With 20 minutes of an incredibly bad-tempered FA Cup fourth round tie at Highbury remaining, Dennis Bergkamp found himself red-carded for a decidedly ‘stampy’ challenge on Jamie Carragher out near the touchline.

Bergkamp’s dismissal proved to be an instant flashpoint, with one particularly incensed Arsenal fan pelting a coin at Carragher.

The Liverpool defender reacted badly, picking up the coin and hurling it back into the crowd in the general direction from whence it came. Referee Mike Riley wasted no time in sending him off down the tunnel too.

This all coming a matter of minutes after Riley had sent off Martin Keown for a professional foul on Michael Owen. Tempestuous doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Anyway, Carragher immediately apologised for his actions after the game, accepting it was wrong for him to react in the way he had.

I regret what happened at Highbury because I let the club, the fans, my team-mates and myself down. No matter what the physical or verbal provocation, I shouldn’t have reacted like that I would like to apologise for any offence caused.

I was frustrated and did it without thinking in the heat of the moment. Anyone who has seen me play regularly will realise it was completely out of character but I’m not going to make excuses.

I was wrong and as a professional football player I should have known better. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.

The full and frank apology saw Carragher escape a police charge though he was issued with a formal warning and fined £40,000 by Liverpool for his sins.

Two fans who allegedly received injuries when the coin was thrown back into the terraces both declined to make allegations, and Arsenal pledged to issue a lifetime ban to the supporter responsible for hurling the coin if the club’s security team managed to successfully identify them.

For the record, Arsenal won the game 1-0 on what was, all in all, a pretty manic old afternoon in North London.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

The young Denis Law lines up for Man City, 1960

When Man City played Luton Town in the FA Cup fourth round on this day in 1961, they were 6-2 up after 69 minutes with Denis Law helping himself to all six of City’s goals.

Sadly, it all went swiftly downhill from there for the young Scottish striker. The game was abandoned with 20 minutes left due to the water-logged pitch at Kenilworth Road resembling “a beach with the tide out, with deep mud and a shallow lake” according to a local news report.

The game was rescheduled and played again on 1st February. As Sod’s Law would have it, Law scored again but City ended up losing 3-1.

Just to add insult to injury, Law’s original six goals were struck from the record which meant that he missed out on being the top FA Cup goalscorer of the 20th century.

He eventually finished on 41 FA Cup goals, while Ian Rush topped the table with 44.

It’s not every day that you score six goals,” Law later recalled to BBC Sport.

“I never did it again – the most I managed in a game that counted was four, which I got a couple of times at Manchester United.”

“Obviously it wasn’t meant to be. The funny thing was when we went for the replay on the Wednesday the pitch was in a worse state than it ever was on Saturday.”

Bugger.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Hibs’ Famous Five (from left-right: Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrie Reilly, Eddie Turnbull, Willie Ormond)

Before tiki-taka, before totaal voetbal, before push ‘n’ run, before catenaccio, before joga bonito, there was the Hibernian Famous Five.

Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrie Reilly, Eddie Turnbull and Willie Ormond rose to prominence as a five-man forward line during Hibs’ post-war glory years in the 1950s, when the Edinburgh club were the main challengers to Glasgow Rangers.

The quintet deployed a form of proto-total football, interchanging positions at will.

Smith (302 goals), Reilly (238 goals), Turnbull (202 goals) and Ormond (189 goals) occupy the top four places on Hibs’ all-time top goalscorers list, with Johnstone in at number seven having scored 100 goals despite making less appearances than his cohorts.

First unleashed as a unit in October 1949, the five scored 28 of Hibs’ 31 goals during a 12-game unbeaten run that took them to the turn of the year.

The myth quickly grew that, when the five played, Hibs did not lose. That wasn’t strictly true, but things were certainly more entertaining when the Famous Five played together.

Hibs won the league in 1951 and 1952, and didn’t finish lower than fifth between 1949 and 1955.

In all, Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull and Ormond made 187 appearances together. Sadly all things must pass, and on 29th January 1955 at Easter Road against Clyde, they made their final appearance as a full ensemble.

It was truly the end of a magnificent era.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

The highs in David Bentley’s career may have ended up being few and far between – and we’re mostly talking about scoring from the halfway line for Tottenham against Arsenal and tipping a barrel of icy water over Harry Redknapp live on television here.

However, after his first match as a full-time Blackburn player it seemed the world should have been his lobster.

Having converting his loan move from Arsenal into a permanent deal with Rovers on the Friday, Bentley quickly proceeded to make quite an impression.

In front of an Ewood Park crowd of 24,484, he nudged Rovers ahead in the 35th minute. Louis Saha then equalised almost immediately for United before Bentley added his second five minutes before the break when Rio Ferdinand botched a header back to Edwin van der Sar. A Lucas Neill penalty then added a third for Rovers in the dying seconds of the first half.

It was ten minutes after the restart that Bentley found himself entering the record books when he completed his hat-trick – the midfielder finding himself unmarked in the United box and scampering onto a Robbie Savage flick before promptly rammed a shot past Van der Sar and into the bottom right corner.

Bentley thus became the first ever player to score three goals against United in the Premier League era. QPR’s David Bailey did it once in 1992, but that doesn’t count because football didn’t really exist at that point. Just ask Sky Sports.

It rarely got that good for Bentley again, apart from the day he drenched ‘Arry, of course.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Think of Tottenham Hotspur and you think of tradition – cup glory, fast flowing football and, for at short stretch after the turn of the millennium, selling players only to buy them back again shortly thereafter.

Case in point. Robbie Keane had left Tottenham in the summer of 2008, completing a stunning double deal in which the North London club managed to sell him and Dimitar Berbatov, thus depriving themselves of arguably the best strike combination in the Premier League.

Keane toddled off to Liverpool, a club he proudly stated he had supported as a boy – a claim he later made about Celtic after signing on loan. To be fair, as a kid growing up in Ireland, it was perfectly likely Keane had followed both teams, but the line did start to wear a bit thin nonetheless.

However, things did not quite mesh at Liverpool, and after just 19 league appearances Keane returned to White Hart Lane. In his two spells at Spurs, Keane netted 91 goals and is now quite rightly regarded as a latter day club legend.

He’s also a member of an exclusive club of Spurs players who seemed to be in and out of the revolving doors on a regular basis, namely Younes Kaboul (signed in 2007, sold in 2008, re-signed in 2010, sold in 2015), Jermain Defoe (signed 2004, sold in 2008, re-signed in 2009, sold in 2014) and the great Pascal Chimbonda (signed in 2006, sold in 2008, re-signed in 2009 and then sold again in, er, 2009).

Better the devil you know and all that.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

“Standing in the rain. Cold electric sky, no diamond lights”

Released in 1987, ‘Diamond Lights’ by Tottenham teammates Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle instantly proved to be both a critical and commercial success.

Widely regarded as one of the finest musical arrangements of all time, Diamond Lights was a dark, brooding ballad that transcended the pop format thanks to the soaring vocal prowess of the song’s dual frontmen.

Incredible.

However, it’s not often acknowledged that there was an attempted follow-up single, also scheduled for release in 1987, which could and perhaps should have been an even bigger hit.

Also penned by Diamond Lights songwriter Bob Puzey, the song was called ‘It’s Goodbye’ – a punchy slice of power pop that saw Glenn & Chris roll up their jacket sleeves and really nail those high notes in the chorus…

Sadly the song was never given a full and proper release as Hoddle left Spurs for Monaco and was therefore unable to promote it.

Forget about Buddy Holly – the day Glenn left for Ligue 1 was the day the music truly died.

Still, we’ll always have the stonewash-slathered front cover…

What a decade. What a time to be alive.

Having battled their way to a 2-2 draw against Tottenham in the fourth round of the FA Cup in January of 1960, Crewe Alexandra’s thoughts immediately turned to felling their Division One opponents in a lucrative replay in front of 64,000 fans at White Hart Lane.

That replay duly came on 3rd February, with Crewe once again forced to face a team a full 83 rungs above them on the league ladder.

Alas it was not to be, with Spurs instead inflicting an incredibly heavy defeat on the visitors, recording their record win in the process and perhaps setting the marker for what was to come in the glorious double-winning season that was to follow.

In the replay, Spurs were 6-1 up over Crewe with only half-an-hour played. By half time it was 10-1. The home side then eased up a little in the second half, adding just the three further goals while letting their lower league guests pull another one back for good measure.

The final score: Tottenham 13-2 Crewe…

For the record (quite literally), the Tottenham goalscorers on the day were Les Allen with five, Bobby Smith with four, Cliff Jones with three and Tommy Harmer with one.

The convincing victory earned Spurs a fifth round tie against Blackburn Rovers, who promptly knocked them out.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

It might be hard to believe but there was a time when Donald Trump wasn’t a clownish, polemic-spewing presidential candidate seemingly intent on setting the entirety of Western civilization back many many decades.

Indeed, back in the primordial mists of 1991, Trump was just a humble, fresh-faced young billionaire with a luxurious full head of hair and a glint in his eye.

He also did things like appear on Saint & Greavsie to help the chaps draw out the quarter-finals of the 1991-92 Rumbelows League Cup…

Trump mentions in the video that he played ‘varsity soccer’ in high school and rather wonderfully, the internet has provided his old team photo.

There’s old Trumpo – front row, fourth from the left…

Hell of a right-winger, apparently.

With Premier League spending passing the £1billion mark this season (up from a mere £965million the year before), it’s hard to imagine anybody getting the slightest bit upset by the kind of money Sunderland paid Newcastle for Len Shackleton back in 1948.

At the time, the money involved in the transfer was criticised as being obscene – a clear sign that football had completely taken leave of its senses.

Sunderland shelled out an almighty £20,050 to procure Shackleton from their neighbours, a full £50 more than the previous British transfer record.

The forward had scored six goals on his debut for Newcastle in 1947 but his individualistic style led to conflict with those in charge of the club. Sensing dissension in the ranks, Sunderland swooped in and cherry-picked Shackleton for a then-record fee.

He was skilful, entertaining, and not averse to speaking his mind. “I’m not biased when it comes to Newcastle,” he once said. “I don’t care who beats them”. In fact, he was so good that Chumbawamba wrote a song about him…

Needless to say those anti-Toon words, and his goals (101 in 348 games), made him an instant legend at Roker Park.

Years later, in his autobiography, he included a chapter entitled ‘What the average director knows about football’.

Famously, he left it blank.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

When Cheick Tiote rifled one home from the edge of the box in the 87th minute of a stone-cold thriller at St James’s Park on this day in 2011, it completed a remarkable comeback for the Toon. They had been 4-0 down at half time.

Having spent a fallow season down in the Championship, the newly-promoted Magpies were relishing being back in the top flight and had already beaten Arsenal in London earlier in the season.

However, Theo Walcott put the Gunners 1-0 up in the first minute before a Johan Djourou header and two goals from Robin van Persie had the visitors up by three goals inside the first 10 minutes and up by four at the break.

Then, three minutes into the second half, Djourou limped off the pitch injured. Arsenal began to creak and crumble.

Just two minutes later Abou Diaby was sent off. Joey Barton then scored a penalty in the 68th minute, Leon Best made in 4-2 in the 75th, and Barton added another from the spot in the 83rd as Newcastle stormed back from the brink.

Then, with three minutes of normal time left to play, up stepped Tiote to rattle home his awesome thunderbolt…

If you’re going to blow a four-goal lead then you may as well do it in style!

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Clough unveils Francis to the press in his own inimitable style, February 9th 1979

Thirty seven years ago today, Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough turned up to a press conference in a fetching red leatherette jacket, clutching a squash racket, to introduce new signing Trevor Francis.

It was a momentous moment, because Francis had just become football’s first million pound man. Except he wasn’t. Not quite.

Clough deliberately set the transfer fee at £999,999 – a single penny shy of the £1million mark – in order to stop the aforementioned ‘million pound man’ tag turning Francis into an even bigger big head than Old Big ’Ead himself.

The move echoed Tottenham boss Bill Nicholson’s similar decision to set Jimmy Greaves’s fee at £99,999 to spare him the burden of being football’s first £100,000 man back in 1962.

Anyway, Clough’s psychological jiggery-pokery was swiftly rendered redundant. Taxes and VAT meant that Forest’s total outlay on Francis swiftly rose to over £1.1 million by the time the deal was fully completed.

It should also be noted that two Italian players, Giuseppe Savoldi and Paolo Rossi, had both already been sold for well over £1million a pop over in Serie A, but the English press seemed happy to gloss over that fact.

Nevertheless, it was a huge fee at the time, almost double the short-lived previous British record which was set just a month beforehand when West Brom paid Middlesbrough a shade over £500,000 for David Mills.

Those fees are now dwarfed by the amounts that change hands in the modern transfer market. As the money-go-round sped up, it soon became a source of pride to reach the next financial milestone.

Rather than play them down, clubs openly boasted about the fees paid – see Real Madrid in the late 1990s/early 2000s for details.

Recently, in another twist, the coyness over monies exchanged has returned as clubs do deals for undisclosed fees in an attempt to keep their commercial cards up their sleeves.

The more things change, etc, etc…

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Twenty five years ago this very day, a promising monobrowed young prodigy by the name of Zinedine Yazid Zidane opened his professional goalscoring account at the tender age of 18.

After muscling his way up through the youth ranks, Zidane finally broke into the Canne senior set-up in 1989 aged just 16, just two short years after leaving home to chase down his dream. He was carefully nurtured by club director Jean-Claude Elineau, who even invited the burgeoning but volatile young midfielder to stay at his family home while he found his feet in Ligue 1.

As was inevitable, Zidane scored his first goal for Cannes in February of 1991, in a league game against Nantes – the team he’d made his debut against some three years previous.

The goal game in one of only two appearances he made that season, but it did help Cannes to a 2-1 victory…

Zizou’s first ever goal also earned him a brand new car, a token gift that Cannes president Alain Pedretti had promised him while still in the youth team. Legend has it that Pedretti went out and brought a red Renault Clio especially for the occasion.

He went on to make 31 appearances for Les Dragons Rouges in his first full season, propelling them to fourth place in the top flight – still the club’s highest ever league finish since ending the 1931/32 campaign as runners-up.

Zidane then moved on to Bordeaux where he really began to stamp his authority before making the hop to the big time with Juventus in 1996 and then Real Madrid in 2001.

Oh, and he also won a World Cup and a European Championship with France along the way too.

Indeed, he wasn’t a half bad little player, as it happens…

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

It’s Wembley, it’s the 11th February 1998, England are playing Chile in a friendly and, look, there’s spotty little Michael Owen making history.

At 18 years and 59 days old, the nippy Liverpool striker became the youngest player to represent England in the 20th century.

He didn’t score that night (Chile won 2-0 with Marcelo Salas scoring twice, starting with a belter of an opening goal) but Owen did go on to bag 40 goals in 89 international appearances for the Three Lions.

All of which gives us the chance to provide you, courtesy of the Rec. Sport. Soccer. Statistics Association, with some killer trivia for that next pub quiz.

These, we are faithfully assured, are the five youngest men ever to play international football…

• Lucas Knecht, Northern Marianas, 14 years 2 days (1993)
• Aung Kyaw Tun, Myanmar, 14 years 93 days (1986)
• Moussa Latoundji, Benin, 14 years 157 days ((1978)
• Joel Fruit (yes, really), Northern Marianas, 14 years 177 days (1998)
• Macdonald Taylor Junior, US Virgin Islands, 14 years 193 days (1992)

The Pies editor’s request for me to follow this item up with a ‘Where Are They Now?’ feature may take me some time.

Don’t wait up.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Contrary to popular belief, the old ‘tandem’ penalty routine executed by Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez last night wasn’t the creation of one Johan Cruyff and his partner in crime, Jesper Olsen.

Oh no, in fact it dates back way further than the Ajax pair. Indeed, it was spotted some 25 years before Cruyff & Olsen, and almost 60 years before Messi & Suarez came along.

We’re talking about Belgian duo Rik Coppens & Andre Piters here, who successfully pulled off a two-man ruse to (just about) bury a spot-kick against Iceland in a World Cup qualifier in 1957…

25 years before Olsen/Cruyff, 59 years before Suarez/Messi, Belgium’s Coppens/Piters 2 man penalty v Iceland in 1957 pic.twitter.com/lWLsGONbok

— The Antique Football (@AntiqueFootball) February 14, 2016

For the record, Belgium were 6-1 up at the time (after just 43 minutes) and went on to win the match 8-3.

UPDATE: Scratch that. Turns out the Belgians were waaaay off the pace!

Thanks to Pies fan Peter Wilt for pointing out that Northern Ireland pair Danny Blanchflower and Jimmy McIlroy pulled off a dual penalty an entire MONTH before Coppens and Piters…

@waatpies actually, that’s not oldest…a month earlier in 1957 Blanchfower & McIlroy pulled it off for N. Ireland.https://t.co/ouuKBJzUFf

— peter wilt (@PeterWilt1) February 15, 2016

(Via @AntiqueFootball)

When Marian Pahars signed for Southampton on 16th February 1999, he became the first Latvian to feature in the English Premier League. Only four have followed since.

Saints paid £800,000 to Skonto Riga to bring the forward to England’s south coast on the recommendation of then-Latvia national team coach Gary Johnson, who billed him as the Latvian answer to Michael Owen.

The nippy striker went on to score 43 goals in 137 games and secure a special place in the hearts of all Southampton fans before being sold on to Anorthorsis Famagusta in Cyprus in 2006. Such was his impact, Pahars was given a “lap of appreciation” after his final appearance at St Mary’s.

He also left having having turned Manchester United’s Jaap Stam inside-out – a rare feat achieved by very few…

On this day in 1999, @SouthamptonFC agreed to sign Marian Pahars…https://t.co/aOOMNPPW0w

— Premier League (@premierleague) February 16, 2016

As we’re on the subject of footballers from the Baltic states, the first Estonian to play in the Premier League was Mart Poom, who signed for Derby County in 1996. He later went on to play for Sunderland and take up a goalkeeping coach role at Arsenal.

Elsewhere, Lithuania had to wait until 2000 for any representation in the Premier League, when Tomas Danilevicius signed for Arsenal. The big striker made just two appearances, against Sunderland and Charlton, before being shipped off to Dynamo Moscow without a goal to his name.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

On 17th February 1940, the first film to feature football in any significant way opened in UK cinemas.

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery was not, as fans of Tottenham may think, the story of a search for the missing atmosphere at Highbury, and the ‘mystery’ part of the title did not refer to how the Gunners managed to drag themselves up into the First Division in the first place.

Instead, director Thorold Dickinson’s comedy-thriller told the story of how Inspector Anthony Slade (played by Leslie Banks) tries to solve the murder of a player who died from poisoning while fictitious side the Trojans played the famous Arsenal.

Famous Gunners Cliff Bastin and Eddie Hapgood featured in the film, and Dickinson used footage of a real game between Arsenal and Brentford.

The picture above shows the players having a tea break on set during filming.

While we’re on the subject, here are four more smashing cult football films as recommended by Pies…

The Golden Vision (1968)

A forgotten classic directed by Ken Loach, this film centres – as you might expect – on the experience of ordinary fans and how their lives are so closely linked to their football club.

It follows a group of Everton fans who miss all manner of family occasions to see their team play, and there’s much here about the escapism we find in the game.

Real-life Everton centre-forward Alex Young features…

Those Glory Glory Days (1983)

Julie Welch’s semi-autobiographical script and Philip Saville’s direction deliever a piece that is now dated but still retains its charm.

This celebration of teenage obsession charts the fortunes of a group of schoolgirls as they follow Tottenham through the Double season in 1961, and it’s still one of the best screen portrayals of what the game can mean to people.

Just as an added bonus, the great Danny Blanchflower bookends the film…

The Damned United (2009)

Based on David Peace’s book of the same title, the film tells the tale of Brian Clough’s stormy 44-day reign at Leeds United.

Michael Sheen turns in an uncannily accurate performance as Clough (his accent is spot on), and the film accurately evokes the atmosphere of the time to wrap around the portrait of a genuine one-off.

It was, like the book, hugely controversial – with Clough’s family and many of the Leeds players refusing to have anything to do with it. But it’s not a documentary, it’s a dramatisation of an extraordinary individual making a living in extraordinary times…

Next Goal Wins (2014)

Original, surprising and touching in equal measure, this film focuses on the American Samoa team that suffered a world record 31-0 loss to Australia in 2001.

Centre stage are the world’s first transgender player, Jaiyah Saelua, and Dutch manager Thomas Rongen.

The backdrop of the island is stunningly beautiful and the human story at the heart of the film genuinely uplifting…

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

One evening in Madrid, almost exactly 29 years ago, Gary Lineker inspired England to a stunning 4-2 win over Spain at the Bernabeu.

Lineker finished his evening’s work with less than an hour on the clock. In fact, all four goals came in a frenzied 33-minute burst, two before half-time and two after the restart.

The remarkable feat meant that Lineker – a Barcelona player at the time – became the man to have scored the most goals against Spain in a single match, a record that stands to this very day.

One month beforehand, Lineker had scored a hat-trick for Barca against Real Madrid at Camp Nou.

As such, his international goal-glut was met with fawning headlines from the Spanish press, with one Catalan paper proudly crowing “Catalan player scores four goals against Spain” in defiant, anti-imperialist fashion.

Madrid-based AS instead went with “Relentless Lineker” at the top of their match report…

Photo: @English_AS/Twitter

Playing for England that night were Peter Shilton, Viv Anderson, Terry Butcher, Bryan Robson, Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle and Glenn Hoddle. It truly was a glorious period in England’s selection history, as old battle-hardened veterans mixed with exciting and exuberant youngsters.

Speaking of which, also making his international debut was a 20-year-old central defender by the name of Tony Adams.

See how positively chuffed he was…

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, circa 1930

One hundred and six years ago today, on 19th February 1910, the United Football Ground staged its very first game.

It has since been rechristened as Old Trafford (in 1936 to be precise) and the inaugural tie it hosted – Manchester United versus Liverpool – has subsequently become one of the most fiercely-contested in football.

A total of 45,000 fans attended that first game in a stadium that boasted a capacity of 80,000. The original plan was to construct a 100,000-capacity stadium but the designs were soon re-jigged by leading stadium architect du jour, Archibald Leitch.

The stadium cost £60,000 to build (at a time when transfer fees were rarely above £1,000) but costs soon began to spiral further – sound familiar? – and capacity was reduced to 80,00 to cap the spending.

The club were already commonly referred to as ‘Moneybags United’ by opposing fans. This new venture didn’t do anything to change that image.

For the record, Liverpool won that first game 4-3 – Arthur Goddard and Jimmy Stewart helping themselves to two goals apiece for the visitors.

Anyway, the ground was substantially upgraded during the 1950s and 60s, with the roof running around the circumference of the stadium finally completed in 1973.

It was one of the finest stadiums in England, but changes culminating in the mandatory introduction of all-seater stadiums took the capacity down to an all-time low of 44,000 in 1992.

Since then, substantial investment has taken capacity back up to 75,635 – making it the largest football club stadium in the United Kingdom (with 15,000 more seats than The Emirates) and the eleventh largest in Europe.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

Woolwich Arsenal welcome Tottenham to their old Plumstead ground, 1906

With the next North London Derby fast approaching, and this one really shaping up to be a vital tussle, it’s worth reflecting on the origins of the great rivalry, especially on the anniversary of the decision that kicked the whole thing off.

It was on 22nd February, 1913 that Woolwich Arsenal revealed their decision to uproot from their home in Plumstead, South East London and move to a brand new stadium in the North London district of Highbury.

Attendances at the Manor Ground in Plumstead (pictured above), where Woolwich Arsenal played, had been declining. Majority shareholder Henry Norris had originally wanted to merge the club with Fulham, but the Football League ruled this new side would have to play in the old Second Division, and Norris baulked.

He decided the Gunners had greater potential, but only if they could move to somewhere with better transport links and a catchment area with more oomph.

The site he identified was the sports ground of St John’s College of Divinity in Highbury – literally just down the road from Tottenham.

Local residents objected, as did Spurs and Clapton Orient, but the move went ahead anyway.

It proved successful, with attendances doubling in the first season at the stadium designed by Archibald Leitch – the very same architect who designed White Hart Lane.

The move across town also set up a tense relationship with neighbours Tottenham, one that was made all the more fraught in 1919 when Arsenal were granted membership to the newly expanded, 22-team First Division at Tottenham’s expense in questionable circumstances.

To this day, Spurs supporters still wind their neighbours up by calling them the Woolwich Nomads, and not a derby goes by without Tottenham fans loudly advising their rivals to return from whence they came.

Arsenal fans usually retort by trotting out the fact that Tottenham was in the county of Middlesex until 1965 and so Spurs’ claims of being a North London team are fragile at best.

However, this is a rather dry and blinkered reading of local government bureaucracy.

The fact is that suburbs such as Tottenham had been considered part of London since at least 1840, when it had been brought under the Metropolitan Police’s area of responsibility.

Social and economic histories of the time refer to Tottenham as a London suburb, the sports press referred to Tottenham Hotspur as a London club, and in the public eye Tottenham was a part of London.

Unlike other counties, Middlesex had not had a single established county town since 1789, instead regarding London as the county town, further establishing Tottenham as part of London in the public eye.

The fact that the administrative naming conventions of local government structures did not reflect the reality of the situation really rather undermines the Arsenal fans’ entire (and rather bureaucratic) riposte.

That said, I don’t for a moment suspect that this will be the final word on the subject!

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com

England’s World Cup squad and staff pose together outside the National Recreation Centre at Lilleshall, June 1966

Five months before England won the World Cup against West Germany at Wembley, the two teams first played each other in a dry-run friendly at the same stadium on 23rd February 1966.

The England line up featured nine of the players who would go on to lift the Jules Rimet trophy that summer. Those nine were as follows…

Gordon Banks
George Cohen
Jack Charlton
Bobby Moore
Nobby Stiles
Alan Ball
Bobby Charlton
Geoff Hurst
Roger Hunt

So, as a noggin-scratcher of a pub trivia teaser, we ask you – who were the two players who took to the field in the friendly but didn’t take part in the World Cup Final?

And, for an extra bonus point, can you name the two players who replaced them in Sir Alf Ramsey’s World Cup-winning XI?

Answers below this picture of Sir Bobby showing off his shiny new mantelpiece ornament…

Reckon you’ve got it? In the February friendly, Keith Newton and Norman Hunter completed the line up.

England went on to win 1-0 thanks to a single goal from Nobby Stiles.

The Times (23 Feb 66) reveals England’s line-up for tonight’s friendly against West Germany at Wembley. pic.twitter.com/D9Ca7nHk3L

— World Cup 1966 (@WorldCup66Live) February 23, 2016

However, in the final they were replaced by Ray Wilson and Martin Peters.

England won that one too, as far as we recall.

You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com