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Spurs - Twenties - Early success then decline
By Dave P July 20 2007
As I mentioned last time we started the post (Great) war campaign in League Division 2 and boy did we have something to prove. Our first seven games of the 1919/20 read Played 7, Won 7 Goals For 28, Goals against 4. The final figures were equally impressive – Played 42, Won 32, Drew 6 and lost 4, Goals For 102 and against 32.

For the next article in our series celebrating 125 years of THFC we move on from the scandal of  Woolwich and onwards and upwards.

 

As I mentioned last time we started the post (Great) war campaign in League Division 2  and boy did we have something to prove. Our first seven games of the 1919/20 read Played 7, Won 7 Goals For 28, Goals against 4.  The final figures were equally impressive – Played 42, Won 32, Drew 6 and lost 4, Goals For 102 and against 32. 70 points – all the more impressive seeing as that points total was not surpassed in a season until two points for a win was replaced with the current three 60 years later. The 32 wins in a season is I believe still a record for the Second Division as well and only Doncaster have bettered it in a 42 game season.

  

Our manager at this time was Peter McWilliam. A Scotsman – born in Inveravon, he was an outstanding player with a ‘body-wriggle’ and was often described as the greatest half-back of pre-First World War football. he had played for Albion Rovers and Inverness Thistle before a nine year spell at Newcastle where he won three championship medals and appeared in four FA Cup finals. (Even the Toon won things in those days) and was capped 8 times for Scotland. After retiring through injury he became manager of Tottenham and bought his desire for success down south. It had been twenty years since a Southern Club had won the FA Cup (Spurs in 1901) and on the back of his sides Second Division Title he was to build a side to bring the cup back south again.

 

The league campaign of that season was quite respectable for a newly promoted club, finishing sixth (One place behind McWilliams’ former club Newcastle – and four places above our hated rivals) but it was in the cup that his side excelled that season.

 

Our first round opponents on January 8th were a side form the newly established Third Division, Bristol Rovers. 35,000 saw us trounce them 6-2. Ours second round tie was against First division rivals Bradford City. 39,000 saw that one at White Hart lane and this was Jimmy Seed’s match. A second half Hat-trick from Seed and a John Banks goal eased us to a 4-0 win. Apparently McWilliam gave Seed a right rollocking for showing off with his third goal. Seed had scored with a thirty five yard screamer but the manager reckoned Seed should have dribbled it in. Some people eh!

 

The third round involved a trip to the seaside and Southend at their old Kursaal Gardens ground. A typical gritty underdogs performance from the shrimpers had them in the lead after 15 minutes. Spurs equalised but with half  an hour gone Southen should have taken the lead again. Southend had been awarded a penalty but the ref noticed the ball was not on the spot and re-positioned it himself. Southends captain Fairclough went to position the ball himself but the ref wouldn’t allow him to touch it. This affected Fairclough as he then sent the kick wide. As always games can turn on an incident like that and Spurs dominated the second half and ran out 4-1 winners.

 

The Quarter Final saw 52,000 at the Lane as Spurs gained revenge over holders Aston Villa, the side that had knocked them out at the same stage the season before. Villa were the favorites and had been tipped to become the first side to win the cup in successive seasons since Blackburn thirty years earlier. Spurs however put paid to that as they gained their revenge with a 1-0 win.

And so, onto the Semi Final. We had been drawn against Preston North End with the game to be played at Hillsborough. A crowd of 49,668 saw a reportedly poor game. Spurs dominated and had two goals disallowed in the first half, both of which were seemingly perfectly good goals. One had been disallowed so the ref could bring the ball back and award Spurs a free Kick – This free kick then resulted in Jimmy Dimmock hitting the bar when it would have been easier to score. Two goals in the second half from Bert Bliss then put Spurs in a commanding position and even an own goal off Tommy Clays knee  was never going to be enough for Preston to recover. 2-1 and Spurs were in the final.

 

Before the war Cup Finals had been held at Crystal Palace but during the war this ground had been requisitioned for use as an arms dump. Following the war the ground was never restored and it never hosted a football match again. The Football Association instead chose to play the final at Stamford Bridge as it had the largest capacity of any ground in London at that time. Chelsea incidentally, had reached the semi-finals the year before and had they beaten Aston Villa would have had the advantage of playing at home in the final. Fortunately for the FA that never happened however, the advantages for a London side to play in a final in London (Less travel and a more friendly crowd included) were evident as Spurs lined up against Second Division Wolverhampton Wanderers.  The gates opened at 10:30 am (The Final was not all ticket until 1924) and the heavens opened about then as well. The Stamford Bridge pitch was a quagmire and the sun only came out for about five minutes just before the kick off. The two teams slogged out an eminently unwatchable game – indeed it would seem no photographers watched it as only one photo is know to exist of the winning goal and that was taken from the terraces. Jimmy Dimmock by all accounts had a poor game but in the 54th minute Bert Bliss passed the ball to him on the half way line. He dribbled all the way through the Wolves half beating Gregory but Woodward got his tackle in, just as he had all afternoon. However on this occasion the balled bounced back off Dimmocks legs and Dimmock regained possession, cut into the area and shot from fifteen yards, the ball never really lifted off the mud and dribbled under the Wolves keepers arms and trickled over the line. Hardly a classic goal but hey – who cares, it went in. He should have passed as Seed and Banks were better placed to score and had it not been for the conditions he would never have been able to get his shot in anyway. But they all count and for all Wolves’ efforts they could not get an equaliser. In fact Dimmock came closest to scoring again when he hit the bar. Spurs hung on in the grim weather and again became the only Southern professional club to lift the FA Cup twenty years after achieving that feat for the first time.

 

The following week groundsman John Over paraded the cup around White Hart Lane and there is a story here as well. Forty years earlier John Over had laid the pitch at the Oval for the first England v Australia test match and he had then joined Spurs from Edmonton Cricket Club. He guarded his pitch zealously and no one was allowed to walk on ‘his pitch’. Even the Spurs Players were not allowed to break this ‘rule’ and it was said that Over even suspected that the team ‘trespassed’ on Saturday afternoons. After John Over died the responsibility for the pitch passed to his son Will.

 

After the success of 1921 however, the rest of the 1920s paled by comparison as Spurs slipped into decline. A creditable 2nd in the League came in 1922 but then they slipped down the table until relegated in 1928  and we will pick up the story in the thirties next time.

 

There is just one other thing I would like to mention which occurred in 1919. A boy was born in a northern seaside town on January 26th. A pretty unremarkable event but that boy was to move south in 1936  and become a legend  - more of that next time as well.

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