TO SPEND a Saturday afternoon with a sports mad old gentleman brings back a memory or three from the early 1950s.
One such occasion, which would gain the approval of Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou, was a wonderful trip to White Hart Lane football stadium, in North London, the home of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, from 1899 to 2017.
Nostalgia still stirs when I think about the taxi ride from the train station, with my grandad.
Everyone that we passed seemed to be walking in the same direction at about 2.30pm in the afternoon.
Gradually, the pavements filled up as the trickles became groups, which soon became crowds spilling off the pavements. Then we arrived.
One advantage of going with grandad was that you always got a seat in the stand, high up, almost ‘verticolic’ as you looked down from above.
And who were we watching? It was Spurs against Wolves, with the latter captained by the legendary Billy Wright.
Spurs, during the pre Jimmy Greaves era, had one of those tricky little inside forwards called Tommy Harmer but, on this Saturday, they could only come second.
Years later, Tottenham Hotspur hit their glorious period in 1960/61 when they became the first team in the twentieth century to win the First Division and the FA Cup in the same season.
They went on to win the UEFA Cup with players like Bobby Smith and Danny Blanchflower.
This glorious 10-year period, during which Spurs notched up several other items of silverware, happened under the watchful, avuncular eye of manager Bill Nicholson, who reigned supreme in North London.
It was heartwarming to witness Ange’s success with Spurs this season, which apparently broke a seventeen-year period of trophy drought and reminded supporters of their club’s history and tradition.
Incidentally, that famous stadium at White Hart Lane is no more.
Sadly, the ground, which once housed nearly 80,000 fans on every other Saturday, could not keep up with new safety standards recently demanded.
There was no room to accommodate seats, where crowds once stood, and the stadium was demolished, in 2017.
The only reminder of those great days is the name given to a road in North London.
It is called ‘Bill Nicholson Street’. Could we see an Ange Postecoglou Avenue sometime?
Flannelled Fool.
