Spurs - Once Upon a time 14, West Ham at Home

By Dave P
November 20 2005

Once Upon a time there was a little East End club called Thames Ironworks and on the 3rd September 1898 Tottenham Hotspur played hosts to them at Northumberland Park in a Thames and Medway District League match. Tottenham won the match 3-0 in front of 4,000 supporters and the goals were scored by McKay, John Cameron and Harry Bradshaw. We played the whole of that game with a stand in keeper. One Alex Hall who normally played as a full back in hi 73 other games for us. He was suspended by Spurs in January 1899 for ‘neglect of training rules’ and retired four months later.

The return fixture at their ground on 16th March 1899 was a 2-1 win for the Ironworks side with Spurs goal being scored by William Joyce.

The following season both sides met in the Southern League. The home match at Northumberland Park in front of 7,000 supporters resulted in a scoreline that we have only betterd once since. The score that day was 7-0 and the scorers were Tom Morris (2) Tom Pratt (3) David Copeland and John Kirwan.

Now I said we only bettered that score against them once and that was on 9th January 1905 in the Southern Charity Cup when we won 10-0. The scorers on that occasion were Alex ‘Sandy’ Tait with a Penalty, John Brearley (2) Vivian Woodward (5) and Charles O’Hagan (2).

Sandy Tait was the Edwardian Nobby Stiles, A tough full back, he played in 419 games (362 competitive) in his time at the club including 35 in the FA Cup. Born Alexander Gilchrist Tait in Glenbuck, Ayrshire in 1873 and one of 13 children, he played for Glenbuck Athletic, Royal Albert FC, Glasgow Rangers and Motherwell before moving to the Football league with Preston North End for whom he played over 80 times before moving south to Spurs. Whilst at Spurs he won a Southern League Championship and an FA Cup winners medal in successive seasons and was a regular in the Spurs side until in 1908 he left to become Player manager of Leyton Orient. In 1909 he was appointed manager of Croydon Common, a position he held for two years and he was later on to coach the famous Corinthians. Tait died in Croydon in April 1949.

Moving on to more modern times we hammered the Hammers at Upton Park on 25th August 1962 by 6 goals to 1. Our six on that day came from Terry Medwin, John White, a brace from Jimmy Greaves, Cliff Jones and an own goal from John Lyall. Lyall of course spent some time at Spurs as our ‘Technical Co-ordinator and Head of Overseas Scouting. The return fixture that season was on the 22nd December at the Lane when 44,650 watched a remarkable 4-4 draw. That match was notable as it was Dave Mackays one and only hat-trick for Tottenham. Our other goal was scored by John Smith. John Smith joined Spurs from West Ham in March 1960 and played 24 games scoring only one goal against his former club. I can think of a couple of Spurs players today whom it would be nice to see score against their former Club. ( Carrick, you know you want to).

Another little snippet; Did you know that in September 1966 Alan Gilzean became the first Spurs player to be sent off in the League Cup as we lost 1-0 to West Ham in a second round tie? Neither did I.

Over the years there have been a number of Player (and managerial/coaching) connections between the two clubs including Clive and Paul Allen, Jimmy Greaves, Jimmy Neighbour, Martin Peters to name a few. Bill Nicholson scouted for them for a while as did Eddie Bailey and of course a number of players today have represented both clubs but I thought I would mention a certain Albert Edward Benjamin Hall who played for West Ham very briefly. Welshman Hall had guested for Norwich and Millwall during the War when as a serving gunner in the Royal Artillery, he was captured by the Japanese in Singapore in February 1942. He remained a prisoner for two and a half years until he was ‘released’ and picked up in the Pacific Ocean. A forward, able to play in any position he scored 21 times in 81 games in Spurs’ colours.

Let hope that today we take no prisoners and that only one set of players enjoy scoring against their former club.