Spurs on this day - no.10 in an occasional series

By Dave P
October 2 2004

Spurs On this day - Number 10 of an occasional series

So we've Played Everton in total 144 times winning 53, Drawing 44 and losing 47 but none of these games took place on October 2nd. We did play them at home on 3rd October in 1993 winning 3-2 with goals from Sheringham, Anderton and Caskey and then again at home on the 4th October last season winning 3-0 with Goals from Kanoute, Poyet and Keane but I will not dwell on these fixtures. I could talk about our record league win which came against Everton but that was not until October 11th and I want to leave that one for another day.

So what else has happened to Spurs on this day in years gone past.

Lets go right back to 1886 (only four years after the club was formed). We mainly played friendly fixtures at that time and indeed had only actually played two competetive matches prior to that date in the previous season.

On October 2nd 1886 our opponents were South Hackney and we won the game by the grand score of 13 - 1. As far as I know there are no records of who scored on that day. In fact some results of our early games were not even recorded and when they were they were sometimes disputed. Matches were often abandoned because of bad light as it was not always possible to see if a goal had been scored. There is at least one instance of a game involving Tottenham being abandoned after no-one could agree if a ball went over or under the crossbar.


Let us now move on a few years to 1907 and our opponents on that day in the Western league were Reading. We won 2-1 on that occasion with Goals from Whyman and Seeburg, neither of whom I know anything about. Up to and including the 1907/08 season Spurs had teams entered into more than one league (usually the Southern and Western) and the Western league games, although classed as first team fixtures would often feature a number of reserve team players. (The reserves also having their own competition as well). 1907/08 was of course our last season outside of the Football League and we finished 7th in the Southern league and 2nd in the Western League (although that only consisted of 7 teams that season). The following season we took our place in the second division of the Football League.


Finally I would like to take a look at another interesting season for Tottenham, 1910/11. We did not play a game on the 2nd October but we did play on the 1st and the 3rd (Who said fixture congestion was a modern phenomenon). On the 1st October we lost 2-0 at Middlesboro but on the 3rd October we Played Chelsea at home in a competetive charity game (much like todays charity Shield) called the London Professional Charity Fund. We won the game 3-0 with a goal from W.J. Minter and a brace from I.Brown in front of a crowd of 9000. Later on that season we also won the London Challenge Cup beating Fulham 2-1 in the December final at Stamford Bridge.

Out of interest, at the end of the 1910/11 season Tottenham embarked on a tour of Germany. Not the first time we had played matches on European soil but I thought I'd include it as the results were impressive to say the least (although I'm not sure how good German football was back then).

May 7 Nth German XI Won 4-1
May 13 Preussan Won 7-0
May 14 Hertha Won 4-1
May 20 Wacker Won 8-1
May 21 Eintract Frankfurt Won 4-1
May 25 Kickers Vict. Won 6-0

Played 6, won all 6, scoring 33 goals and conceding only 4. not bad I thought!