“He had a trench coat on, he was fleeing the village, and Nazis were opening up on them. They just ran.” Steve Ogrizovic is explaining why his family settled in Mansfield and how a harrowing journey made by his father – ending in England but starting in Yugoslavia during the second world war – shaped his life. Nicola Ogrizovic had already seen his own father shot dead when he fled his home as a 14-year-old in 1942, leaving behind his mother and two sisters.
“That was the last time he ever saw his village and his family,” Ogrizovic says. “There was a lake – he went over it and into the woods. It was only when he felt safe in the forest that he checked himself. His coat had been flapping in the wind, there were bullet holes both sides but nothing hit him. He spent the next two years living rough, on the move all the time, evading capture.”
Nicola became a prisoner of war in Italy but after his release was given a choice of asylum: Australia or England. He chose Nottinghamshire. “I’d have chosen the Australian weather,” Ogrizovic says with a smile. “But despite being a farmer, for some reason he decided to try mining in a country he knew nothing about.”
One of Coventry’s greatest players, and now the club’s goalkeeping coach, Ogrizovic gets his 6ft 4in frame from his father. Most people shrink as they get older but “Oggie”, as everybody at City’s training ground still calls him, seems to have grown. He bounds up a narrow staircase at the age of 61, comfortably clearing two steps at a time with his nose still crooked and a huge hand outstretched and you catch a glimpse of what it might have been like to face him one-on-one.
As anybody who watched English football in 1980s and 90s should know, Ogrizovic did not follow his father down the pit. He was a European Cup winner in 1978 and 1981 with Liverpool as Ray Clemence’s deputy before spending two seasons at Shrewsbury and is best known for helping Coventry to their greatest triumph, the 1987 FA Cup final win. He cemented his cult-hero status in the 90s by helping City to a string of improbable escapes from relegation. “They were difficult times, but thankfully we always seemed to have an answer, often on the last day,” Ogrizovic says. “At least we would end the season on a high!. If the Titanic was sky blue, it would never have sunk.”
One escape sticks in the memory. Coventry needed a win at Tottenham on the final day of the 1996-97 season and for Sunderland’s and Middlesbrough’s results to go their way. After goals from Dion Dublin and Paul Williams and a string of exceptional saves from Ogrizovic, City won 2-1, staying up by a point.
For all their struggles in the 90s, City were fun to watch and played attacking football under Ron Atkinson and Gordon Strachan.
“We had a really good team,” Ogrizovic says. “Gary McAllister, Darren Huckerby, Peter Ndlovu, later on Robbie Keane, Youssef Chippo and Mustapha Hadji. In 1997-98 we were called ‘The Entertainers’, with Dion up front. When Gordon came in [as player-coach] with Big Ron, we thought we’d hit the jackpot.
The two did not always see eye to eye. “Big Ron was different, he made you feel like a million dollars but didn’t coach a lot,” Ogrizovic says. “I remember Gordon had set all the cones out for a training session – everything was done down to the last detail – we’re warming up and then Big Ron has a look and says: ‘I don’t know what all this is, we’re having five-a-side today, I’m gonna be Baresi at the back.’ Steam was coming out of Gordon’s ears, he had to walk off.
“When Ron left, Gordon took over. He was so thorough, hell-bent on improving players. I remember he even had Noel Whelan living at his house for a few weeks to make sure he was leading the right lifestyle.”
Ogrizovic is one of four players to have played top-flight English football in four different decades – the others being John Lukic (born to Yugoslavian parents 12 miles from Mansfield in Chesterfield), Sir Stanley Matthews and Peter Shilton. Yet Ogrizovic so nearly did not become a footballer at all.
“As a teenager I was told I was too big to be a goalkeeper,” he says. “I went for trials at Mansfield, Notts County, Sheffield United but they didn’t show any interest. I think it was naivety; I was still growing into my body. I was considered to be a colossus. People always used to say: ‘The Giant Ogrizovic.’
“What I wasn’t too big for was to go into the police force, so I signed up. They loved it. Because I was 6ft 4in, I was put straight into the middle of Nottingham city centre because that’s where the trouble was. I had a fantastic time, really enjoyed the job, it was very exciting. I was good at the physical aspect of things, clearing bars, clubs, lots of incidents regarding alcohol and aggression. A lot of shoplifters and car crime.
“I was playing part-time at Chesterfield and I was using all my lieu time and holidays to play at the weekends so it was becoming a bit of a problem. I would sometimes be coming off a night shift at 7am and get straight on the bus to go and play under-18s football for Chesterfield.
“When I was 20, Arthur Cox, the Chesterfield manager, called me in at the end of the 1977 season and offered me a professional contract. He said: ‘What are you on in the police force?’ I said £50 a week. He said: ‘We’ve got no chance of paying that. We’ll pay you £40 basic and £5 expenses, take it or leave it.’ I took it.”
Football was not even his favourite sport. Cricket was Ogrizovic’s first love and even into his mid-20s he would moonlight for Shropshire in the NatWest Trophy and the Benson & Hedges Cup as a towering bowler, taking the wickets of the England Test players Chris Broad and Martyn Moxon. “Cricket was always my No 1 game – I loved it. I remember once when I was playing football at Shrewsbury, Graham Turner was manager and he said I best stop the cricket as we were in pre-season. Of course I carried on.”
These days daily training sessions at a club that has been in turmoil in recent years keep Ogrizovic active and although problems off the pitch mount, with the club facing homelessness next season, on it things are looking up. A first promotion in 51 years was secured last season from League Two and with Mark Robins’s side on a six-game unbeaten run in League One, they sit outside the play-off places on goal difference.
Their victory at Wembley in the Checkatrade Trophy final last year marked 30 years since their FA Cup final win. “Mark asked me to lead the team out,” Ogrizovic says. “I said I didn’t want any of that but Mark was insistent. It was a nice touch.
“I saw the effect that the football club had in 1987 when we won the FA Cup. For months after there was ticker tape on car aerials. We had a fantastic team spirit in 1987. We all still get together for a drink, six or seven of us every two or three months. Cyrille [Regis] used to come; we’re still trying to get over his death.”
Ogrizovic, victim of a hoax in 2003 where he was forced to deny he had been kidnapped in Kazakhstan, is an intelligent man. He remains one of Coventry’s biggest assets, in touch with the club’s past but integral to its future.
“You just hope people think you are doing a good job. I joined the club in 1984 and I’m still here. They might feel it’s a bit tougher to get rid of me than anybody else.”
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