That's a fantastic memory you have (I didn't recall this game at all) and great detective skills to track down the vid. Well done! Amazing that even playing against non league opposition, the ground is absolutely packed out.
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That's a fantastic memory you have (I didn't recall this game at all) and great detective skills to track down the vid. Well done! Amazing that even playing against non league opposition, the ground is absolutely packed out.
the excitement of turning up at a match and seeing the TV trucks behind the East Stand - we're going to be on telly so we can actually see the goals all over again
Amazing how similar Marlow's ground was to WHL... considering we were playing in our away strip...
oh... hang on!
Remind we why we did that back then?? Was it supposed to be a goodwill gesture...? or was the original match swapped, 'cos of ground safety etc, and we were supposed to be the away team??
Honest question!
I can only hazard a guess, but I imagine crowd safety and general public order was the main driving force behind the switch (the local authorities certainly wouldn't want thousands of Spurs fans turning up and being unable to gain entry to the tiny non-league ground), and in addition, with the income from FA cup matches being distributed more equally between the home and away teams, it would make financial sense to play the match at a large capacity venue.
I think it was money, maximising the gate receipts. Didn't the FA stop the practice afterwards? If it was on safety grounds, I imagine it would still happen. The Stevenage match was at their ground. In previous years, I expect they'd have taken the money and switched to WHL.
Wasn't this Colin Lees debut for Spurs (touted as the new Greaves) after his 4 goals ?I caught this on BT Classics the other day, and the memories came flooding back. I've heard@Flav ask a few times, when chatting on the Podcast to older supporters what it was like as Spurs back in the day, and what the difference was between now and then. This match encapsulated perfectly what footy in the 70s was all about. Kids sitting and straddling the hoardings around the pitch side, long haired young scallys in groups laughing, joking and generally being lairy whenever the camera was on them, a sea of scarves on show after every goal and that ripple effect you had when the fans surged forward dow the packed terraces.
Particular highlights were:
● the amount of young kids - from about 9 years upward - going to The Lane in a group with mates, under no adult supervision.
● cops lining the perimeter on the pitch (to stop the inevitable pitch invasions).
● Youths being led along the touchline with their arms held back behind them by a cop for misbehaving (generally being involved in a punch up of some sort). In one particular instance, a lad of approximately 16-18 yrs was being lead away as described when a wayward ball left the pitch and was going to run off just behind him. In spite of his arms being restrained he makes an attempt to extend a leg out behind him to trap the ball. I nearly pissed myself laughing.
● after a goal, there's a shot of Terry Naylor with two young interlopers, one hugging Naylor around the waist while another has jumped up into his arms, and Naylor rubs his hair affectionately. In fact, after every goal scores of youngsters run onto the pitch and grab and pat the Spurs players closest to them.
● the amount of black kids in attendance. Not particularly noteworthy you might say, but this was the period when the National Front was at it's peak and most football grounds had groups of NF thugs hanging around and in the case of teams like Millwall, Chelsea, West Ham etc had vociferous racist chanting from the terraces. Tottenham was, in the main, highly resistant to this anti black/brown bullshit, and in fact often had Anti-Nazi League pamphlet sellers outside the ground.
At the final whistle, Anarchy ensued. Hundreds of spectators ran on to the pitch, mobbing the players, police and stewards battling to hold them back and pretty violent scenes as fans are flung to the floor, fisticuffs between fans and the stewards while 10 year olds run up to gurn into the pitch side cameras. To top it off, a horde of early to mid-teen kids are mobbing Colin Lee - a 4 goal scoring debutant in this match - and then attempt to chair him off the pitch, but the kids being of diminished height and strength can only manage to lift him about 2 feet of the ground.
As we approach 2017 and the forty year anniversary of this game, the stark juxtaposition of the match day experience as it was then compared to today's sanitised, homogenised, highly regulated (and all seated) affair makes for sobering contemplation. Football has certainly changed, but not always for the better.
Me and my school mate went with our dad's I was 8 years old. I still go to Spurs and drink with that old school mate. I remember the excitement before the game and us speculating of the score. The match just blew us away. The match is now a blur but the excitement I felt that day has never left me.
Maybe thats why we felt bad and drew the original tie 0-0 then.
I remember that well. They did a lap of the pitch at the end while we applauded them off. Their captain got their goal iirc.
Great find.
Observations:
1. Just a world class header from Teddy to open the scoring. World Class.
2. The SpursLine 0898 phone number "mum, honestly, it was a Spurs phone line!"
3. The Enfield & St Albans Coop loved us.
4. I have absolutely no recollection of this match. Being played in 1993, I was dead in the middle of my "lost ten years".
I was in the middle shelf with my late father but not in the mob . Lee was the
the new Pele for 5 mins .
Next to us was l think a slightly retarded
bloke with annoying rattle .
Victory meant a wimpy celebration in
Crouch End before joining up with the
rest of the family .
the new Pele for 5 mins .
Next to us was l think a slightly retarded
bloke with annoying rattle .
Victory meant a wimpy celebration in
Crouch End before joining up with the
rest of the family .
I had a bit more hair and my lost years weren't as "public toilet" as this, but pretty close.For Scots that means
right?
Indeed. Must have pissed off Ian Moores who scored a hat trick in the same match but was inevitably overlooked by Lee's 4 goal debut tally.
Bit thin on top mate are we!
Were you one of the young ne'er do well's invading the pitch at the end of the match, lol?
Is that a wimpy celebration (as in 'pretty crap') or a Wimpy celebration (as in 'pretty crap' burger)?
I am now! 43 years old plus hair clippers does not equal flowing locks.
Wasn't that a midweek game?
I went to that one with my Brother.We was meant to be going up in his mini van but the effing thing wouldn't start,so got the train.Proper party atmosphere on the train on the way back to Rye house afterwards.