60 in 60 #11 Tottenham Hotspur
I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events, places, experiences and entities.
There are moments and events that change your life: Starting school, becoming a teenager, reaching adulthood, falling in love, getting married, getting a job, having children, milestone birthdays, the death of someone you love. All of these are expected and predictable events in a typical life but sometimes something seemingly simple and insignificant happens and your life is changed as a result. Such an event happened to me when I was eleven.
It was 1972 and we were living on Wiggs Rd Moolap. I went next door to my friend Anthony Long’s place. He was watching Match of the Day, the English soccer replay on TV. The game was between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur. He told me he barracked for Wolves so I said I’ll go for the other team. From that chance event a metaphorical switch was flicked on in my brain and heart and I fell in love with Spurs, literally! I was, as you’ve read, mad about footy and loved Geelong, but to my surprise, my heart found room for a second love in the shape of Tottenham, a team from North London in the English First Division. I began to follow them avidly, through the results in the paper, BBC world service English soccer scores on the radio on a Sunday night, occasional games on TV and through the weekly soccer magazine ‘Shoot’. I couldn’t get enough of them. I found a penfriend in London, Tania, who was mad about Spurs and we exchanged many letters about the team we loved. Players like Martin Peters, Martin Chivers and Pat Jennings became my heroes. I started keeping scrapbooks of the weekly soccer scores in the paper and craved any snippet of news about Spurs I could find.
Spurs Star striker and England Captain Harry Kane
In 1975 the worst thing happened, Tottenham were relegated to Division Two! I was shattered. Thankfully they rebounded the following season and regained their place in the top division at the first attempt. Tottenham have a storied history: they are the only non-league team to win the FA Cup, in 1901 and they were the first team to win the Double of League Championship and FA Cup in the one season in the 20th century. They won the Double in the year I was born-1961. For many years they held the record of most FA Cup victories. They were the first British team to win a European trophy, in 1963. They had a habit of winning trophies in years that ended in 1, 1901, 1921, 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991.
When I was in my late teens I declared I had three goals: to see Geelong win the premiership, to go to Disneyland and to go to England to see Spurs win the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium.
In 1981 Tottenham reached the FA Cup Final for the first time since 1967. I watched on TV in the grip of nervous tension and excitement as they won the famous trophy in a replay against Manchester City. The winning goal scored by Argentinian Ricardo Villa is one of the greatest goals ever scored at Wembley. It was 4.30 in the morning in Australia and I was at my cousin Kathy’s place in Nathalia. Everyone else was asleep so I couldn’t yell and scream in celebration but my whole body was exploding internally.
I hadn’t considered trying to go to England for the game but when Spurs reached the final again the following year against Queens Park Rangers (who play in blue and white hoops!) I realised that opportunities like this were rare and that this was the chance to live out my dream.
I had less than a month to make it happen.
I sold my car, a 1963 EH Holden Station wagon and the caravan I lived in and bought a one-way ticket to London.
I engineered getting sacked from my job so that I could work up until the day before I flew out.
I had sent Tania a telegram that read: “I’m coming to London for the Cup Final stop Can you get me a ticket?”
She replied that Cup Final tickets were virtually impossible to get. She only got one because she was a member.
I sent a second telegram: “I’m coming anyway, can you pick me up at the airport, 6.00am Sunday?”
Sure enough she was at Heathrow with her parents when I arrived, we recognised one another by our Spurs scarves.
On the way back to her place in Woodford Green Essex her Dad, Derek, took me to White Hart Lane, Tottenham’s famous home ground. When we arrived there was a policeman standing outside one of the gates.
Derek got out and said to the copper, “I’ve got this mad young Spurs fan in the car, he’s just arrived from Australia, can you let us come in so he can see the stadium?”
He obliged and led us through the gate, down the terraces and out onto the hallowed turf where my heroes played. I was in a reverie.
Then the policeman asked me, “Have you come for the Cup Final?”
“Yes” I replied
“Have you got a ticket yet” he enquired.
“No, not yet”.
“Well, I’ve been looking for a worthy cause” and with those words he pulled a ticket to the Cup Final out of his pocket and gave it to me!!
We were all stunned!
I had been in England for two hours and I had a ticket to the FA Cup Final!
Tania couldn’t believe it. “People have tried their whole lives and never gotten a Cup Final ticket!”
I agreed it was incredible but added, “I did come all the way around the world for it!”.
The game was played on May 22 1982 in front of 100,000 people but it ended in a 1-1 draw. For the second year in a row it went to a replay. The good news was that tickets to the replay were much easier to get, we just had to line up at Wembley the next morning to buy them. Thus, on the Thursday night I was there to see my beloved Spurs win the Cup after a 1-0 win, Glenn Hoddle scored the winner from a penalty. My dream had been achieved.
That wasn’t the end of the story, rather it was the beginning. I had a two year working visa so I found a place to live in London, in a tiny bed-sit in Babington Rd Streatham for 12 pound a week and got a job as a cleaner at the Esso office building in Green Park.
Life revolved around Tottenham and I went to every Spurs game, home and away for the next two seasons (except one when I missed the train to Newcastle). I joined the Spurs Supporters Club and we went to away games on chartered trains. I travelled all over England following Spurs to places like Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich, Ipswich, Birmingham, Southampton, Sunderland and to games against other London teams like West Ham and Arsenal our fiercest and most hated rivals.
I loved living in London, it was like living on the Monopoly board.
Tottenham played in the UEFA Cup in 1983-84 and along with a group of Spurs friends I went to away games in Europe in Belgium and Holland. Spurs made it to the Final against Anderlecht, played over two legs. I went to the first leg in Belgium and the 2nd leg in London a week later. Both games ended in 1-1 draws, thus 2-2 on aggregate, resulting in a penalty shoot-out to decide the trophy. I was in the grandstand behind the goal where the penalties were taken and I was a nervous wreck. The drama built with each successive spot kick, especially when Danny Thomas missed one for Spurs. Enter the hero, goalie Tony Parks who saved not one but two penalties and the Cup was ours. It was a brilliant night and one of the sporting highlights of my life.
I’m still mad about Spurs and have a great mate in Melbourne, David, who is a fellow Tottenham tragic. We exchange texts after every game and ride the waves of joy and despair that are part and parcel of being a Spurs fan. In 2019 Tottenham went on a dream run to reach the Champions League Final for the first time. The game against Liverpool was played in Madrid but our luck ran out and the Reds won in a dreadful game.
My new dream is to go back to London and see Spurs play, with David, in their magnificent new stadium, reputed to be the best in the world.
Come On You Spurs.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London
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