IPSWICH legend Alan Brazil has opened up about the time he scored five goals in match – while being distracted by a horse racing tip.
Brazil, who also played for Manchester United and Tottenham, shared the incredible story and spoke about the sad passing of Gary Shaw and his hopes for the Tractor Boys this season.
Brazil told SunSport…
I HAD an unusual build up to this game — waiting to hear if I had won £600 on a hot tip I had been given for Newmarket.
It was in the days when betting shops were a fog of cigarette smoke and I remember being desperate for the money so it was an agonising wait for the photograph and steward’s inquiry.
Then, when I got to the dressing room I had a really good feeling that I was going to score a hat-trick. I even told team-mate Johnny Wark.
It was bizarre I should feel that way because we were up against a fantastic Southampton team who were top of the table with some class players in Kevin Keegan, Micky Channon and Alan Ball.
And we were missing the key spine of our side in Paul Mariner, Frans Thijssen and Terry Butcher through injuries.
Call it a sixth sense, but to then go out and score my first hat-trick in the opening 19 minutes was pretty incredible.
In fact, I hit three in a five-minute spell between the 14th and 19th minute — with South African strike-partner Mich d’Avray assisting the first two and Kevin Steggles’ long ball sending me through for my treble.
FOOTBALL FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS
It was one of those games when everything I did just clicked.
Mich — standing in for Mariner — laid the ball into my path for No 4 and Eric Gates made the fifth for me, both in the second half.
Despite scoring five goals, I have two regrets from the game.
One is that I should have had SIX! Right at the end, I squared the ball to d’Avray when I’m confident I would have scored — and he blasted over.
But most frustratingly, this was the only game my wife, Jill, missed that season.
It was an evening kick-off and she was running late getting home from work. I told her it was going to be a tough game against top-of-the-table Southampton, so she stayed at home instead.
Another funny footnote is that back then we only mainly played with one match ball and it had been kicked out of the ground during the second half.
The local paper organised a campaign to try to find it and get it back to me and sure enough it was found about ten days later!
I scored 28 goals for Ipswich that season, in all competitions, and I vividly remember four days after hitting these five goals I scored one of the best goals of my career in a 2-0 victory at Leeds.
When you look at the league table, both ourselves and Liverpool were sixth and seventh but we had games in hand on all the teams above us.
We went on a great run picking up 13 wins between this game and the end of the season, yet were still overtaken by Liverpool.
They went unbeaten in their last 15, picking up 41 out of possible 45 points. They were an incredible side.
It was the second successive season where we finished runners-up, having been just pipped to top spot by Aston Villa, a side in which Gary Shaw played such a huge part with 18 league goals.
4
I was devastated to have to talk about his passing this week at just 63 years of age. He was an outstanding goalscorer.
It’s mad to think this game was over 42 years ago, but then I have been presenting at talkSPORT for 25 years.
I was reliably informed the day after this five-goal haul, Saints’ manager Lawrie McMenemy got in touch with Scotland manager Jock Stein and told him that I should be part of his World Cup squad for the finals in Spain.
As a result I was called up and was the youngest member of the squad.
It remains one of my proudest moments to have kicked off Scotland’s finals campaign against New Zealand — a 5-2 victory in Malaga.
Talking of pride, the wonderful story of Ipswich climbing from League One back to the Premier League this season is brilliant for my old club and its fans.
The next greatest achievement for manager Kieran McKenna and the squad is to stay in the top flight. Anything 17th or above will feel like a trophy-winning campaign for me.
I have such a huge affiliation to the club having started my career and spent seven unforgettable years at Portman Road.
I still live between Ipswich and Colchester and to see the buzz in the area, with banners and the feel-good factor from McKenna and the club, has brought all the memories flooding back of our golden era.
4
