Spurs - A glimpse into the Past (part 1)


By Dave P
August 18 2006

For the past couple of seasons I have preceded our matches with some historical ramblings about Spurs’ glorious (and occasionally not so glorious) history. This season will be a bit different but the series will still revive echoes from history and return ghosts from the past.

For the past couple of seasons I have preceded our matches with some historical ramblings about Spurs’ glorious (and occasionally not so glorious) history. This season will be a bit different but the series will still revive echoes from history and return ghosts from the past.

 

Now I know some of you may say we should not live on past glories and that we should be living for the future and the success we all crave for now, but I am a firm believer in knowing the traditions and history of the club. The more you know about that, the stronger the bond between you as a fan and the Club itself. Something I feel the clubs themselves should take more heed of in this age of big money and profit.

 

This season is special in that Tottenham return to the stage of European Football, the scene of some of the most memorable nights at White Hart Lane. There are quite a few of us that can remember the atmosphere inside the ground on 25th May 1984. Over 46,000 fans packed into the ground to witness Tony Parks’ finest moment in a Spurs Shirt. I actually missed that because I couldn’t bear to watch it, preferring instead to face the back of The Shelf with my hands clasped together and my eyes shut in a prayer to the footballing gods.

 

Some of us may even remember the night of 17th May 1972 when we won the newly created UEFA cup for the first time at White Hart Lane. On that occasion over 54,000 were in the ground as we held Wolves to a 1-1 draw to ensure a 3-2 aggregate victory in the first ever UEFA Cup final. Two years later we were to become the first British club to contest a third European Final as we took on Feyenoord on that infamous night in Rotterdam.

 

As we look back, lets also think about 1963. The Cup Winners Cup Final, again in Rotterdam against the Spanish giants Atletico Madrid. It was the first major airlift of British supporters to a European Final, and a crowd of 68000 witnessed a glorious 5-1 victory and a first British success in Europe.

 

Cup Winners Cup Winners 1963

 

“"It's magnificent to be in Europe, and this club - a club like Tottenham Hotspur - if we're not in Europe.... we're nothing. We're nothing." (Bill Nicholson)

 

 

 

This will be our seventh foray into the UEFA Cup and the current side has a lot to live up to in terms of the clubs history. Let us not think this will be easy because it won’t but we start the season with a strong young squad eager to show what they are capable of and if they succeed on the pitch we as supporters of this proud club will have plenty of reasons to be grateful to them.

 

We start this season with a tricky away tie aiming to consolidate our position as a top six side at least and looking to emulate the side of the 1971/72 season. They started with an away fixture at Wolves which they drew 2-2, Martin Chivers and Alan Gilzean doing the honours, and ended it at White Hart Lane (after finishing 6th in the league following a 2-0 win over Arsenal) in that UEFA Cup Final, also against Wolves, and a 1-1 draw. Alan Mullery obliging on the night.

 

What price a repeat of 1972 thirty five years on and how I would love a chance to sample my favourite drink (Whisky) in Glasgow next May.