diff --git a/aiohttp/server.py b/aiohttp/server.py
index 482df45edff..7bacc2d4907 100644
--- a/aiohttp/server.py
+++ b/aiohttp/server.py
@@ -252,7 +252,13 @@ def start(self):
                     self._timeout_handle = None
 
                 # request may not have payload
-                if (message.headers.get(hdrs.CONTENT_LENGTH, 0) or
+                try:
+                    content_length = int(message.headers.get(hdrs.CONTENT_LENGTH, 0))
+                except ValueError:
+                    content_length = 0
+
+                if (content_length > 0 or
+                    message.method == 'CONNECT' or
                     hdrs.SEC_WEBSOCKET_KEY1 in message.headers or
                     'chunked' in message.headers.get(
                         hdrs.TRANSFER_ENCODING, '')):
diff --git a/tests/test_server.py b/tests/test_server.py
index 7494310708c..ca2269ca46f 100644
--- a/tests/test_server.py
+++ b/tests/test_server.py
@@ -546,3 +546,34 @@ def test_keep_alive_timeout_default(srv):
 def test_keep_alive_timeout_nondefault(make_srv):
     srv = make_srv(keep_alive=10)
     assert 10 == srv.keep_alive_timeout
+
+
+def test_supports_connect_method(srv, loop):
+    transport = mock.Mock()
+    srv.connection_made(transport)
+
+    with mock.patch.object(srv, 'handle_request') as m_handle_request:
+        srv.reader.feed_data(
+            b'CONNECT aiohttp.readthedocs.org:80 HTTP/1.0\r\n'
+            b'Content-Length: 0\r\n\r\n')
+
+        loop.run_until_complete(srv._request_handler)
+
+    assert m_handle_request.called
+    assert m_handle_request.call_args[0] != (mock.ANY, server.EMPTY_PAYLOAD)
+
+
+def test_content_length_0(srv, loop):
+    transport = mock.Mock()
+    srv.connection_made(transport)
+
+    with mock.patch.object(srv, 'handle_request') as m_handle_request:
+        srv.reader.feed_data(
+            b'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n'
+            b'Host: example.org\r\n'
+            b'Content-Length: 0\r\n\r\n')
+
+        loop.run_until_complete(srv._request_handler)
+
+    assert m_handle_request.called
+    assert m_handle_request.call_args[0] == (mock.ANY, server.EMPTY_PAYLOAD)