d have packed in football, but I came close at Bristol. My wife and I could barely afford a flat, so I said to Rovers, “Look, if we can’t get ourselves sorted with our own place, I’m considering quitting.”
“The club handed me a new deal which gave me enough to just about get on the property ladder. We were in the new gaff for 13 weeks before they sold me! Coming from Cornwall, Bristol was a huge step, so moving to London was another. It may have been only Croydon, but even that seemed big.”
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