361: Mark Crossley, Nottingham Forest, Merlin’s Premier League 97 Official Sticker Collection

Well we did warn you. Richard Allinson takes us back to the 1991 FA Cup final and another 90s goalkeeping hero. It’s hard not to have time for Mark Crossley and, as a History teacher, I’ll always have time for someone who goes out of his way to look like a medieval king. Over to Rich.

Despite Mark Crossley’s best efforts I still got laughed at as we drove away from Wembley after the 1991 FA Cup final.

You see I went to the match but supported neither Spurs nor Forest. However prior to the kick off I had decided to buy (asked/told my Dad to buy me) a Forest scarf from a vendor outside the ground. This was mainly on account of them having run out of Tottenham ones. In the time honoured tradition the scarf was hanging out of the back window of the car as we set off on the long journey back up to Yorkshire and on noticing this, and still revelling in their 2-1 win, the Spurs fans started mocking. I couldn’t wind the window down to tell them I was actually supporting Spurs because a) it would have made no sense and b) the scarf would have fallen out the window thus exacerbating the whole situation.

I say despite Mark Crossley’s best efforts because during the match he became only the second goalkeeper in cup final history to save a penalty after he guessed right to keep out Gary Lineker’s spot kick. The game is more remembered for Paul Gascoigne’s big boot to Garry Parker’s rib cage and his subsequent complete knee twatter of a challenge on Gary Charles but Crossley’s contribution to FA Cup folklore should be remembered. As an aside what is also often forgotten about this match, but is worth a mention, is that Stuart Pearce absolutely f***ing leathered the resulting free kick into the back of the net to give Forest the lead.

Ordinarily at this point we’d go on a whistle stop tour of Mark Crossley’s career and wind up with some pithy summary at the end in a vain attempt to stay within the word limit because I’ve spent too long talking about myself. The pithiness will remain, however Crossley’s career has too many interesting little bits littered throughout it to warrant just an overview. First of all, according to my research, he only started goalkeeping at the age of 15 after the ‘keeper in his youth team got injured. He randomly had a spell on loan at Manchester United from Nottingham Forest in 1990 without playing. However, this was only five years after he first took up goalkeeping so we’ll let him off.

Then, not content with ballsing up Gary Lineker’s cup final, he also has the distinction of being the only goalkeeper to keep out Matt Le Tissier from 12 yards in 48 attempts. And it wasn’t just these two penalty saves that make him stand out. In 2002 it was estimated that Crossley had saved 57% of the penalties he’d faced. The average for lesser mortals is 15-20%. On the exceptional website playwithalegend.com you can actually get a game with Big Norm. Baggsy not taking the bloody penalties.

As we established in a previous blog post about outfield player David Burrows, goalkeepers that score goals are an exceptional bunch of men. Crossley introduced himself to this exclusive club when he nodded home whilst on loan at Sheffield Wednesday in 2006. It was, in his own words, a “cracking finish.” On the opposite side of the goal scoring coin he also holds the unfortunate distinction of being the first player to score an own goal in the Premier League. Bizarrely I can’t find any footage of this though so I’m sure the dubious goals panel messed it up, that it wasn’t Mark’s fault in any way, shape or form and it actually came off Ian Woan or something. The next little story is basically unrelated to his actual career but he recently showed that he hadn’t lost any of his reflexes. When undertaking the bog roll challenge during Coronavirus lockdown, and having lost control of the Andrex doing kick-ups, he flung himself full length across his garden to palm the loo roll out into the flower bed shouting “KEEPER'S!” Absolute respect.

Anyway despite all of the above curiosities it has to be said that Mark Crossley really was a good goalkeeper, especially in the 303 games and 11 years he spent in Nottingham. He made himself a club legend with Forest and produced some excellent and heroic performances in his time there. His career became a little bit nomadic after leaving Forest but he still had significant spells at Middlesbrough, Fulham and Oldham and his ability was enough to earn him eight international caps for Wales. Not a huge amount but when you consider that he was around at the same time as Neville Southall and Paul Jones getting even one cap would have been impressive.

It isn’t just on the pitch where Crossley excels. He is also a very funny man. His regular appearances on the Undr The Cosh podcast are absolutely priceless, especially the stories about his time under Brian Clough. The one about Clough laying waste to Vinnie Jones’ ghetto blaster is absolute gold.

Mark ‘Big Norm’ Crossley. Good keeper, good story teller and a man who almost stopped a bunch of chipper North Londoners slagging off a 9-year-old boy.