Tottenham: The Glory-Glory Game

such a fabulous out of the ordinary name and became at that moment, an unofficial Spurs Football Supporter.

Before I could persuade Dad to take me to a game, we moved up north to a village about fifteen miles from Liverpool. The local children thought me unusual as I spoke in a funny accent and supported a team with a strange name. The other children in the main supported Everton or Liverpool, who were at that time in the Second Division. Ian St John, a star player for the Reds, lived close by and could often be seen washing his own car! No high walls and gates to hide behind. He like all footballers was an ordinary man just doing ordinary things.

Players were so different then.

I started my persuasive tactics again in an attempt to see my beloved team, who by then were beating most sides and scoring hatfuls of goals. Dad said that he would only take me to Everton as the two Manchester clubs were too far away. In reality he did not really want to take me as he was not a bona fide Spurs supporter. His team was whichever London side won, starting with West Ham and working from there in no particular order.

The following season was the one that everyone remembers 60/61. Spurs began like a steam train, winning the first eleven games. Even the other boys in the village school began to take an interest in my team. Suddenly I was not the supporter of a team with a strange name. I supported the team that the whole country was talking about.

I pestered my dad again to take me to Everton. His excuse this time was that it was too close to Christmas. Looking now at the attendance, 61,052 didn’t agree with him and went to see their heroes lose 3-1 to the Team of The Century, as Spurs were being called. My only success was seeing the Cup Final live on a small black and white TV with a nine-inch screen.

I was ecstatic when we beat Leicester 2-0 to win the Double. I thought that maybe the next season dad would relent and take me to see my first match.

Before the 61/62 season began, we moved yet again, this time to Staffordshire, a county that had no local teams playing in the First Division. I had to be content reading the papers and watching what little football there was on the TV. This went on for eighteen months before we moved to Hertfordshire. By this time I was aged twelve and even though we lived thirty minutes by train from Kings Cross and then the direct 73 bus service, my parents thought me too young to go to White Hart Lane on my own. It would take a further five years – the wilderness years – of pestering and arguing before I would go to see my beloved Spurs in the flesh.

During this period my favourite player at that time, John White, was tragically killed by lightning while playing a solo round of golf in the summer of 1964. I was heartbroken. I had to have a new favourite, but who would it be? Later that year a player with a strange name joined the club with the so-called strange name, supported by a boy with a so-called strange accent. It was a match made in heaven – and my hero worship with Alan Gilzean began.

The great Spurs team from the double season had been slowly replaced by another one of Spurs Writers' Club: The Glory-Glory Game 27