Spurs: Once upon a time 15

By Dave P
November 26 2005

Usually I use this column to tell stories of past encounters with our opponents of the day. Left to that it would be a very short column this week

Usually I use this column to tell stories of past encounters with our opponents of the day. Left to that it would be a very short column this week as it is the first time we have played them, in any competition.

I also like to tell you a bit about players that were associated with both clubs but we could be clutching at straws a bit there as well. There have been two. David Gwilian Jones who played for our reserves and Mark Bowen.

Mark played in 21 league and cup games for us, scoring two goals in a period of eight years. Born in Neath he joined Spurs as an apprentice in June 1980 and turned Professional in December 1981. He always struggled to get a chance in the first team as the likes of Chris Hughton, Danny Thomas, Gary Stevens and Mitchell Thomas were always ahead of him in the pecking order and so in 1987 he left for Norwich City where he had a successful spell playing in 399 games and gaining 41 International caps for Wales. From Norwich he went to West Ham for a short spell before moving to Japan and a short spell at Shimizu S-Pulse before returning to England and playing for Charlton Athletic, Wigan Athletic and Reading and taking his career appearances at senior level to 553. Appointed Wales U21 coach in 2000 he followed mark Hughes to Blackburn where he is Assistant Manager

Seeing as I know nothing about David Gwilian Jones that just about exhausts the possibilities but Wigan do have another club – Wigan Borough. We have never played them either.

I didn’t want to leave this column this short and the suggestion that I invent some cock and Bull story about the whole Double side being born in Wigan (although amusing Jolyon) to the same father, whilst amusingly silly is a non-starter so instead I thought I would write something totally unrelated to Wigan.

Admission prices; We all complain about admission prices at grounds and credit to Wigan for being one of the cheapest in the top flight. I thought I would have a quick look at Spurs prices over the years starting in 1908 when we were admitted to the Football League and see what that would be the equivalent of in todays money based on the RPI.

In 1908 you could gain entry to the ground (the terraces) for between 1d (½p) to 6d (2½p) depending on the nature of the game, cups games costing more of course. This is equivalent to between between £1.46 and £8.76 of todays money so it was very much a working mans game back then. That 6d charge remained in force until after the first world war in 1919 when it was doubled to 1s (compared using equivalent average earnings that’s about £6.71 these days). It remained at 1s until 1942 when the price started to rise steadily. In 1961 it would have cost 3s to get into the terraces to witness us win the double. (£4.82 of todays money). Prices have of course rocketed since then but even in 1984 it was possible to attend (standing) for around £6.00, equivalent to just under a fiver in todays money.

In 1908 you could get a season ticket for the Football League in the main stand for the princely sum of 20s, or 15s if you were a shareholder or lady (or both). That is about £350 in modern money so even posh seats were affordable. A season ticket in the double season would have cost 9 guineas and they cheekily increased this price to 10 guineas to see the reigning champions a year later. 9 guineas in 1961 is equivalent to just over £303 of todays readies. The most expensive season ticket for the 1984 Uefa cup year was £250 (£720 today based on average equivalent earnings) which is the cost of my current ticket, by no means the most expensive in the ground.

Prices only really started to soar to todays levels with the introduction of all seater stadia of course but it heralded the arguments about the ordinary supporters being priced out of the game so it is good to see clubs such as Wigan keeping their prices down. Lets hope we get our moneys’ worth today with an away win.