Ray Houghton on Oxford’s greatest day, his forgotten wondergoal and the compliment from Kevin Keegan he never forgot

Ask Ray Houghton about one particular international goal and there is a pretty good chance he already knows exactly where the conversation is going.

So this time, I deliberately didn’t. Instead, I wanted the goal nobody asks him about. The forgotten one.

The moment from a career containing Liverpool, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Oxford United and the Republic of Ireland that deserves a little more love. Houghton did not have to search too far back through the memory bank.

His choice came during his early days with Fulham, away at Newcastle United in 1982.

And the goal itself was only half the story.

“There was one I spoke about recently, and it was only because the great Kevin Keegan passed away,” Houghton told The Football Historian.

“Kevin was at Newcastle. I’d just joined Fulham and we played up at Newcastle in October.”

For the young Houghton, this was new territory. Match of the Day was there. The cameras were there. He'd never previously featured on television as a professional footballer - then Fulham won 4-1.

“I’d never been on telly before as a young pro,” he said. “We beat them 4-1 that day and I made two and scored one.

“I beat a couple of players and I chipped the keeper from about 30, 35 yards.”

Nice enough. But what happened afterwards is the bit Houghton still treasures more than four decades later.

“I remember walking off and Kevin Keegan came up and ruffled my hair and said, ‘Well played today.’

“That meant so much to me. For a legend like him to come over to a young pro and say what he said, I still remember it to this day. It’s little things and moments like that that you treasure as a player.”

Football careers are strange like that. There are trophies, Wembley appearances, medals and goals watched by millions. And sometimes the thing that survives most vividly is Kevin Keegan ruffling your hair.

Oxford, Wembley and a competition that still mattered

Houghton also has a much more famous Wembley memory.

It's 40 years since Oxford United beat Queens Park Rangers 3-0 to win the League Cup - still the only major trophy in Oxford’s history. Houghton scored that day too.

Four decades later, however, the League Cup occupies a very different place in English football. For Champions League clubs juggling four competitions, Houghton accepts the reality.

“It’s probably the fourth priority,” he said. “That’s just the reality of it.”

He pointed out that a club like Liverpool will still enter every competition expecting to win it.

“That’s the history of the club, that’s what the club wants, that’s what fans want and that’s what the players should want as well.”

But managers inevitably rest players more readily in the League Cup than elsewhere.

“That’s just how football’s changed.”

For clubs like Oxford, though, Houghton knows the competition can mean something completely different.

“Look at Oxford 40 years ago,” he said. “It was a small provincial club, just got into the top flight, and then in the first season it wins its only major trophy. For them it’s absolutely sensational.”

And that, perhaps, is why dismissing the League Cup as a lesser competition misses the point. A Manchester City or Liverpool might rank it fourth. For someone else, it could become the greatest day in the club’s history.

Houghton also pointed towards what winning the competition meant to Newcastle supporters more recently.

“For some clubs it’s absolutely magical. I still hope that winning trophies is still magical and it still brings a lot of joy.”

The evidence from Oxford was fairly convincing.

“We had 37,000 supporters. Our average gate was 12,000. We got 37,000 and could have sold more because people want to be part of your special days.

“Hopefully the League Cup is still special to most clubs.”

That might be the best defence of the League Cup there is. It doesn't need to be every club’s biggest trophy. It only needs to be somebody’s.

For Oxford United, it remains the trophy. For Ray Houghton, it remains part of a career full of stories that go much further than the one goal everybody asks him about.

And in our full interview, there were some rather less comfortable memories too.

Why does Houghton have a photograph of Michael Thomas’s 1989 title-winning goal hanging beside the toilet in his garden shed?

Does he still believe he should simply have brought Thomas down?

And why was he sold by Liverpool after what he regards as one of the best seasons of his career?

Those stories feature in my extended Ray Houghton article on The Football Historian Patreon.

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