Sasa Ilic Exclusive: “Charlton is like my home…it’s special to my heart”
On the morning of Tuesday, May 26, 1998, Sasa Ilic left his home in West London and walked to his local supermarket, just as he did every morning, to pick up the day’s newspapers. Only this time, when he flipped to the back page, he saw someone rather familiar.
“I wake up, I was living in Chiswick at the time…so I stroll over to my supermarket, bought a couple newspapers I would normally get. And all the papers, on the back-side you would see my face running with the ball. And I’m like ‘I can’t believe that’s me!’ It was just a very surreal moment. So I’m like ‘bloody hell, I’m gonna buy all these newspapers!’ It was crazy! It was absolutely crazy!”
Speaking to me from his mother’s home in Montenegro, Ilic lights up when he recalls the moment he witnessed his own stardom. The iconic image featured in all the day’s papers depicts Ilic, ball tucked under his arm, eyes closed, mouth wide in a scream of epic delirium as he celebrates saving Michael Gray’s penalty to send Charlton to the Premier League. It’s an image Charlton supporters will never forget. But just in case they need a reminder, it’s also plastered on the outside walls of The Valley.
Ilic’s save capped off a remarkable personal journey, going from war-torn Yugoslavia to the seventh tier of English football and finally to the Premier League in just over 12 months. It was also the dramatic final act in one of the wildest games Wembley, old or new, has ever seen as Charlton beat Sunderland 7–6 on penalties after 120 minutes ended level at 4–4.
“We all knew obviously it was penalties after extra-time ended,” Ilic recalls. “For me, I was a bit more relaxed than the players…until I started walking towards the goal and I had all my teammates saying ‘Sasa it’s up to you now man!’ ‘Jeez…Thanks for the pressure!’
“The penalties were taken extremely well. Usually, you have a certain amount of confidence you’re going to save one, but once the goals started going in it was getting to the point where you think ‘Oh my god, I just don’t know what to do now!’
“I have mentioned it a couple of times and people sort of take the mick out of me but I did actually find a 10p coin in the goal which I was flicking through because at that point they were scoring left right and centre. So I flipped the coin and I’m like ‘heads-left, tails-right’ and fortunately for me when I flipped it the second time it was Michael Gray’s penalty. Not that I can actually attribute the penalty save to the coin, but I was so desperate to do something the coin came in handy.
“As soon as Michael Gray took that shot, for me it was like slow-motion. I knew as soon as he hit the ball, I knew for a fact I was going to save it. I knew it for a fact. It wasn’t the best penalty…if I went the other way he definitely would have scored, but I sorted my feet and as soon as he kicked it I thought ‘that’s it, I have it, I’m saving it…’ Everything happened in a very Hollywood slow-motion way. Once I got my hands to it, I caught the ball, and obviously, we were all excited! I was piled on by all my teammates, I almost suffocated!
“You can’t really explain the emotions. We were mentally and physically drained by that stage. Just having the game finish was an overwhelming sensation. But the fact that I ended up saving the penalty which took us to the Premiership, for me it was just like ‘Oh my god, this is crazy stuff!’
“I didn’t even really think about me saving the penalty…for me it was about us winning the game. We knew we were going to get promoted as soon as I caught that ball. Crazy stuff, crazy stuff.”
Ilic laughs as he tells me people frequently refuse to believe his story of the 10p coin, although he insists it’s 100% true. Now 48 years old, Ilic reflects on his time at Charlton as “winning the lottery.” But he’s also the first to emphasize you make your own luck. Those dual-facets combined in the moment when the 10p coin told him to dive left for Michael Gray’s decisive penalty and it’s something that was evident throughout the winding journey that brought him to Wembley that day.
“I moved to Belgrade at the time when Yugoslavia was one country and there was no indication or any sort of idea that the civil war would happen. Then within 12 months, it all kicked off. I ended up staying there for six years. My parents were a bit scared, they asked me to move back to Australia. I moved back for a month, literally a month. I didn’t like it so I went back to Belgrade despite the civil war. There was no conflict of that sort happening in Belgrade, we were relatively safe, but you’re exposed to the whole situation with sanctions, embargoes…that whole phase in my life you had pretty much everything one day and then the next minute even electricity, petrol…it was something you don’t take for granted because you have less and less of it every day. But despite all that it was probably one of the best times of my life, ironically.
“It got to a point where I was young, ambitious, I was studying. I really wanted to get out and try my luck. If I’d stayed there for another couple of years, I don’t think I would have had a career to talk about today. So I packed my bags, my sisters were living in London. Purely by accident, the last day before I was supposed to come back to Belgrade, my sisters took me out to this restaurant called Football Football, which doesn’t exist anymore. It was in Haymarket street and the manager was a guy named Mike Trusson. He had a brief spell in the English game, but he ended up taking over this football team called St. Leonards Stamcroft which was based on Hastings. We started talking and he said ‘We’re looking for a goalkeeper…’ And I said ‘Well, I’m a goalkeeper!’ It’s just how things fall into place, it’s unbelievable!”
St Leonards had recently been taken over by National Lottery jackpot winner Mark Gardiner and local businessman Leon Shepperdson, and after loving the video highlights Ilic sent over, the club paid for his flights back to the UK and helped him finish the final year of his sports science degree. Living on the south coast in accommodation with other students, Ilic quickly drew onlookers with his performances in goal. A scout recommended him to Aston Villa, but after a three-month trial, he was let go to search for another club.
“I went back to London and I just went knocking on a couple of doors, I knocked on Charlton’s door…I said ‘Hi my name is Sasa, I’m here for a trial.’
“It was organized by Mike Stevens, a director of Charlton who happened to be sponsoring a Zimbabwean kid living in Hastings who was playing for our (St Leonards) reserve team. So he got me in contact with them and told them about me and he more or less organized for me to go knocking on Charlton’s door and ask them for a trial. So I went there after a three month trial at Aston Villa…I was fully fit, really fit, I came to Charlton and the rest is history.
“I had nothing to lose. So I came in with a bit of an attitude. For me it was like I’m here on trial I’ll give you a week to decide if you want to sign me or not…if not I’m off to another club! I had complete belief in myself. I was hungry to succeed. So here I am in training with these professional English players in an English league…for me just doing that was a dream come true.
“Going into Charlton every day on the train, I was living at my sister’s place in Putney at the time, and the train to Charlton is at New Eltham, so it used to take me an hour and a half, two hours, to get there by train. I’d arrive an hour early, leave an hour later and I absolutely loved just being there. I got really good in training, they asked me to come back, and I arrived there I think it was mid-October. By the end of February, I sort of broke into the first team.”
Playing for Charlton’s reserves, Bournemouth noticed Ilic and when they offered him a two-year contract, the Addicks came back with a counter-offer till the end of the season. Initially third-choice, an injury to goalkeeper Mike Salmon coupled with Andy Petterson’s downturn in form lead to a surprise debut for Ilic away at Stoke on February 25th.
“When the opportunity came for me to play my first game against Stoke…I have to confess, I was shitting my pants mate. I was shitting my pants!” Ilic says with a roar of laughter.
“But you know obviously that’s the nerves prior to the game. Once the whistle was blown I just felt like Superman honestly. We ended up winning 2–1, I had a very good game, and I think leading up to the playoff (final) it was 16 games including the playoffs. Out of those 16 games I kept 12 clean sheets and literally nine clean sheets on the trot. It’s a huge achievement, looking back now. But at that time it just seemed quite normal, I didn’t think too much of it. But like I said, it’s all those little things falling into place. So I was very lucky…but I think also you make your own luck in life.
“My state of mind back then… I was so hungry for it…I wasn’t timid at all. Honestly, I just did it for the love of it. And when you do something for the love of it you tend to become slightly fearless. It wasn’t as if I had anything to lose…so I walked in like I owned the place basically! Obviously, I paid my respects, I got on really well with the lads at the club. But I was just fearless. It proves to anybody really, if you put your mind to anything you want to do…if you do it whole-heartedly without thinking about contracts or money…if you just do it because you love doing it, then everything is achievable. That was my approach at the time.
“And when I got the opportunity there was no way in the world, in my mind, I was going to let it go. You have to bear in mind…if you’re 24,25, playing at lower league level, it’s highly unlikely…it’s like 0.001% that anybody from that age, I was playing 7th division, looking at the Championship or Premiership level…when you’re 25 the odds of you signing a contract or playing at that level is like…winning the lottery.”
Sure enough, just as he promised himself, once Ilic got his chance, he was never going to let it slip. With their new goalkeeper, Charlton conceded just seven goals in the final 16 games leading up to the playoff final, winning 13 of them. The strong finish buoyed Alan Curbishley’s side to fourth in the Championship before a 2–0 aggregate victory against Ipswich set-up the showpiece final with Sunderland at Wembley.
“It was just surreal…not just for me but everybody really. Every player’s dream is to play at Wembley. Even preparing for that game, we knew it was going to happen but it just didn’t seem real at all. We didn’t really have that pressure of us winning because we were the underdogs. Not being the favourites helped us approach the game in a very normal and relaxed way. All the pressure was on them.
“At half-time, we were 1–0 up and because we hadn’t conceded in nine games prior to that, I just felt invincible in goal. For me, it was like ‘concede a goal? There’s no way!’ Because it’s that confidence, once you start doing well, playing well, not conceding goals, it becomes a bit of a routine for you. And for you, it’s normal to have that amount of confidence. The more confidence you have the better you feel, physically, mentally…you’re a lot stronger.
“So when the goals started pouring in it was like ‘What the fuck?!’ ‘What’s happening here?’ It didn’t seem like something that should’ve happened. Luckily for us, that day Clive was on super form and as much as they were scoring, he was scoring. And of course, we had Richard Rufus who had pretty much never scored a goal in his life, he scored in the last few minutes. It was a crazy game, a crazy game. You don’t even see the craziness until maybe a couple years afterwards! Even after the game, with us winning, we were too exhausted to celebrate, we were mentally and physically exhausted. I tend to appreciate now what I achieved, what the team achieved, what we collectively achieved. I only sort of appreciate it post-retirement. But when I think back now it was certainly a crazy game.”
While Ilic’s rise to the Premier League was forged through unshakable self-belief, even he was awestruck by the heights he reached in such a short period of time.
“Against Arsenal, we ended up drawing 0–0 at Highbury. I got Mark Overmars’ shirt, I got him to sign his shirt! One of the players I admired as a footballer was Mark Hughes, and for me, it was like ‘Wow, playing against Mark Hughes!’ So I ended up getting his shirt and he signed it for me. So after the first few games, I was asking for autographs from the players I was playing against! Cause it still hadn’t really sunk in!”, Ilic says laughing so hard he has to compose himself before continuing his train of thought.
“At Newcastle away, I think our first game, we drew…I kept a clean sheet and Mervyn Day, who was assistant manager at the time, came up to me and was like ‘Sasa, what are you doing?’ ‘I just want to grab this shirt! I can’t believe I’m playing against these guys!’
“He goes ‘Sasa, you’re a Premier League player in your own right, you don’t need to be in awe of these players!’ I was like ‘yeah…OK…,’ Ilic recalls with a not-so-subtle eye roll.
“It was very surreal. A year and a half earlier I was sharing a flat with other students, down in Eastbourne where I was studying at the time. And here I am playing the likes of Mark Hughes, Tony Adams, Alan Shearer, all these players I was watching in the pub a year and a half before that. It was crazy! It was very very surreal.”
The dream season in the Premier League ended on a sour note as Charlton were relegated back to the Championship while Ilic’s grip on the starting spot began to slip, aided in no small part by a serious head injury suffered in mid-October.
“We were playing against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and Casiraghi, their centre-forward at the time, I dove into his feet. I caught the ball, but him in full sprint, trying to avoid me, trying to jump over me, he caught me with his knee on my jawline. I was out cold, literally for a good 20 minutes. I only came to when I was in the ambulance. They say every minute you’re out you should be a week out of the game. I was out a good 20–25 minutes so by default I should not have continued for the rest of the season. Maybe I came back too early.”
In the summer following relegation, Curbishley brought in Dean Kiely for a fee of £1m, and the new signing became Charlton’s starting goalkeeper for the next six years. Ilic did get another crack at the Premier League two years after his first try when he came in for the final 13 games of the season due to a Kiely injury, helping Charlton finish a very respectable ninth. But by that point, he was clearly just the deputy. Charlton rejected offers to let him leave, and Ilic’s career started to fizzle out as he spent his time sitting on the bench. Still, though, Ilic, who speaks with an almost constant smile, prefers to think about how lucky he was, rather than what he may have missed out on.
“That one game at Charlton is a game that everyone talks about to this day. So in some ways that game has kept my name alive in English football…it brings back a lot of fond memories to Charlton supporters in particular. If I looked at it from that perspective, that one game is probably worth…500 games if you like!
“Maybe it all happened too quickly. If I had this head now back then,” he says pointing to his head, “I think a lot of things would have been different. I didn’t really have anyone guiding me through these awkward times in my career.
“But again, give and take. I don’t regret anything. I could have not had a career whatsoever, I could have had a better career. But I’m humbled and honored to have achieved what I achieved. It is a unique story that people can maybe get inspired from. It’s never too late to make it as long as you believe in yourself and your abilities. It’s great…it’s a great little story for me to tell my kids one day when they’re slightly older. I wouldn’t change anything, I definitely wouldn’t change anything. I met some amazing people along the way, I’ve had highs and lows like anything in life and it was a great run…a great little part of my life.”
As Ilic points out chuckling, his football career was certainly dramatic, even if it was somewhat brief. The journey from St. Leonards to Wembley completely changed his life almost overnight. But truthfully, it started decades earlier in the car parks at his local football pitches of Melbourne, Australia. And like many young boys, it started with his father.
“When I was a kid, I was about a head taller than all of my peers, but as you grow very quickly at that age, your muscles tend to catch up a lot later in life, so I was a bit clumsy. They put me on the pitch to play left-wing cause I’m a left-footer. So they would put me left-wing where you run along the line and back but after one sprint I was completely out of breath! And they thought ‘well you’re tall, obviously you don’t have the capacity to run, so just go in goal’ And that’s how it all began!
“I was naturally good at it, you know I was a little bit fearless in goal which obviously you have to be. But my dad for the first couple years, he would bribe me. He would allow me to drive the car in the car park and that’s how he sort of incentivized me to go and play football.
“My parents are from Serbia so they used to drag me there, my dad used to take me to these big football games in Yugoslavia, we had Red Star Belgrade, Partizan Belgrade, full stadiums and when you’re a 13, 14 years old being exposed to that environment, you learn to love the game. In Australia obviously, the English first division was something we all dreamt about. It wasn’t like these days where you click one button, you can see every match. Back then it was on a Sunday evening watching Match of the Day…you sit back and watch these games and the atmosphere in the English game is second to none. When you’re growing up with that environment, that passion that I had instilled in me, that I grew to love, it was just my dream to one day come to England and play football.”
Ilic learnt to dream of a life playing football in England from his father and fortunately, he was in attendance at Wembley to watch his son’s biggest moment.
“For him just to be there and see me…listen I’ve got two little boys now and it doesn’t cross your mind at the time, but now having children of my own, I can just imagine…my mother was there also, I can just imagine what they were going through. It must be an extremely proud moment for them to see their son playing, especially my dad being a mad crazy football fan. I’m glad he managed to see me fulfill my potential as a footballer, to play in England, so I’ve definitely fulfilled his dreams of having his son playing. God bless his soul, he had something positive in the football scene while he was still alive. So I’m proud of that definitely.”
If the rise was sudden, then the fall had to match. One day in 2005, Ilic woke up and decided he’d had enough of football. A troublesome back injury and a nomadic late career where he spent the three years after leaving Charlton living out of a suitcase, took its toll. It wasn’t planned, but Ilic woke up and knew it was time to retire. Life after football saw Ilic embark on a successful business career as the transition into his post-playing life was seamless, helped by his “gift of the gab”.
But then in 2009, it all came crashing down. The global financial crisis saw his business grind to a halt while Ilic was also going through a divorce. His holiday home in Montenegro then burnt down and worst of all, his father passed away, leading to a dark and aimless period.
“My father and I were very close so his passing was very unexpected. And for a good three years I didn’t do anything. I was just partying and going out, showing a big happy smile on my face, but deep down once you scratch the surface I wasn’t in a very good place at all. It took me a 14-day detox to understand that if I continue like this I will probably be another statistic of a former player being completely bankrupt and not having anything to show for his career. And that’s when I made the decision to pack up and go to Montenegro and start from scratch.”
Finally conscious of the destructive path his life was taking, Ilic went to a 14-day detox retreat and set about reinventing himself. He sold his apartment in London, hopped on his motorbike, and left England for Montenegro. The same home that burnt down as Ilic’s life collapsed around him in 2009, is now a beacon of light as he’s turned it into a six-room boutique hotel. In that process, he also fell in love again and now has two children. There’s no secret to Ilic’s success, it’s all just centred around passion and love.
“Reinventing yourself is probably the hardest thing anybody can go through. If you decide to do something you love doing then it’s ok for you to pursue that. It’s not a case of you have nothing to lose, you have everything to lose. It’s ten times harder. So when I was younger, 25 years old, sleeping on my sister’s couch, going to Charlton’s training ground every day, I had nothing to lose and all to gain. But even if you have 1% of doubt…it’s not going to happen.”
In the two decades since his crowning moment at Wembley, football has played a rather minor role in Ilic’s life. But the lessons he learnt from his improbable rise on the pitch still fuel everything he does today.
“Having football and being part of that Charlton history has helped me so much post my footballing career. It’s made me believe I can achieve anything I want to achieve. If I’ve managed to come out of non-league football to knock on a Championship club’s door and play in the Premiership within 12 months of moving to the country, then anything is possible. So I’ve always adhered to those principles. I’m not afraid of failing…which I’ve done many many times! But then you learn a lot more by failing than succeeding in life. I wouldn’t change anything with my career at Charlton and it’s great to be appreciated even 22 years after that playoff final.
“Anything you want to do you’ve got to persevere and you’ve got to rough it out big time. To the point of crying yourself to sleep. That’s how far you have to go. And that’s what I did. And I’m super happy I went through all those difficult times because it’s made me so much happier today. And enjoying the simple things. For me, it’s simple things that make me happy these days. Before it was the big things, or I thought it was the big things, but no, no, no. I don’t need big things in life to get out of bed and be super happy. So that’s where I am at the moment.”
Both in his playing career and after it would have been easy for Sasa Ilic to give up. But then he wouldn’t be the person he is. Finally happy again after years of turmoil, Ilic feels connected to Charlton not just due to his time playing for the club, but through a matching ethos of perseverance in the face of intense struggle.
“Charlton have certainly had their phases of adversity and ups and downs,” Ilic chuckles knowingly. “But I think it’s what makes Charlton such a great club. Especially the supporters, they don’t take anything for granted. It’s a club that has amazing supporters, working-class people that love Charlton to its core and they’re there supporting the club through thick and thin. They’re not fickle at all. They’re true supporters and you have to tip your hat to them.
“Charlton is like my home. I played for various other clubs, but Charlton is special to my heart. It’s where I associate myself in English football. Every time I go back, I get treated really well. People never forget the history of Charlton’s success. And I’m effectively part of Charlton’s history which is a huge honour. And nobody can take that away from me. Nobody can. It’s something that I can tell people my story and maybe inspire other people to do something similar.”
Four decades ago in the southeast of Australia, a young boy and his father started a footballing journey that took them from their local pitches all the way to the hallowed turf of Wembley. Now, Ilic is hoping to give his two sons the same gift his father gave him, although this time, with an even greater emphasis on the club that became his home.
“I’m just waiting for them to get a bit older before I start taking them to Charlton! For them to experience football. Montenegro is such a small country. I think the biggest stadium here is like 10,000 or 15,000. But it’s nowhere even close to stadiums back in England. So once they get a bit older I’m definitely going to drag them along with me to a few Charlton games. So they can get the bug for it. Because there’s nothing more beautiful than that. Definitely nothing more beautiful than the football game. It’s amazing.”
