Steve Ogrizovic
Encyclopedia
Steven "Oggy" Ogrizovic (from Serbian
: Огризовић, Ogrizović) (born September 12, 1957 in Mansfield
, Nottinghamshire
) is a former English
goalkeeper who achieved fame during 16 years at Coventry City
(1984 to 2000). He holds the record at Coventry for the most appearances as a player at 601 in all competitions (504 in the league) and he played in the winning FA Cup
team of 1987.
Steve Ogrizovic served both as a Police Cadet and as a Police Officer at Mansfield Police Station in Nottinghamshire prior to signing as a professional footballer.
before moving to Liverpool
and then Shrewsbury Town
before joining Coventry for £72,500 in 1984. He was also selected to play for the Football League
vs The Rest Of The World at Wembley in 1987.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ogrizovic was generally considered to be the best goalkeeper never to have won a full England
cap. Although frequently considered for selection during this period by a number of England managers including Bobby Robson
and Graham Taylor, he was never selected for the full squad. Pundits agree that this was not due to his lack of ability, more because he was representing a relatively unfashionable side at club level.
He was still Coventry's first choice goalkeeper in the 1997–98
season, when at the age of 40 he was the oldest player to play a Premier League game that season. In order to gain his final playing contract Ogrizovic had to give up smoking as one of the conditions. He was the club's second choice goalkeeper for the next two seasons following the arrival of Magnus Hedman
, and finally retired at the end of the 1999–2000 season
.
In 16 seasons at Coventry, he collected an FA Cup winner's medal, but never played in European competition (Coventry were unable to qualify for the European Cup Winners' Cup due to the ban on English teams in European competition following the Heysel Disaster of 1985) and the highest position Coventry attained in this period was seventh in the 1988–89
First Division. On no less than seven times in Ogrizovic's time at the club, they came close to relegation from the top flight. They were finally relegated from the Premier League one season after his retirement.
Ogrizovic is also one of the very few goalkeepers to have scored from open play, the goal coming in 2–2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday
in the Football League First Division
on October 12, 1986. It was the only goal he ever scored in a competitive game. He is also one out of four players to have played top-flight football in four different decades along with Peter Shilton
, John Lukic
and Sir Stanley Matthews
and holds the club record of 209 consecutive League appearances for a Coventry City player, from August 1984 to September 1989. Overall, he made 604 professional league appearances in a playing career spanning 23 years from 1977 to 2000. His final appearance for Coventry came on 6 May 2000 against Sheffield Wednesday.
, reaching minor counties level as a medium-fast bowler. He played three List A matches for Shropshire
in the NatWest Trophy, and a further game for Minor Counties in the Benson & Hedges Cup
. Among his five wickets at this level were three Test
players: Chris Broad
, Martyn Moxon
and Alvin Kallicharran
.
era, Ogrizovic was the manager of the Coventry City Reserve Team and he continued to fulfil this role under Chris Coleman
when matches were arranged. He was also caretaker manager in conjunction with Trevor Peake
at the end of the 2001–02 season
, between Roland Nilsson
's departure and Gary McAllister
's appointment. His current role is the Coventry City Goalkeeping Coach.
and an online petition was set up to campaign to get him released. This was proved to be false when the Coventry Evening Telegraph
interviewed him at Coventry City's training ground at Ryton-on-Dunsmore
.
Coventry City:
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
: Огризовић, Ogrizović) (born September 12, 1957 in Mansfield
Mansfield
Mansfield is a town in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the main town in the Mansfield local government district. Mansfield is a part of the Mansfield Urban Area....
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
) is a former English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
goalkeeper who achieved fame during 16 years at Coventry City
Coventry City F.C.
Coventry City Football Club, otherwise known as the Sky Blues owing to the traditional colour of their strip, are a professional English Football league club based in Coventry...
(1984 to 2000). He holds the record at Coventry for the most appearances as a player at 601 in all competitions (504 in the league) and he played in the winning FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
team of 1987.
Steve Ogrizovic served both as a Police Cadet and as a Police Officer at Mansfield Police Station in Nottinghamshire prior to signing as a professional footballer.
Playing career
He started his professional career at ChesterfieldChesterfield F.C.
Chesterfield Football Club is an English football club based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. The club currently plays in Football League One, the third tier of English football. Despite being the fourth oldest Football League club in England, they have spent most of their existence in the lower...
before moving to Liverpool
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
and then Shrewsbury Town
Shrewsbury Town F.C.
Shrewsbury Town Football Club is an English Association football club based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, who play in League Two, the fourth tier of English football. The club was formed in 1886 and has played in all the bottom three divisions in various guises since being elected into the Football...
before joining Coventry for £72,500 in 1984. He was also selected to play for the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
vs The Rest Of The World at Wembley in 1987.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ogrizovic was generally considered to be the best goalkeeper never to have won a full England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
cap. Although frequently considered for selection during this period by a number of England managers including Bobby Robson
Bobby Robson
Sir Robert William "Bobby" Robson, CBE was an English footballer and manager, who coached seven European clubs and the England national team during his career....
and Graham Taylor, he was never selected for the full squad. Pundits agree that this was not due to his lack of ability, more because he was representing a relatively unfashionable side at club level.
He was still Coventry's first choice goalkeeper in the 1997–98
1997-98 in English football
The 1997-1998 season was the 118th season of competitive football in England.-Premier League:Arsenal overhauled Manchester United's lead during the final weeks of the season to win the Premiership title...
season, when at the age of 40 he was the oldest player to play a Premier League game that season. In order to gain his final playing contract Ogrizovic had to give up smoking as one of the conditions. He was the club's second choice goalkeeper for the next two seasons following the arrival of Magnus Hedman
Magnus Hedman
Magnus Carl Hedman is a Swedish former football goalkeeper. He played 58 matches for the Sweden national football team, and represented his country at two FIFA World Cup and two European Championship tournaments....
, and finally retired at the end of the 1999–2000 season
1999-2000 in English football
-Premier League:Manchester United were crowned FA Premier League champions with an 18-point margin over runners-up Arsenal and with just 3 league defeats all season. This was despite their failure to retain the European Cup and withdrawal from the FA Cup in order to compete in the FIFA Club World...
.
In 16 seasons at Coventry, he collected an FA Cup winner's medal, but never played in European competition (Coventry were unable to qualify for the European Cup Winners' Cup due to the ban on English teams in European competition following the Heysel Disaster of 1985) and the highest position Coventry attained in this period was seventh in the 1988–89
1988-89 in English football
The 1988–89 season was the 109th season of competitive football in England.-Hillsborough disaster:On 15 April, a crowd crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough killed 94 people and injured more than 300. A 95th Liverpool supporter died in hospital...
First Division. On no less than seven times in Ogrizovic's time at the club, they came close to relegation from the top flight. They were finally relegated from the Premier League one season after his retirement.
Ogrizovic is also one of the very few goalkeepers to have scored from open play, the goal coming in 2–2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club are a football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, who are currently competing in the Football League One in the 2011-12 season, in England. Sheffield Wednesday are one of the oldest professional clubs in the world and the fourth oldest in the...
in the Football League First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
on October 12, 1986. It was the only goal he ever scored in a competitive game. He is also one out of four players to have played top-flight football in four different decades along with Peter Shilton
Peter Shilton
Peter Leslie Shilton OBE is a former English footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He currently holds the record for playing more games for England than anyone else, earning 125 caps....
, John Lukic
John Lukic
Jovan "John" Lukic is an English former football goalkeeper who was a member of Football League championship sides with two different clubs and played at the highest level of English football in four separate decades.-Childhood and early life:Lukic was born in Chesterfield to Yugoslavian parents;...
and Sir Stanley Matthews
Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE was an English footballer. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the English game, he is the only player to have been knighted while still playing, as well as being the first winner of both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers'...
and holds the club record of 209 consecutive League appearances for a Coventry City player, from August 1984 to September 1989. Overall, he made 604 professional league appearances in a playing career spanning 23 years from 1977 to 2000. His final appearance for Coventry came on 6 May 2000 against Sheffield Wednesday.
Cricket career
Ogrizovic was also a competent cricketerCricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....
, reaching minor counties level as a medium-fast bowler. He played three List A matches for Shropshire
Shropshire County Cricket Club
Shropshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Shropshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...
in the NatWest Trophy, and a further game for Minor Counties in the Benson & Hedges Cup
Benson & Hedges Cup
The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals....
. Among his five wickets at this level were three Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
players: Chris Broad
Chris Broad
Brian Christopher Broad, usually known as Chris Broad is a former England Test cricketer and current Test official. An opening batsman, Broad had a 25-match long international Test career during which he hit six centuries, together with 34 One Day International matches with a respectable over 40...
, Martyn Moxon
Martyn Moxon
Martyn Douglas Moxon is a former English cricketer, who played ten Tests and eight One Day Internationals for England and appeared for Yorkshire for 17 seasons from 1981 to 1997...
and Alvin Kallicharran
Alvin Kallicharran
Alvin Isaac Kallicharran is a former West Indian batsman of Indo-Guyanese ethnicity who played from 1972 to 1981. His elegant, watchful batting style produced some substantial innings for a West Indian team very much in its formative years in the seventies...
.
Management career
During the Iain DowieIain Dowie
Iain Dowie is a former footballer and manager. He is currently without a club. He has previously managed Hull City and Queens Park Rangers and was assistant manager of Newcastle United...
era, Ogrizovic was the manager of the Coventry City Reserve Team and he continued to fulfil this role under Chris Coleman
Chris Coleman (footballer)
Christopher "Chris" Coleman is a Welsh football manager and former player. He is currently the manager of Greek Side Larissa....
when matches were arranged. He was also caretaker manager in conjunction with Trevor Peake
Trevor Peake
Trevor Peake is a retired English footballer. He was a member of Coventry City's FA Cup winning team in 1987 and is current assistant academy director of Leicester City.-Coaching career:...
at the end of the 2001–02 season
2001-02 in English football
The 2001-02 season was the 122nd season of competitive football in England.-Arsenal cruise to title glory:In what had earlier been one of the most closely fought Premiership title races for years, Arsenal won the championship by seven points. Their crown was won in the penultimate game of the...
, between Roland Nilsson
Roland Nilsson
Roland Nilsson is a Swedish football manager and the current manager of FC Copenhagen. As a player, Nilsson played 116 games for Sweden, making him second only to Thomas Ravelli in international appearances for Sweden...
's departure and Gary McAllister
Gary McAllister
Gary McAllister MBE is a Scottish former professional footballer.McAllister played primarily as a midfielder, in a successful career spanning over nineteen years. He started his career at local side Motherwell before moving south of the border to Leicester City at the age of 20...
's appointment. His current role is the Coventry City Goalkeeping Coach.
Kidnapping Hoax
In 2003 Ogrizovic was the subject of a hoax that said that he had been kidnapped in KazakhstanKazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
and an online petition was set up to campaign to get him released. This was proved to be false when the Coventry Evening Telegraph
Coventry Evening Telegraph
The Coventry Telegraph is a local English tabloid newspaper. Originally called The Midland Daily Telegraph, it was founded in 1891 by William Isaac Iliffe as Coventry's first daily newspaper, a four-page broadsheet newspaper originally sold for a half penny...
interviewed him at Coventry City's training ground at Ryton-on-Dunsmore
Ryton-on-Dunsmore
Ryton-on-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, and is south-east of Coventry, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 1,672 in the parish. The A45 dual carriageway passes through the village....
.
Honours
Liverpool:- European Super CupEuropean Super CupThe UEFA Super Cup is an annual football game between the reigning champions of the two cup competitions organized by UEFA: the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League...
: 1977 - European CupUEFA Champions LeagueThe UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
: 1978, 1981 - Charity Shield: 1979, 1980
Coventry City:
- FA CupFA CupThe Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
: 1987