Supporting Tottenham in the 60s.

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Our team arguably in the decade of the 60s would be our finest? Before my time and only by what I’ve read but in terms of honours and individuals Greaves,MacKay,Blanchflower,Smith,White ect I’ve no reason to doubt it! But can I ask and this for our erm.....more mature fans of the current squad and possibly before who would have matched up to the 60s team? Difficult I know but say Gascoigne,Hoddle or Ardilles would they have cut mustard? Kane surely! Eriksen,Son,Winks? Football in the 60s was hard I know that but take that out put it on a skill level alone is Kane or will Kane be as good as Greaves? Eriksen and MacKay as good as each other but in different ways?
 
Our team arguably in the decade of the 60s would be our finest? Before my time and only by what I’ve read but in terms of honours and individuals Greaves,MacKay,Blanchflower,Smith,White ect I’ve no reason to doubt it! But can I ask and this for our erm.....more mature fans of the current squad and possibly before who would have matched up to the 60s team? Difficult I know but say Gascoigne,Hoddle or Ardilles would they have cut mustard? Kane surely! Eriksen,Son,Winks? Football in the 60s was hard I know that but take that out put it on a skill level alone is Kane or will Kane be as good as Greaves? Eriksen and MacKay as good as each other but in different ways?
That is a cracking question.

And one I am unable to answer.

For me Greaves would always get in ahead of Kane, but I would play a 4-4-2 just to get both of them in.
I know people will say "Oh, but it was easier to score goals back then"...to which I say, if that was the case why wasn't everybody scoring the same amount of goals.

Greaves is still the highest scoring player in the English top flight by some distance.
 
Superb. I remember legging it from work to get to Danny's testimonial game in the early 1990's and there was hardly anyone there. Was v Northern Ireland, midweek and wasn't a great turn out. Seem to remember Gazza doing something odd with a penalty kick. A few years later we were getting 35,000 for meaningless friendlies so it was a shame that Danny's game wasn't as well attended.
I was at that. Gazza stuck one leg behind the other to take the penalty,he also came out for the 2nd half wearing Clown boots.Good night as it goes.Think that would have been 1990?!
As i was still living at home
He basically rabona'd it from the spot before the Rabona was even a thing...
Does that mean he invented the Rabona???
 
That is a cracking question.

And one I am unable to answer.

For me Greaves would always get in ahead of Kane, but I would play a 4-4-2 just to get both of them in.
I know people will say "Oh, but it was easier to score goals back then"...to which I say, if that was the case why wasn't everybody scoring the same amount of goals.

Greaves is still the highest scoring player in the English top flight by some distance.


Imagine having Kane playing No. 10 with Greaves ahead of him
 
Imagine having Kane playing No. 10 with Greaves ahead of him
That would be some pairing all right.

I actually had a thought when reading the "Who would you get rid of thread",
Would it be worth buying a top striker and have Kane play the 10 role ?

Not sure if harry would be happy with that though.
 
My old Dad born 1935 still claims he saw Greaves play a one two with the goalpost to score on purpose

Stuff of folklore and probably true but I’ve never seen it?

Please advise
 
For anyone that has Amazon Prime, just to let you know that 'Those Glory Glory Days' is now included to watch as part of your subscription.
 
Right you whippersnappers. I went to my first game on Boxing Day '62 as I posted before. I was 7 but had my ideas about how the game should be played.
I remember the excitement of 60/61 as we came flying out of the blocks and won the first 10 games I think. I'm doing all this from memory so indulge me. When the Cup came around in January, and it was THE cup, the anticipation was palpable.

With each round the media asked 'can they do it?' But there was nowhere near the coverage of today. Make no mistake, the Double was the most fantastic achievement as we had a very small squad and no subs back then. There was just the radio and the papers, no television coverage except for the Cup Final. and no highlights. Probably why attendances were so high.
With Greaves joining, Sir Bill firmly believed that we would win the European Cup and break Madrid's monopoly, and we would have if it wasn't for a bent fucking referee.

I remember the atmospheric photos of the glory glory nights at the Lane in the morning papers. The fore ground was all you could see with everything else pitch black. State of the art photography.
The march to Rotterdam was electric and humbling the holders in the final was rightly acclaimed as we became the first British club etc. Imagine if that had been achieved by Liverpool today. The beatification of Klopp would be nauseating.

However, this was an ageing team and it started to break up as other teams came to prominence, an 8-2 defeat at Blackpool was an ominous warning.

By 67 the game had changed radically and whilst we gave Chelsea a lesson in the final, our days as a serious league challenger were on the wane. A couple of League Cups and top 4 finishes in the early 70s was our level.

But as a youngster, for me that period is indelibly etched on my soul. It was Spurs at their stylish best, in a 1st Division where every club had stars.
Accessable, affordable and free of terrace violence, every home game was a fantastic experience and getting to an away game, a complete adventure, and yes the grounds were basic, the facilities primitive and the toilets ? Let's not go there (unless you are desperate.)
But as nostalgia is the last refuge of old gits, I wouldn't have missed it.
 
Our team arguably in the decade of the 60s would be our finest? Before my time and only by what I’ve read but in terms of honours and individuals Greaves,MacKay,Blanchflower,Smith,White ect I’ve no reason to doubt it! But can I ask and this for our erm.....more mature fans of the current squad and possibly before who would have matched up to the 60s team? Difficult I know but say Gascoigne,Hoddle or Ardilles would they have cut mustard? Kane surely! Eriksen,Son,Winks? Football in the 60s was hard I know that but take that out put it on a skill level alone is Kane or will Kane be as good as Greaves? Eriksen and MacKay as good as each other but in different ways?

Kane will never be as good as Greaves but different types of players and will be better than Bobby Smith
Greavesie had electric pace
Phenomenal

Mackay was the best midfielder ever
We’ll never see his like again
Sadly
 
Right you whippersnappers. I went to my first game on Boxing Day '62 as I posted before. I was 7 but had my ideas about how the game should be played.
I remember the excitement of 60/61 as we came flying out of the blocks and won the first 10 games I think. I'm doing all this from memory so indulge me. When the Cup came around in January, and it was THE cup, the anticipation was palpable.

With each round the media asked 'can they do it?' But there was nowhere near the coverage of today. Make no mistake, the Double was the most fantastic achievement as we had a very small squad and no subs back then. There was just the radio and the papers, no television coverage except for the Cup Final. and no highlights. Probably why attendances were so high.
With Greaves joining, Sir Bill firmly believed that we would win the European Cup and break Madrid's monopoly, and we would have if it wasn't for a bent fucking referee.

I remember the atmospheric photos of the glory glory nights at the Lane in the morning papers. The fore ground was all you could see with everything else pitch black. State of the art photography.
The march to Rotterdam was electric and humbling the holders in the final was rightly acclaimed as we became the first British club etc. Imagine if that had been achieved by Liverpool today. The beatification of Klopp would be nauseating.

However, this was an ageing team and it started to break up as other teams came to prominence, an 8-2 defeat at Blackpool was an ominous warning.

By 67 the game had changed radically and whilst we gave Chelsea a lesson in the final, our days as a serious league challenger were on the wane. A couple of League Cups and top 4 finishes in the early 70s was our level.

But as a youngster, for me that period is indelibly etched on my soul. It was Spurs at their stylish best, in a 1st Division where every club had stars.
Accessable, affordable and free of terrace violence, every home game was a fantastic experience and getting to an away game, a complete adventure, and yes the grounds were basic, the facilities primitive and the toilets ? Let's not go there (unless you are desperate.)
But as nostalgia is the last refuge of old gits, I wouldn't have missed it.

Brilliant read....thank you for that (From someone else also born in 55) :thumbup:
 
I was a child / teen through the sixties so the memories are not that great ...

Totally different from today, this was a boys outing. I would go with my dad and his mate who had a son same age as me, as time went on us kids would go with one or other parent, when work didn't allow both of them to go. Eventually we started going alone and we kept doing that until he sadly left us. We lived about a mile apart on seven sisters road, that doesn't sound far but meant different schools and social groups, so it set a pattern, in over forty years we only ever met up for football, looking back that's pretty weird.

The day was always the same we would walk to their house which was closer to the ground, normally this would be after lunch at home, but sometimes we'd lunch at their place, or very rarely have a meal in a cafe. Don't ever recall going in a pub with my dad until I was much older, having a few drinks before the game was just not a thing.

We would arrive at the ground at about 2pm, we were amongst the early arrivals and it was cash at the turnstile (the odd bunk over certainly happened for us kids although my dad always denied this) the two of us kids headed to the East Stand lower tier by the big entrance to the pitch, we tried to stand just to the left of that not right at the bottom because of the lakes of piss but petty low down, dad went on the shelf in the South East corner (where I ended up a ST holder for nearly 40 years)

If it rained we got wet, if it was sunny we got hot, it was always crowded but the surging wasn't to bad, still remember getting squashed on a regular basis ... around us were the same faces, all male, every single game, that hardly changed even from year to year, in fact if someone was missing you noticed it right away.

Have to be honest the games and the players all kinda blur together, Mullery stands out and of course Gilzean and Greaves because of the goals, like so many of us kids Mackay was my hero, I remember hearing about his leg break and crying ... both times ... when he came back he was our god ....

I do recall we never knew what was happening in other matches, not sure if we had an old style scoreboard that I couldn't see or we just didn't know ... Sports Service on Network Three was how we got our news, later to become Sport on 2 from the start of the 70's ...

In my hazy recollections the away fans just don't register, I certainly never went away for league games until the 70's, there were few if any police, few if any women, no real drinking and we didn't bother with the toilets, down the front we all had a newspaper or comic we rolled up ...

It was crowded, dirty, unsanitary but in my hazy old git memory it was feckin' brilliant.
 
I am a big Alan Gilzean fan, he was the consummate player for Spurs and he was the best header of the ball I have ever seen. Him and Greaves lethal!
 
One of my earliest memories was our double year and balancing on my Granny's knee in Stoke Newington. She smelt of Vick and was Spurs, so I guess that's where it came from.

I remember crying when John White died.

I still have my 1967 Cup Final rosette proudly displayed above my desk.

My son's Spurs so I guess I've done something right.

The greatest of all? Jimmy.
 
First game for me was Oct 1968 v Leicester City. Jimmy Greaves got a hat trick in a 3.2 win. My mates dad took us and we sat in the Paxton. I was 11.
Feel privileged to have seen some of the real heroes of the club
We then started going on our own and went in the Park Lane doing a few aways as well. Our home routine was to meet at my house in Edmonton, walk to Tottenham, have a fry up in a café near WHL station and then go into the Supporters Club (god bless you Mary). Have a pint and book train tickets for the next away game.
Did pretty much all of the 70's but dropped off mid 80's as got married etc etc
Without doubt the best season was in division 2, discovering new grounds (Mansfield stands out). It was different days then, 3.00pm kick offs every Saturday, terraces everywhere, football specials. But then SKY and the PL came along and royally fucked it all up
Great memories of a special time.
 
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