14. Desperately seeking Jim GERRY COX
Occupation: Football writer Age: 52 Location: London (Ealing) Spurs fan since: 1967 All-time favourite player: Jimmy Greaves Website: www.hayters.com
Gerry runs one of the UK’s premier sports agencies, and as a football writer has had what he calls ‘the privilege and sometimes the misfortune’ to cover Spurs across 25 years. He is a long-time Tottenham fan who strives to show press box neutrality.
I
WISH I could say I became a Spurs fan because of a Jimmy Greaves goal I saw. I wish I could reel off the great goals I watched the great man score, like any starstruck young kid who started going to White Hart Lane in the sixties. I wish I could pick a one-two-three of my favourite Greavesie goals and replay them in my mind as vividly as I saw them in real life. But the truth is I can make none of these claims because I never saw my hero score for Spurs. Hard to imagine, I know, that you could be anywhere near North London in the 1960s and not see a goal from the greatest goalscorer the modern game has known. I don’t need to repeat the stats here – although I am more than happy to state that James Peter Greaves managed 266 goals in 379 games for Spurs, having hit 100 before his 21st birthday and 44 for England in barely half the games that it took Bobby Charlton and Gary Lineker to reach that mark. No, my main memory of Jimmy Greaves in colour (as going to football was in those days of black and white television) is hearing the crowd roar as he scored while we walked away from the Lane. That was at the last knockings of a shocking 3-1 defeat by Manchester City, our bogey team. Four-nil down and fed up, Dad and I decided to call it a day and walk back to my Nan’s a few minutes before the final whistle, so we could beat the mass exodus at the end.We’d barely hit Tottenham High Road when we heard Roar One – for a penalty. Moments later, as we stood frozen to the spot with our heads tilted, comicfashion, back towards the stadium, we heard Roar Two, as the ball was put in the net with the minimum of fuss by Greavsie (we presumed). We were right. By the time we got back to Nan’s, who had my favourite cheese-andSpurs Writers' Club: The Glory-Glory Game 63