Tony Godden: Clean sheet in Luton's last day victory at Man City was the most important of my career

Although a record of two clean sheets from 12 appearances for an on-loan goalkeeper might not be too much to write home about, when one of those shut-outs comes at Maine Road, Manchester, in a crunch match that Luton simply have to win to preserve their top flight status some 37 years ago now, it’s definitely worth speaking about.

Tony Godden is that stopper in question as he arrived at Kenilworth Road from West Bromwich Albion during March 1983 to replace Town's regular number one Jake Findlay who had suffered a finger injury.

Having been first choice with the Baggies prior to his move and aged 27, Godden was an experienced head between the posts for the run-in, as David Pleat’s side set up the final day do-or-die encounter with Manchester City, famously emerging triumphant thanks to Raddy Antic’s memorable late decider.

Speaking to the Luton News, Godden admitted it was quite possibly the most important clean sheet of his lengthy career that spanned around 400 games.

He said: “I would say it was.

“I knew there was a little bit more pressure on me, that’s one game I did want a clean sheet in, because we’d have had to score twice if I did concede.

“It’s always nice for a keeper to keep a clean sheet, but I wouldn’t have cared if we had won every game 2-1 that I played in.

“It’s a matter of winning, you’re playing for the team and that’s it.

“So it was important, but it was important for Luton Town, that’s the thing about it. It’s not about important for Tony Godden, it’s important for Luton Town Football Club.”

A loan move was deemed fairly unusual for a keeper back in the 1980s, so on how the switch came about, Godden continued: “Up until then, I was ever present, but we had a new manager (Ron Wiley) who came in at West Brom, he wanted a change and that was it.

"Up until then, I’d gone five nearly six years without a missing a game, as I hold the consecutive appearance record at West Brom of 247 games in a row, and then I got dropped as the new manager came in and wanted his own people in.

“Jake Findlay had done his fingers in and that was the reason they called on me.

"I was actually at a Bob Wilson goalkeeping seminar at Bisham Abbey, that’s when I got the call there to go up to Luton to have a chat with David Pleat.

“I’d only been out of the team three or four weeks, but I wanted to play.

"I knew that I wasn’t wanted by the new management at West Brom, so I had a chat with David Pleat and I knew the club.

"I think I said to a reporter at the time, something like 'you’ll either build a statue of me or hang me in the town square if we stay up or go down.'"

Godden's first few outings didn't go entirely to plan, losing 3-1 to Sunderland, 1-0 to Norwich and then hammered 5-2 at Watford.

Discussing the opening few matches, he said: "We had an unbelievable side, played some good football as well, really good football.

"After the first game, the senior pros then, Nobby Horton and Ricky Hill and Mal Donaghy, people like that, we decided to just go down the pub and have a chat and sort it out.

"He (Horton) was one of the keys as everyone listened to him, Brian was the voice piece, we said this is how we’re going to tighten up, and that’s what we did.

"We had bought Trevor Aylott in and he was a good lad, a smashing lad, he defended from the front for us.

"It wasn’t so much his goals, it was his work-rate and the way he pressurised and beat up centre halves.

"He was a tough boy, he started defending from the front when we lost the ball and everybody chipped in behind him and that’s how we got a bit of discipline in the side."

With the new-found solidity, Town then went on an unbeaten run of six games, beating Aston Villa, Birmingham City and Swansea City at home, with Godden earning a first shut-out in the goalless draw with Stoke City too.

They then went down 5-1 at home to Everton and 3-0 to Manchester United, leading to the trip to Maine Road, which saw Town have to win to stay up, a result that would send their hosts down in the process.

On match itself, which is remembered for Antic’s heroics with four minutes to go, Godden revealed the players didn’t feel the burden of the occasion ahead of kick-off.

He continued: “We treated it just like another game.

“We were a little bit tentative and they started off lively.

“I can remember straight from kick-off, they got the ball, put it out wide to the right and Ray Ranston, he put in a hell of a cross.

“I must have come about eight, nine yards towards my back stick and I took the cross so clean and straight away I thought, ‘that’s put a lot of confidence for me, but also put a lot of confidence for everyone else as well.’

“I thought ‘hold on we’ve got a chance here.’”

Despite the enormity of the occasion, Godden was to go on to have a fairly quiet afternoon, as he said: “I only had one or two saves to make afterwards.

“They put us under a bit of pressure, being the home team and having the crowd behind them, but we stuck at it.

“Then when Raddy Antic came on as a sub and scored, that jangled the nerves a little, but we were under pressure right until the end.

“I can remember asking the ref how long, he said ‘a couple of minutes Tony.’

“Then this ball came in, and I just said to the guys ‘I’m coming for it, get behind me.’

“And that’s what I did, came, took the cross, got fouled, which I knew I would do as I was going up with no-one else and about four of their players.

“So it was a little bit of experience and gamesmanship, then I took this free kick and I knew that was going to be it.

“We had a little bit of experience that paid off there, everyone knew what I was doing.”

It wasn’t quite the same at the other end as Town’s winner came when home keeper Alex Williams couldn’t deal with Brian Stein’s cross allowing Antic to forever write his name into Town’s annals.

However, Godden had sympathy for his opposite number, saying: “He was under pressure, he wanted to collect the ball and get it rolling.

“I wouldn’t say he made a mistake, I would say he hedged his bets a little bit and came unstuck.

“But he was a good keeper, nice lad as well, that was just a little bit of inexperience on his part.

“That’s another good trait of Pleaty there, a lot of people would have looked at that and gone 'Raddy Antic on the bench?'

"But he was a big game player who could come off the bench and do things like that.

"He had a good touch, it was a good finish, the keeper couldn’t have got it from the shot."

Once the full time whistle blew and Pleat had done his now famous skip on to the playing surface, it was time to get to the dressing room and head back to Luton as quickly as possible according to Godden, who said: “I had to follow a horse off the pitch, me and Ricky Hill as on the old Maine Read, the home supporters were more or less down one side and they were down one side at my end.

“They all came on the pitch and then we had a policeman sitting on every window seat on the coach on the way to the motorway, as we stood in the aisle.

“But nothing happened, it was absolutely brilliant, a good day, a smashing day.”

The following season, Godden found himself back between the posts for the Baggies, although he admitted he would have happily remained at Kenilworth Road if the opportunity had arisen.

He added: “I wanted to stay at the end of the season as my contract was up and I could see the next year, if we kept everybody together, we had a good team spirit, really had a good team spirit and great pros there.

"Apart from the late 70s side that I played in for West Brom when we qualified for Europe, I would say that Luton dressing room was the closest I’ve experienced to that side.

"David called me in on the Friday night, before we got on the bus to go up to Manchester and said 'we’d like to keep you but we can’t, your wages are a little bit too much.

"I just said 'there's ways and means, I'm not money oriented,' but he just said 'no.'

"I'm thinking to myself he's telling me this before the most important game in Luton’s history, as I could have gone and thought, 'you don't want me I don't care what happens,' but that wasn't me, I wanted to win.

“They were good people, nice people, but I returned to West Brom and was back in.”