Spurs: Once upon a time 4 - Chelsea Home

By Dave P
August 27 2005

On Saturday 18th December 1909 50,000 people made their way to Stamford Bridge to witness the first ever League encounter between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Chelsea won 2-1 that day with Billy Minter scoring our Goal. However, On the last day of the same season Chelsea travelled to White Hart lane where a crowd of 35,000 came to see a relegation battle between the two sides. A victory for either side guaranteed First division survival whilst a defeat for either side consigned them to the Second Division. Vivian Woodward (A player who had scored 100 Goals for Spurs and who had left the year before) was in the Chelsea line up and Percy Humphreys (a former Chelsea centre forward) was playing for Tottenham. Spurs won the game 2-1 and it was to be Humphreys who scored the winning goal. Chelsea were relegated and Spurs Survived.

So who was this Percy Humphreys? Born in Cambridge in 1880 he played for Cambridge St. Marys before joining Queens Park Rangers in 1900. A year later he joined Notts County. He then had a spell with Leicester Fosse before joining Chelsea for the princly sum of £350 in February 1908. He moved to Spurs in December 1909 and went on to score a goal every two games. 29 in 54 first team matches in fact before leaving us to return to Leicester in October 1911. He went on to manage Hartlepool united and coach in Switzerland before returning to assist at Norwich City.

Moving On and on a different tack, these days testamonial games are becoming a thing of the past as some supporters begrudge paying money that will end up in the pockets of overpaid superstars. But in days gone by when wages were far lower benefit matches were seen by supporters as a way of saying thank you to long serving heroes. What I did not realise though is that players sometime chose league fixtures as thier benefit games and received a share of the gate money from those matches. What was also fairly common was for more than one player to share the same benefit match. This was the case in October 1920 when three Spurs players, Bert Bliss, Jimmy Cantrell and Jimmy Dimmock chose to share the home league visit of Chelsea as their benefit match. On the afternoon of 9th October Chelsea were soundly beaten 5-0 and Bert Bliss scored a hat-trick. Jimmy Dimmock also scored whilst Charles Wilson scored the opening goal. The corresponding away fixture that season was played a week later on the 16th October when a record crowd of 76,000 saw the same players scoring again as Spurs won 4-0. Wilson getting 2 on this occasion, Bliss and Dimmock getting 1 each.

Now Charles Wilson is not a name that immediately springs to mind when thinking about Spurs history so I'll tell you a bit about him. Born in Atherstone in 1895 he played his football for the services before joining Coventry City. He signed for Tottenham during the Great War, signing as a professional in 1919 and stayed at Spurs until November 1922. He played for the first team 80 times (including friendlies) and scored a respectable 48 goals. 33 of those came in 60 league appearances. Ex-Spur Herbert Chapman signed him for Huddersfield Town in November 1922 where he won two League Championships before moving to Stoke City in 1926. Whilst at the Potters he won a old 3rd Division North title before ending his playing days at Stafford Rangers. His career figures amounted to a very respectable 194 goals in 310 games.

Lets now forget Chelsea and look at something different. Whilst todays fixture is being played some of us may be keeping half an eye on the Ashes match at Trent Bridge and I wondered how many first class cricketers had also been associated with Spurs. The obvious one whom I have mentioned before was England opening Batsman Bill Edrich who played in 389 county matches for Middlesex and 39 test matches scorring 2,440 test runs for an average of 40 including a top score of 219 against South Africa in Durban. He could Bowl a bit as well taking 41 test wickets. He notched up 36,965 runs for an average of 42.39 in county cricket and took 479 county wickets for an average of 33.31.

Another Cricketing Spur was winger Fanny Walden who played for Spurs between 1913 and 1926 scoring 24 goals in 237 league games. He played 258 first class matches for Northamptonshire scoring 7,462 runs and taking 114 wickets. He went on to become a fisrt class umpire and served on the board of test match officials. And there was also Joe Hulme who managed Spurs for four years just after the war (1945-49) and who had played his cricket for Middlesex for ten years from 1929 until the outbreak of war scoring 8,103 runs (including 12 centuries).

I am not sure we will ever see the likes of a Bill Edrich again playing both footbal and cricket atthe highest level but I do wonder what Freddie Flintoff could do with a football!