Off Topic Heroes of yesteryear

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/...f-hurt-after-alan-gilzeans-move-to-tottenham/

 

"Born is the king of White Hart Lane." That was sung a lot about Alan wasn't it? It's difficult to decide whether an individual one off performance is classed as more important than a season long one. Now it's hard to remember a penalty shoot out in the final of the UEFA Cup against I think Anderlecht, the year escapes me. Tony Parks' last save to win the cup is for me the one that's most prominent, certainly a Spurs hero.

 

Chris Hughton certainly one of my favourites. The best full back I've ever seen defensively, can't remember anyone ever getting past him! Also a good manager who has done really well with Brighton, so really sad what happened last night. Particuarly felt for him with Newcastle having got them promoted and then spent all the time in the prem expecting to be sacked, and still did better than any of their recent managers!

 

Followed Alan Mullery to Brighton? I didn't know that as I've not followed the Championship at all. I mentioned Alan Mullery because he was a very good captain who captained England, a definite Spurs hero and legend.

 

He's the goal keeper...

Played a bit in the late 50's, early 60's. Millwall and Peterborough United...

 

I liked Frank Saul.Not a world beater by any means but always a trier.I think he made his league debut at Arsenal at age 17.
I can just see his "bomb" v Notts Forest in that Hillsbro semi final and his winner on the turn at Wembley v Chelsea......

 

Johnny Brooks passed today. One of my Dad's favourites. Had the misfortune to join 2 years after the '51 title side and leave 2 years before the Double Team. Thanks for everything. If my old man (not one to overdo it in praising footballers unnecessarily) says you could play, you were very, very good.

 

I was fortunate enough to see Johnny Brooks play, albeit towards the end of his playing career. It was for Cambridge City and in the days when non league football was a heck of a lot higher standard than it is now. His signing was considered a coup for Cambridge even though they had strong links with Spurs in those days - Our ex wing half Tony Marchi, had a spell as manager of Cambridge.

It's a long time ago, but I well remember him as an intelligent footballer as well as a talented one.

 

For those of us who appreciate the finer things, I found this from the wonderful Norman Giller's Spurs Odyssey - The Managers:

As we reach Manager No 5 in my history of Tottenham bosses, I make no apologies for repeating an article on Peter ‘The Great’ McWilliam. If you have Spurs in your soul, you can never read this great man’s story too many times and the political shenanigans that make ever true Tottenham fan literally see red …

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Born Inverness,Scotland 21 September 1879
Died Redcar, Yorkshire 1 October 1951
TOTAL MATCHES (in 2 spells,1912-27/1938-42)
P750 W331 D162 L257 F1315 A1088 Win%44.13

PETER McWILLIAM carried on the tradition started by fellow-Scot John Cameron of encouraging football that was smooth, stylish and sophisticated, and played along the ground. "It's a game of fit'ba not heed ba'" he was fond of saying in his strong Scottish burr as he watched contemptuously the teams who played the hump-it-high-and-long game, a crude version of what is known today as Route 1. He wanted the kick-and-rush style rooted out.

We can, arguably, confer on McWilliam the title of Father of Spurs. His methods not only brought winning results but also had a huge influence on the thoughts and deeds of two future Tottenham legends, Arthur Rowe and Bill Nicholson.

McWilliam arrived at the Lane in December 1912 at the age of 33, after an appalling injury had forced his retirement from a successful playing career with Newcastle United, where he was admiringly known by the fans as ‘Peter the Great.’ A snake-hipped player, he was famous for introducing the 'McWilliam Wiggle', a move in which he would shimmy past defenders with a wiggle of his hips. He had started out with his local club Inverness Thistle before taking his talent to Tyneside in 1902, playing a key role in helping the Geordies win three League titles and reach four FA Cup finals.

A stylish, upright left-half with a magic wand of a left foot, he won eight Scotland caps in the days when there were only a handful of international matches a year. Even I am not old enough to have seen him play, but from all accounts he was a player in the mould of that Rangers genius of the 1960s, 'Slim Jim' Baxter. His playing career came to an abrupt and painful halt when he was stretchered off with a horribly damaged leg while captaining Scotland against Wales in Cardiff in 1911.

McWilliam, described as ‘a thoughtful, pleasant-mannered man,’ made it known that he was interested in management, and Tottenham chairman Charles Roberts lured him to The Lane with the offer of a wage of £12 a week.

He struggled to make an impact in his early days in charge, mainly because he inherited players who were past their best or unable to play with the sound technique that his style of play demanded. As war clouds were gathering in Europe, he uncovered in Arthur Grimsdell an even better wing-half than he himself had been, while Jimmy Seed shone at inside-right, and Bert Bliss and Jimmy Dimmock formed a potent left wing partnership. The squad was further strengthened by the arrival from Northampton of wee wizard winger ‘Fanny’ Walden, along with assured right-back Tommy Clay, and the two Jimmys – Cantrell and Banks.

War had already been declared when – despite all their new talent – Tottenham were relegated in bottom place in a 1914-15 season that most sensible people felt should have been abandoned. It seemed obscene to be playing football while thousands were dying on the battlefields in France and Belgium.

McWilliam resumed control at White Hart Lane in 1918-19 as the unspeakable horrors of the First World War were laid to rest beneath a riot of celebration that turned the 1920s into what F. Scott Fitzgerald concisely and colourfully summed up as The Jazz Age. Peter completed his jigsaw by bringing in goalkeeper Alex Hunter, centre-half Charlie Walters, hard-as-nails right-half Bert Smith and specialist left-back Bob McDonald.

An interlude here as I focus on the controversial circumstances in which Spurs found themselves after the wartime shooting finished and the football shooting recommenced. It will make Spurs fans see Arsenal red as we revisit an era when chicanery triumphed over chivalry.

The Football League roared back into action nine months after the November 11 1918 Armistice, boasting of being “bigger and better” than ever. They expanded from 40 clubs to 44, with the First and Second Divisions now made up of 22 clubs each. The shock, particularly for Spurs, was that the restructured First Division included their new-to-North-London neighbours Arsenal – but not Tottenham.

It was naturally assumed – with the extra places available – that the teams that finished in the last two places in the 1914-15 season, Chelsea and Tottenham, would automatically retain their First Division status, with Derby and Preston promoted as the top two teams in the Second Division to make up the 22 clubs.

But nobody took into account the Machiavellian manoeuvres of Arsenal chairman Sir Henry Norris. He secretly negotiated behind the scenes and behind the backs, and had powerful Liverpool chairman and League president John McKenna – nicknamed ‘Honest John’ – giving him surprisingly strong support.

Despite finishing only fifth in the Second Division in 1914-15, it was Arsenal who were promoted along with Chelsea, Derby and Preston. The team that lost out was Tottenham, and all these years later it still rankles and irritates, like an itch that will not go away and the more you scratch it the worse it gets.

Chairman Charles Roberts, who always apparently played by the book, was speechless, even apoplectic. Privately, the Spurs directors and – more vociferously, the supporters – were wondering just how ‘Honest’ John McKenna was. Goodness knows what he would have been called had social cyberspace networks like Facebook and Twitter been around in those day. I think the internet might have exploded.

It was not only Tottenham who felt left out in the cold. The stench carried all the way up through the Black Country and to the coalfields of Yorkshire. Wolves and Barnsley had finished third and fourth in the old Second Division, and they could not fathom how Arsenal had managed to leapfrog them without a ball being kicked.

Norris, the man who stubbornly transferred Arsenal to Highbury from Woolwich against the wishes of most people in 1913, got the comeuppance wished on him by Tottenham. In 1927 the Football Association suspended him and a fellow director, and the club was censured for illegally inducing players, including the great Charles Buchan, to join Arsenal.

Sir Henry became embroiled in a huge libel case against the FA and the Daily Mail, who alleged he had been using Arsenal funds to pay his personal expenses and the wages of his chauffeur. There was no hiding behind super-injunctions in those days. The newspaper produced evidence that he had pocketed £125 from the sale of the club team bus, endorsing the cheque with the forged signature of manager Herbert Chapman, and paying the money into his wife’s account.

The cheers in Tottenham when he lost the case could no doubt be heard all the way to the Law Courts. Norris, whose ancestor had been beheaded for – euphemistically – flirting with Anne Bolyen, fitted the image of a Victorian villain, complete with a huge twirling moustache and a monocle that distorted his features.

A former Conservative MP, Mayor of Fulham and chairman at Craven Cottage when he tried to merge the club with Woolwich Arsenal, Norris was drummed out of football for the rest of his life.

Arsenal, the team he talked and tricked into the First Division, has been at the top table ever since – without ever earning the right to a place on the field of play. Here comes that itch again. These shenanigans gave Tottenham the motivation to win a First Division place through playing rather than politicking, and in Peter McWilliam they had the man with a plan and the players to implement it. The on-fire Lilywhites ran away with the Second Division championship in 1919-20 with an avalanche of 102 goals and a six-point advantage over runners-up Huddersfield (this, of course, in the days of two points for a win).

Their collection of 70 points from a possible 84 was a Second Division record and the best in the Football League for twenty-seven years.

The terraces of football grounds heaved with huge crowds as the game in England rivalled cricket as the national sport. The only time the crowds would ever be bigger was immediately after the next little World War dust-up, but the Roaring Twenties promised peace and progress … except with the blind and bland rulers of the Football Association and the Football League. They obstinately reigned over a shameful age of soccer slavery, with the players treated like servants; the complete opposite of today's pampered, over-rewarded footballers. Surely somebody has to find a middle-ground compromise between slavery and avarice.

As well as contracts that bound them hand and foot to their clubs, the players were told at the start of the 1922-23 season that the maximum wage was going to be cut from £9 to £8 in the season, and £6 to £5 in the summer. Strike action was threatened, but it proved an empty threat. The wages chop was forced on the players because of the entertainment tax, introduced to help pay off war debts as the Government cashed in on the game drawing record attendances.

There were a spate of injuries and even deaths caused by over-crowding at grounds, and in a bid to keep spectator numbers down and lessen the chances of mass injuries, the FA increased prices for the 1921 FA Cup final between Tottenham and Wolves at Stamford Bridge. It cost a guinea (21 shillings, £1.5p) for the best seat in the house, and two shillings to stand. The match still drew a capacity crowd of 72,805 and record receipts of £15,400.

It was the wettest final on record, with everybody getting soaked by a non-stop downpour. Newly promoted Tottenham, with skipper Arthur Grimsdell, Jimmy Seed and left wing partners Bert Bliss and Jimmy Dimmock in dominating form, kept their feet better on the quagmire of a pitch. “Dodger” Dimmock scored the only goal eight minutes into the second-half to make Tottenham the first southern winners of the Cup since they first won it twenty years earlier as a Southern League club.

Manager McWilliam, a winner with Newcastle in 1910, became the first man to play in and then manage an FA Cup winning side. The triumphant team:

Hunter
Clay, McDonald
Smith, Walters, Grimsdell
Banks, Seed, Cantrell, Bliss, Dimmock

Spurs finished sixth in the First Division that season. A year later they were runners- up to Liverpool, and went out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage against Preston after having a perfectly good looking goal disallowed.

The profits from the 1921 FA Cup run were ploughed into ground rather than team improvements. Archie the Architect Leitch designed split-level covered terraces at the Paxton Road end, and then two years later at the Park Lane end. This increased the capacity to 58,000, with room for 40,000 under cover. They also invested in buying the Red House restaurant at the front of the ground, which was converted into the club offices. But in a way White Hart Lane had become dressed up with nowhere to go.

They managed to lose the man who had been their key to success when McWilliam was allowed to move to Middlesbrough in 1927 for what was then an astronomical salary of £1,500 a year. It made McWilliam the highest-paid football manager in the world.

The Scot did not want to leave, and told the board that if they would up his wages to £20 a week – an extra fiver – he would stay. Charles Roberts and his fellow directors refused, so McWilliam reluctantly left for pastures new. But one day he would return to continue the grassroots team building that he had introduced at Gravesend and Northfleet, where the Kent club was used as a testing ground and eventually a launching pad for future Spurs players. In a 1925 interview, he said:

“I am a great believer in bringing in young players straight from school and indoctrinating them with the Spurs way of playing football. That way you get continuity running through every team from youth, through the “A” side and reserves and up to the first-team. We train the players to have only good habits. I always tell them to treat the ball as their best friend and always to pass it with care and consideration. Belting the ball with an anywhere-will-do mentality has no place in the Tottenham way of doing things.”

Arthur Rowe and, later Bill Nicholson, sat at his feet, listening and learning. They would put his principles into practice to bring post-war Glory-Glory years to Tottenham, and all with a nod of appreciation for what they had picked up from Peter the Great.

He was an impossible act to follow, as his immediate successor found out to his cost. That’s for next week. Thanks for listening.





SPURS ODYSSEY QUIZ TEASER

As we patiently wait for the third Spurs Odyssey Quiz League to kick off at the start of next season, I am challenging you each week to a teaser test of your knowledge of Tottenham players, ancient and modern.

Last week’s challenge: “I have won four England caps, played more than 230 games for Spurs and and am a former club captain. Who am I and from which club did I join Tottenham in 2005?”

Yes, you know-alls, it was big-hearted Michael Dawson, who joined Tottenham along with Andy Reid from Nottingham Forest. We look forward to welcoming ever-popular Daws back to the Lane next season with the Hull City team he helped push to promotion.

First name drawn: Bryan Wright, a Hertfordshire-born Tottenham supporter for more than 40 years who now lives in Wiltshire. I will be sending Bryan a screen version of one of my Tottenham-themed books.

This week’s teaser: “I won 13 international caps, moved to Manchester United from Tottenham and was the youngest member of the Scottish squad in the 1982 World Cup finals. Who am I and with which English club did I win a UEFA Cup final medal in 1981?”

Please email your answer by midnight on Friday to[email protected] You will receive an automated acknowledgement.

Don’t forget to add your name, the district where you live and how long you’ve supported Spurs.

You can purchase any of my books from me at www.normangillerbooks.com, including No 101 out this week: July 30 1966, Football’s Longest Day, the full inside story of the day England won the World Cup. I was there, and was the only journalist to get into the dressing-room after the final. All profits from my Tottenham-themed books go to theTottenham Tribute Trust to help any of our old heroes who have hit difficult times.

Thanks for your company. See you same time, same place next week. COYS!

The "Giller Index" - listing all Norman's articles for Spurs Odyssey

I heard him talking about his lifelong work and deep friendship with Muhummad Ali on the day before Ali's funeral with H&J. Very well worth researching for those that are interested as nobody in this country knew Ali like Norman Giller did and I think that we knew the best of the man in this country.

 

Here is the Bastard

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NORRIS in defensive mode, as well he should have been.

 

JOHNNY BROOKS RIP
Posted on 23 June 2016 - 14:19

The funeral of our former England forward Johnny Brooks took place in Bournemouth yesterday. John Fennelly, who joined family, friends and the football family in general to say farewell to the great man, pays his own tribute.

If one man was born to play for Spurs then that man was Johnny Brooks.

Despite hailing from Reading, the young Brooks was a Tottenham fan from day one, attracted to the Lane by manager Arthur Rowe’s magical 'Push and Run' side that raced to promotion in 1950 and then eclipsed Division One the following year.

Johnny joined us from his home town club in February, 1953, when Rowe showed that he mirrored Johnny’s affection for Spurs by beating a number of other top clubs to his signature and allowing home grown pair Dennis Uphill and Harry Robshaw to make the reverse journey to Elm Park in exchange.

Brooks understandably found the transition from Division Three South to the top flight a tough one in the early days but, once he became a first team regular in 1955, he adapted to the challenge with such casual ease that he stepped up for his senior England debut within a year.

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Looking back, the fact that he scored twice in three international games should have brought him further recognition but he was unfortunate to play in an era when Johnny Haynes was first choice. It was an exceptional goals per game ratio that these days would see him pencilled in as the first name on the team sheet.

So Johnny just went back to Tottenham, doing what he did best and what he revelled in at any level – sticking that ball in the old onion bag! He scored 46 times in 166 league outings for us plus another five in 13 FA Cup games. And he created so many more.

So why did Bill Nicholson sell him to Chelsea in December, 1959? Well, for starters such was his deserved reputation that we received seven times the fee that we paid for him. And although Nick particularly wanted Les Allen, so successful a component in our Double side, Bill once told me that he would have kept John but Chelsea boss Ted Drake insisted. Drake also knew that Brooks was unique while the player himself was far too good to play a supporting role in our side, with a few cameo appearances but mostly confined to general squad duties.

Former Spurs player and manager Terry Venables provided his own written tribute which was read out at Johnny’s well attended ‘service of celebration and thanksgiving.’ In it he revealed that Brooksy never gave it the 'big one’ but genuinely could not fathom the confidence and admiration that others applied to him.

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Indeed, Venables rated him so much that he included Johnny in his 2001 book of ‘Football Heroes,’ with Brooks in there alongside the likes of Pele, Bobby Moore, George Best, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Alfredo di Stefano, John Charles, Tom Finney, Duncan Edwards and company.

Said Terry: “His ability amazed me. His ball control was exceptional – and he had this rare ability to run faster with the ball than without it. Johnny could also pass the ball wonderfully well. He had an unforgettable body swerve... one that could also make supporters fall out of their seats!”

The two were at Chelsea together when Terry described Johnny as his ‘hero.’ In fact Brooks was in the side when Venables made his Blues debut at the age of 17 and naturally Terry still remembers the game.

“I was playing with my hero so it was a big moment for me. At half-time I was sitting opposite Johnny in the dressing room. He stood up, mug of tea in hand, strolled over in that impressive style of his, sat down next to me and I thought this was it – words of advice or encouragement, some gold dust from my idol.

“Instead he turned round to me and asked: ‘How do you think I’m doing, Tel?’”

Not only was Johnny a wonderful player but his enthusiasm was infectious. He just loved playing football – even, as Terry recalled, to the detriment of his winkle-pickers in park kick-abouts.

And that fact was continually aired yesterday as his family and former team mates spoke of him as a man always willing to join in any game as he played on into his fifties with various Hertfordshire amateur sides, in what was a fascinating insight into his overall footballing outlook.

A different man, a different footballer. But clearly a special one.

I spoke to the 'Old Man' a couple of days ago. He's the same age as Greavesie (almost to the day). His Spurs heroes - Ronnie Burgess, Johnny Brooks and Jimmy Greaves. I saw Greavesie a few times and cried when I was told that he'd gone to the Spammers (I was only 7 at the time). He said he thought Brooks was the best balanced footballer he ever saw until he saw Jimmy Greaves. I wish that I'd seen him as he must have been some player.

 

Thanks for that Thanks for that Brian - ahem. I am so glad I started this thread, I had no idea if or how it would be used, but thanks to you it is gold dust

 

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Thanks for starting it. It's an excellent thread and I'm very happy to contribute whatever I come across of interest.

I'm lucky to be a 3rd generation Spur. My dad and his dad before him were Spurs through and through (even when my grandad ran a pub just a short walk from Highbury). That goes back to the 1920's. My grandad was at the 1921 Cup Final, so my dad's able to talk about Spurs with his own recollections (70 years worth) plus what his dad told him. I don't ever recall my dad reading to me but he'd talk Spurs without end. He's the same about the Rock 'n' Rollers of the '50's which makes me sound very much older than I actually am when I talk football and music (which is most of the time).

 

From the Spurs Official Site:

During World War One, all sport in the UK had been suspended by the time the battle began and many athletes including football players from teams across the country had volunteered to enlist in the Army.

Among those killed on this day in 1916 were Archie Wilson and Norman Wood, who both represented the Club before joining the Armed forces.

Archie, born in Ayrshire, started out with Nottingham Forest and joined our junior staff in December, 1909, before signing for Southend United in the summer of 1911. He excelled at the Essex club and continued his progress with Middlesbrough from July, 1914.

When war broke out, Archie joined the London Scottish Regiment and returned to guest for Spurs. After playing 10 games for us, he left for the Front where he was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, aged 26.

Norman, born in Streatham, South London, played for Bromley and was spotted by Spurs when representing the London FA. He joined the Club in 1907 and played on the left wing for our Reserves for two years before spending time with Crystal Palace, Plymouth Argyle, Croydon Common, Chelsea and Stockport County.

He served with the Middlesex Regiment as a Sergeant at Delville Wood and was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme, also aged 26.

Both Archie and Norman are commemorated at the Thiepval Memorial in France where the names of more than 72,000 soldiers who lost their lives in the 141-day long battle are remembered. It’s estimated that over 90 per cent of those commemorated died between July-November, 1916.

A second Battle of the Somme took place in 1918, during which another of our former players succumbed.

One of the first black outfield players in the professional game, Walter Tull was born in Folkestone but orphaned at an early age. After serving a printing apprenticeship, he was playing for Clapton when we signed him in 1909. He moved to Northampton in 1911 where he remained until the outbreak of the war when he joined the (1st Football) Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, nicknamed ‘The Diehards.’ His brother William also enlisted. Promoted to Sergeant, Walter was invalided home and then gained a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on May 30, 1917, contrary to Army regulations at the time. Thus he became the first British-born black combat officer in the British army. Walter was mentioned in dispatches and recommended for the Military Cross for “gallantry and coolness” during action in Italy. He died on March 25, 1918. He was 29.

Thank you to all the young men who served. We will remember you.

 

You certainly are a wealth of information,Brian.

Johnny Brooks,who won 3 caps together with Ted Ditchburn in 1956-7,always struck me as more Hollywood material.Handsome,muscular man with a style all of his own on the pitch.
However,he lost a lot of form halfway through that season and was replaced by Alfie Stokes,a player who would actually score 5 goals for Spurs in a league match.

 

Nice to see you back again Smithy. Have you been accidently locked out again?
I agree with you re Johnny Brooks, he was a looker!

 

Locked out again! The Gods must be against me (?). Didn't get a chance to comment on Newcastle 5 Spurs1.....that still hurts!!!! Unbelievable.

 

p.s. Brian Moore was my favourite commentator!

 

The Brian Moore, Malcolm Allison, Derek Dougan, Paddy Crerand and Bob McNab line-up for the World Cup 1970 and then with Cloughie and Jack Charlton in '74 represented the high point in football summary as far as I'm concerned. A mate of mine does a great Cloughie and his mum was good friends with Malcolm Allison who he can also impersonate pretty well. One very drunk night (it was the night of 'The Wally with the Brolly' when we lost to Croatia) he and I tried to re-enact the panel. I can do a passable Doog and Crerand and also picked up 'Mooro' which I am now called whenever we watch football together. He was always my favourite too.

 

I always suspected Brian was a secret Spurs fan.He always seemed more excited when Spurs were on,than usual.But,of course,I'm predujiced.....

The name Malcolm Allison took me back to when he coached wearing a Fedora at a match(or many more!).
I can see back to my first trip to watch Romford Borough play.There was the massive Big Mal playing for them with Ted Ditchburn in goal.
Ah! Memories.....

(Sorry.Take the J out of predudiced!)