Of all the Premiership new boys, when it comes to games between Spurs and Swansea, there isn’t a great deal of ‘previous’, certainly not in recent years anyway.
One tie that really sticks in the mind came in 1978-79 when the Welshmen, prior to their first division exploits of the early 1980’s came to Spurs in a league cup match.
This was the year of Ardiles and Villa and a season that had begun brightly with a 1-1 draw at Champions Nottingham Forest. Sadly the next few weeks were anything but bright with a run of defeats and the tie with Swansea summed up our dismal start to the season.
The first game began with a ‘challenge’ by Tommy Smith on Ardiles that saw him limp out of the game later on. Spurs were then 2-0 down at half time but rallied and goals from Hoddle and Gerry Armstrong forced a replay.
Despite this setback, fans arrived at White Hart Lane and gave Smith a ‘warm’ reception ahead of a game that we all expected to win comfortably. What happened was embarrassing and a 3-1 victory for Swansea that was well deserved.
For all the ‘ticker tape’ welcomes that our two Argentineans were given, this was a pretty depressing start to life back in the old first division. Happily it all improved and we were just a short period away from back to back FA Cup wins.
Does anyone else recall those two games against Swansea? Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any video footage available but there is this Lineker penalty from a later tie in 1991-92.
That tie will always be remembered in these parts as it is immortalised in the Swansea City song, sung with much gusto at the recent Championship play-off final.
Look forward to meeting up with you again next season.
As an aside, my first visit to a First Division ground was at White Hart Lane as a kid. An uncle was the copper on duty walking up and down the touchline and I was sat on a little wall, around halfway, with explicit instructions not to move. All I can remember is the balletic Alan Gilzean and Alan Ball (for Everton I think) wearing white boots.
The 91-92 tie you refer to was in the league cup
I was at the home leg when we won the 1st leg at the vetch 1-0 thanks to a late jimmy gilligan goal.
The return leg I’m sure was a 5-1 thumping and lineker had a hat-trick…. could have done with a tommy smith tackle that day as well!!!
I was on the North bank at the Vetch that night and remember Tommy’s welcome to Britain tackle. The next time I was to watch Spurs again was last year here in Bremen. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Jeremy Charles play a blinder against Spurs? Or was that a completely different game?
Sorry folks – forgot this was a Spurs blog!
I was on the north bank that night, I didn’t make the away game, but I remember it oh so well. That win has been immortalised in a song. It still gets sung at almost every game, and will be sung for generations to come. We are only a small club from deepest south wales, but our supporters are as passionate as any of the big clubs. We are Jack bastards and proud of it. C.O.Y.S ?????????