Watford’s FA Cup fourth round clash against Tottenham Hotspur at Vicarage Road tomorrow comes 25 years after the two sides met in the semi final of the same competition in a match best remembered for the extraordinary tale of Gary Plumley.

Eight days before the Hornets were due to take on Spurs at Villa Park on April 11, 1987, first choice goalkeeper Tony Coton was suddenly ruled out after breaking his thumb in training.

His injury left Steve Sherwood as the club’s only fit keeper and manager Graham Taylor was keen to bring someone else in as cover.

After being turned down by the retired Pat Jennings and Bob Wilson, Taylor asked the club’s chief executive Eddie Plumley to call his son Gary.

Gary Plumley, who had recently retired from professional football at the age of 31 to become owner of a wine bar in Wales, had had a reasonably successful goalkeeping career with spells at Leicester City, Newport County and Cardiff City.

“I had been training with (Welsh League team) Ebbw Vale because I had played a couple of times for them that season and I got back for lunch and one of my waitresses said that my father had been on the phone asking me to give him a call,” Plumley recalled.

“So I rang him and he said ‘are you sitting down? Graham Taylor asked me to give you a ring and he wants to know if you would sign as cover’.

“My wife didn’t believe me and it was only later on when I think it appeared on the news that she actually believed me. It was all a bit bizarre but of course the papers next day proved it all. It was a bit strange.”

Plumley registered with the club and began training with Newport County to keep fit. He then received another call from his father, two days before the semi final, bringing the extraordinary news that Sherwood had dislocated his finger in training and Taylor wanted him to join up with the team at Lilleshall immediately.

Although Sherwood’s injury was not seen as too serious, Taylor wanted Plumley’s presence in training as a precaution and to assist with the team’s drills.

Plumley trained on the Friday and when Sherwood rejoined the team again on Saturday morning, he assumed any hopes of playing in the semi final later that day had been extinguished.

“It was like letting the air out of a balloon, I really felt deflated,” Plumley said. “Graham invited me into his room and said that he had been impressed with the way I had trained and my attitude.

“I was expecting him to say ‘thank you very much, you can come and watch us play tomorrow’ but he said ‘I’ve decided to play you’. I can’t remember what I said for the next five or ten minutes. I think I must have been speechless.

“I still had to keep it to myself because I don’t think he had told the rest of the team at this point so I went down but as I walked into the restaurant Steve Sherwood was already there and he must have said something because all the eyes turned to me.

“Steve Sherwood was not best pleased let’s put it that way.”

Taylor’s decision to play Plumley over Sherwood, who believed himself to be fit enough to start, proved to be costly and Watford were 3-0 down at half time, eventually losing 4-1.

Looking back, Plumley accepts he was at fault for at least two of the goals that day but argues that the team as a whole played poorly.

“I remember the first three goals but I can’t remember the fourth. It was 3-0 at half time. I was disappointed with the Watford performance not just my own. You don’t enjoy letting in four goals but apart from the goals there was not an awful lot else to do.

“The first was a shot from Clive Allen and I went down to catch it and the ball straightened up and moved to the left to my chest area, and all I could do was block it and I think it was Paul Allen who ran and poked it in.

“The second was a deflection off John McClelland into the bottom corner. The third was either a shot or a cross and obviously as a goalkeeper I was disappointed to be beaten at my near post.

“A lot of people have said to me ‘gosh you must have been crazy’. It just came naturally. But the fact that I had not played a full season of games meant the end result was either going to go one of two ways – you either become a hero or you don’t.”

Plumley spent the small match fee he received on a fridge which he named ‘the Watford fridge’. “It comes in handy when sticking extra bottles of wine in at parties and keeping the tonics cold,” he says.

Now 55, he manages his own estate agents but says he still gets asked about the match from time to time.

“I can’t believe it has been 25 years. [Tomorrow’s match] is going to bring back memories for me that’s for sure.

“I remember going down to the Holte End where the majority of the Watford fans were and I wish I got a photograph of it because the reception I got from the fans was terrific. That I’ll never forget.

“I would love to relive it all again because I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of it. I wasn’t nervous. It was adrenaline rather than nerves.”