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Cheekiest goal of all time?! - Burton coach got one over City before EFL semis

  /  autty

Whatever happens to Burton Albion in their Carabao Cup semi-final, assistant manager Gary Crosby can relax safe in the knowledge he's already got one over Manchester City. It was 1990 when Crosby scored one of the cheekiest goals ever seen in football, the video footage of which has become a staple of blooper compilations ever since.

Crosby's Nottingham Forest were playing City in a First Division fixture at the City Ground and with the scores goalless a cross was claimed in the air by visiting keeper Andy Dibble.

Midfielder Crosby had attempted to reach the ball in but ended up crashing into the advertising boards. As he returned to his feet, he noticed Dibble was holding the ball in just one hand as he assessed his options.

'All I thought as I got up and started running back on to the pitch was: 'He's got to have that ball in two hands,' Crosby, 54, recalled to The Guardian this week.

(Crosby headed the ball out of Dibble's hands and only had to tap the ball into an empty net)

Sneaking up behind the oblivious Dibble, Crosby stooped and headed the ball out of his grasp before tapping it into the unguarded net.

City were naturally furious, with Dibble, his team-mates and his manager Howard Kendall protesting furiously to referee Roger Gifford.

But the goal stood and ultimately proved the only one of the match.

'Whether the referee actually saw it, or to what degree he knew what had happened, I don't know,' added Crosby.

The goal would come to define Dibble's career - somewhat unfairly - more than it did Crosby's but there was no ill-feeling between the pair.

'I can never escape it,' admitted Dibble in an interview some 14 years later but he actually donated his gloves from that day to former Forest keeper Steve Sutton to auction at his testimonial.

'It's the one thing you get remembered for,' said Crosby. 'But I had some fantastic times at Forest.

'Just to play for Brian Clough's side for four or five years, that's my biggest achievement - to be picked by him.

'I wasn't always the favourite but I must have been doing something right.'

Indeed he did. Having joined Clough's Forest from non-league Grantham Town for £20,000 in December 1987, Crosby made 152 appearances and scored 12 goals over seven seasons.

the third tier, having also featured in the Championship for the two seasons before this one.