Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms

Ian Moores name cropped up on the rival watch thread and got me thinking, and I thought it was a more subject for this thread......

Ian Moores – my memory has been kind to him, I never saw him play in the flesh, and as he played in the era before wall to wall coverage (1976 – 1978) I am reliant on what I remember from Match of the Day / Big Match highlights and having just looked up his stats (which aren’t very good 6 goals in 29 matches), my memory maybe kinder to him than to others!

But mention of him and Colin Lee got me thinking about the strikers we have had in my time supporting Spurs, and for those of you with even longer memories I apologise for not including those I never saw, (Smith and Greaves in particular). And I was specially thinking about pairs of strikers and initially I was thinking that in 3 seasons we went from Lee & Moores to Archibald and Crooks that was some leap forward. Where would Moores and Lee (and Archibald and Crooks for that matter) feature when compared to some of the pairings we have had from 1970 up to now I have l listed a few in chronological order some jump out as pairings others maybe not so much – I have only listed each player once so picking a specific partner for a Falco or Sheringham was not easy as they both had many, but it’s quite a list – see what you think and who were your favourites? And who have I missed?

Martin Chivers & Alan Gilzean, John Duncan & Alfie Conn, Chris Jones and Gerry Armstrong, Ian Moores and Colin Lee, Steve Archibald & Garth Crooks, Mark Falco and Alan Brazil, Clive Allen and Nico Claessen, Gary Lineker & Paul Stewart, Gordon Durie and Paul Walsh, Jurgen Klinsmann and Teddy Sheringham, Steffan Iversen & Chris Armstrong, Helder Postiga & Frederick Kanoute, Dimitar Berbatov & Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch & Jermain Defoe, Roberto Soldado & Emmanuel Adebayor and maybe Kane and Alli.

 

I always liked John Duncan,even though a West Ham pundit accused John of playing in wellington boots.Well,I think he was flatfooted but he had that instinct for goalscoring.
Why can't Jansen be like that for us?

 

I remember Moores and was even at that Bristol Rovers match (9-0). Remember that he may not have been a great striker and that was even in our second division season! Died too early of course, but that is a different matter. Point taken about wall to wall coverage though - for example most of Hoddle's brilliance was never recorded.

Of the pairings, Crooks and Archibald resonate with me particularly because I saw them quite often. Crooks running onto a Hoddle throughball is proper entertainment!

 

On an unrelated topic, in a couple of weeks I'm going to "run" the Brighton Marathon. It is going to be started by none other than the legend that is Chris Hughton. I'm going to be starting very close to the back so hopefully will get a chance to shout up at him that he's the best full back I ever saw. I mean that in the traditional sense, the modern full back can't really be compared, it's a different position IMHO.

 

I always liked Chris Jones. Top class player apart from actually scoring. The Soldado of his day.

 

There are a lot of hills in Brighton, I hope you have been training hard. If you have to run up Bear Road god help you, it's difficult enough driving up there.

 

Chivers & Gilzean, Archibald & Crooks and Berbs and Keene would be my top 3 pairings although unfair on some others.
Conn wasn't a 'striker' in my eyes in these terms - my memories of him were more as sitting behind the principal striker on the left - but there again it's a long time ago and my memory plays tricks with me. I even remember Don McAllister as a world class CB!!

 

Klinsmann and Sheringham as well surely?

 

Loved 'em, mate, but not in my personal Top 3 pairings. Definitely 4th mind

 

Teddy + Klinsmann is the best on-paper quality pairing I ever saw for Spurs
(both were real class) .

But Crooks and Archibald for me, both in end product and their very different complementary
styles (Crooks was a fast beast with a superb bullet header, Archibald was silky smooth) .


"I even remember Don McAllister as a world class CB!!"

I remember him as a world class striker (he scored the winner in the 1978 Div 2
top of the table class at WHL vs Bolton) . <ITK>

 

Just realised that I forgot to include Darren Bent and Sandra Redknapp

 

great choice of person to ask, do we believe him when he says he never meant to hurt anyone?

 

please log in to view this image

I'm going to say no. The ****.

 

He was all over the place,like his hair!
Could you imagine Adam doing the dirty on Graham Roberts?

 

Robbo would have got up, laughed, and asked him if that was all he had.
And Dave Mackay ?? Well, in his own words :

No-one who goes into a fair challenge with me has anything to fear.

 

I can remember Dave tackling one player and very nearly putting him in the rear of the stand. No. It wasn't Bremner!

 

I also remember Noel Cantwell breaking Dave Mackay's leg in a tackle which cost Spurs a possible 2nd Euro Cup Winners Cup. that was against Man U, and set us back several seasons until he came back.No subs then.
We won 2-0 at the Lane and lost 4-1 with ten men in the second leg.
There's no telling what Spurs would have accomplished if he hadn't broken his leg.He was that special.He wasn't quite the powerhouse when he finally came back.

 

I found this article which I think supports your conclusion

Now, you can’t accuse someone of intentionally going out on to the field with the want to injure his opponents without a good amount of material to back you up, but luckily for us, old Charlie doesn’t tend to waste any time when he gets a chance to break a leg or two. If we just concentrate on his history with Tottenham, for example, there hasn’t been a match for about six seasons in which he hasn’t flown in recklessly late and forced somebody prematurely off the field. It could come across like we’re straying in to jet fuel melting steel beams territory, but there’s far too many examples in the archive for it to be filed harmlessly away as coincidence.

As well as twice injuring Gareth Bale with increasing levels of malice, Adam has also gone through Luka Modric, Paulinho, Scott Parker and Jan Vertonghen, to name but a few. Over the years, Adam has collected two red cards against Spurs, been called a “coward” by Bale himself. The sad thing is, during none of these incidents does Adam once look to fairly win the ball. There’s an argument to be a made – flimsy, yes, but not without substance – that there’s nothing wrong about going in with a little extra force in a contact sport if your primary objective is to win the ball. If you can both take possession and unsettle the opponent in one movement, then so be it, but Adam isn’t a good enough defender to pull that off, and nor is he smart enough to disguise his actions anywhere close to as effectively as he must think he does.

 

Perhaps Adam needs to get his eyes checked. I think they had to send Nobbie Styles to the opticians for the same (?) reason.