Despite a career that saw him star for Leeds United in some of the club’s biggest modern-day nights, earn England caps, and be voted the greatest goalkeeper in the club’s history, Nigel Martyn has always been a picture of modesty. When we sat down with him, there was no boasting, no grand claims, just honest reflections on how he might fare in today’s game, how he would adapt to the demands on modern goalkeepers, and a few light-hearted memories of his rare brushes with scoring a goal.
“Yeah, I think I would have had to have adapted,” he said. “I’d have had to work on my feet a lot more probably, because in those days it wasn’t so much about… passing out from the back. Nowhere near to the extent they do it today.” Martyn’s assessment was typically level-headed. “There would have been a lot of time spent improving that because that would have been something that the goalkeepers of our era would have had to have worked harder on. The goalkeepers coming through now are doing it from such a young age. I think I would have been alright had I been brought up that way.”
One reason for his confidence is his unusual football upbringing. Despite his legendary status as a goalkeeper, Martyn spent most of his school years outfield. Rright-winger, centre-forward, midfielder, only returning to goal at 16 when his brother’s works team needed someone between the sticks. “I was playing as an outfielder so I think I would have been okay on that and adapted to that,” he explained. “And I think the rest of goalkeeping is goalkeeping, the understanding, the reading of the game and the save-making would have been fine.”
With goalkeepers nowadays requiring all round ability, and memories of his Leeds goalkeeping colleague Paul Robinson’s last-minute header against Swindon, we asked Nigel if he had ever come close to scoring? Martyn laughed. “Not professionally, I don’t think I came close to scoring. I can remember scoring a penalty in a non-league game but I don’t suppose Heavy Transport versus Mevagissey really counts.” As for those fairytale last-minute equalisers, he admitted the ball never quite found him: “Even when I’ve gone up in the last minute or two… the ball didn’t come anywhere near me.”
Martyn recognises that the role has changed but sees it as an evolution rather than a barrier. Given his professionalism and work ethic, traits he repeatedly brought up in our chat, it’s not hard to imagine him thriving today, refining his passing game to complement his elite shot-stopping. Talking to him, you get the sense that Martyn’s real advantage would be his mindset. He approaches challenges with quiet determination, a refusal to get carried away by hype, and an ability to adapt without losing his core strengths.
It’s why he handled being the first £1 million goalkeeper without flinching, and why, if you dropped him into a Premier League match this weekend, you suspect he’d still look world class. And who knows, maybe with the way keepers are used in the modern game, that elusive professional goal might finally have found him.
Nigel Martyn was speaking to Parimatch, the new official sleeve partner of Leeds United men's first team. Find out more about their exciting fan initiatives and win tickets to Leeds United home games this season by visiting https://www.parimatch.co.uk/