A Bristol Rovers legend has revealed a carpet salesman's connection with the club's tea lady led to him signing for the Gas.
Nigel Martyn joined Rovers 1987 and went on to have lengthy spells in the Premier League with Crystal Palace, Leeds United and Everton and became an England international before he hung up his boots in 2006.
At the time he had been plying his trade for St Blazey AFC in the small Cornish town of the same name while also working in a plastics factory and for a coal merchant. He had started out as a midfielder but always wanted to play in goal.
Speaking to BBC Radio Cornwall, the former stopper explained how an unlikely connection led him to launch his professional career with Bristol Rovers aged 21.
"It was while I was at St Blazey, there was a guy called Gordon Rowlands [who] owned the carpet shop in St Blazey at the time, he knew the tea lady at Bristol Rovers," he said.
"Unbeknown to me, he had messaged the tea lady and said 'we've got a good young goalkeeper down here, I think you guys should be interested in'.
"So the tea lady went in to see Gerry Francis, who was the then manager at Bristol Rovers. Gerry said 'right, OK, we'll get him up on trial'."
The 52-year-old added: "It was all done without me really knowing, and then the club obviously approached me and said Bristol Rovers have invited you up for a trial. It was completely out of the blue."
The goalkeeper revealed he didn't have a life plan had that fateful message not been sent.
He continued: "Our life would have been I'd have carried on playing local sport I guess, get the best job you can and live the best life you can home here.
"Then I had the trial, it was a Thursday, Friday, play half a game on Saturday and Gerry Francis offered me a contract straight after."
Martyn had been due to get married in August and he and his future wife were left with just three weeks to rearrange things.
"We were young, we had a week where on August 10 she turned 18, on the August 11 I turned 21, August 15 I made my debut for Bristol Rovers in the football league, and on August 17 on the Monday we got married, and then we moved away to Bristol.
"Two of us, in a Ford Escort with everything we owned, which was basically our wedding presents, and moved into a little tiny flat in Eastville."
Martyn added: "Going to Bristol Rovers at that time was a huge leap from playing at St Blazey where you might get 50 people or 100 people coming to watch, suddenly there was three or four thousand out there and that was a bit strange to start with.
"My second game was Sunderland away and I think there was 15,000 people."
He would go on to make more than 100 appearances for the Gas before he was signed by Crystal Palace for £1m in 1989 in a record transfer for an English goalkeeper.
