Even though Erling Haaland may have made the Golden Boot a one-Norse race, his five goals for Manchester City in a Champions League match were more cliche than Charlie Chaplin’s bowler.The first player to accomplish the feat for an English club in the European Cup was Ray Crawford, who did so seventy years before Haaland’s bunch of fives against Red Bull Leipzig. The Tractor Boys made their European debut in 1962 by defeating Maltese fall-guys Floriana 10-0 in the first round after Sir Alf Ramsey had led Ipswich Town to victory.
The 86-year-old Crawford scored five of them as Ipswich cruised to a 14-1 victory overall, and Haaland’s avalanche against Leipzig brought back memories of the night he was made the first among equals.
Crawford, who scored more than 300 goals in club football, mostly for home-town team Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves, and Colchester, said, “We had won 4-1 away in Malta in the first leg, so we were anticipated to win comfortably.” “But at Portman Road, the goals simply kept coming. I scored five, but that night, every forward scored.” We stuffed our boots full.
“None of my goals were particularly noteworthy; I believe there were a few headers and tap-ins, but they all count, and when they were all added up, we had 10 goals,” he said. The next round matchup against Inter Milan was our reward, and that was a step up in quality. Although we won at home, we lost 4-2 on the road, and Milan went on to claim the European Cup.
Crawford recognized that City are the favorites to win the Champions League this year because of Haaland’s destruction of the record books and said, “He’s got terrific guys all around him, but you’ve still got to hit the mark. He’s not simply a goal scorer, which is what I admire about him; he works hard for the team and has excellent link-up play.
“Jimmy Greaves was the best goal scorer I’ve ever seen, the consummate finisher because he could create something from nothing, but Haaland is the complete center-forward,” said the observer. As it’s a rare accomplishment, I grinned when he scored five goals for Manchester City and said, “Welcome to the club.”
Although his goals came in a match that was tied at 1-1 after the first leg, “not many of us have done it. We were predicted to defeat Floriana, as I indicated.
Haaland is one of just two players to have scored five goals in a Champions League game, joining Lionel Messi (for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen in 2012) and Luiz Adriano (for Shakhtar Donetsk against BATE Borisov in 2009).
Peter Osgood had also scored five goals in Chelsea’s record 13-0 thrashing of Luxembourg’s hopeless Jeunesse Hautcharage in 1971, before the European Cup was renamed 31 years earlier.
Although though they are not his most well-known goals, Crawford, who earned two England caps and scored in a 3-1 victory over Austria in 1962, will always be our high-five pioneer in Europe. He made history in 1971 at Layer Road when, at the age of 35 and rebelling against the passing of youth, fourth-tier Colchester defeated Don Revie’s Leeds 3-2 to advance to the FA Cup fifth round.
The achievements of non-League Hereford, Sutton, Altrincham, and Lincoln in taking down giants, as well as Wrexham’s closing of the 91-place deficit to Arsenal in 1992, will never be forgotten, but Crawford and Colchester’s valiant downing of a titan is consistently, and shamelessly, disregarded.
Even while lying on the ground, Crawford managed to hook the ball past Gary Spake. By any metric, it was a resounding defeat.
Although I am biased, I have always believed that Colchester’s upset of Leeds in the FA Cup was the biggest surprise of all. Although I recognize that most people would choose the Hereford victory over Newcastle, I believed that Leeds’ victory over one of the most potent clubs in Europe at the time was a greater accomplishment for a Fourth Division club.
“We were 3-0 up after one hour and playing hard, so it wasn’t a coincidence, but suddenly our legs stopped responding. Because we had a lot of, let’s say, seasoned players and had been playing on empty for the previous 20 minutes, we were given the nickname “Dads Army.”
“In the end, we had to rely on Graham Smith, our goalkeeper, to produce a fantastic save and prevent Leeds from forcing a replay, where we would have undoubtedly lost. On the strength of it, he received a great move from Wes Bromwich Albion.
“I recall Billy Bremner, the Leeds captain, who was absent from the game, never letting his team-mates forget it. That Leeds squad was top of the League, and they had 10 international players. He would always interject during fights in the locker room, “Excuse me, fellas, 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.”
