By Dave P
August 24 2005

One of the features of my history columns this season will be (where possible) to find a player you may not have heard of who played for both clubs and tell you a bit about him. One of the features of my history columns this season will be (where possible) to find a player you may not have heard of who played for both clubs and tell you a bit about him.

So the Blackburn and Spurs player we will have a quick look at will be Goalkeeper John William Joyce. Born in Burton-upon-Trent in June 1877 he played for Burton Pioneers, Woodville and Overseal Town before joining Southampton St. Marys for £80 in 1898. In May 1900 and only seven appearances later he switched to Millwall. He then had a season each with Burton United and Blackburn and returned to Millwall in 1903. In 1909 he found his way to Spurs and spent six and a half years at White Hart Lane before returning to Millwall. John 'Tiny' Joyce was noted as one of themost powerful kickers of a dead ball in the game at the time often sending a clearance some 60-70 yards before its first bounce (no mean feat for thos days). In his 113 appearances for Spurs he scored twice, Don't let anyone tell you Jennings was the first keeper to score for Spurs. Both goals came from penalties struck with power. One in April 1914 in a home league game against Bolton Wanderers and then a month later in a friendly 6-0 win against Bayern Munich on a tour of Germany, Italy and Switzerland which I will cover in more detail another time.

After a successful start to the seasons I thought it would be fun to have a quick look back at a few early league seasons for Tottenham Hotspur that had an equally successful start. The first time we recorded two wins at the start of a league campaign was the first time we ever competed in a League. That league was the Southern Alliance and our first fixture that season was an away fixture against Polytechnic in Wimbledon. We won the game 2-1 on September 24th. Following a friendly 3-0 victory over Royal Arsenal Athletic and a 6-0 defeat of the Coldstream Guards our next Southern Alliance fixture was away to Old St. Stephens on 15th October. A game we won 3-0. The third match of that campaign was on 5th November when we travelled to Windsor & Eton. We won that game 2-1.

Now there is often confusion about early fixtures and that is certainly the case with this particular season as other sources have us losing the game to St Stephens 3-0 and beating Upton Park 4-1 at the end of the season. (My records have that score reversed and recorded as a 4-1 defeat) but I do have a final league table which supports my version.

Old St. Stephens ------- 21 pts from 12 games
Erith ------------------ 17 pts from 11 games
Tottenham -------------- 16 pts from 12 games
Polytechnic ------------- 8 pts from 8 games
Slough ------------------ 6 pts from 11 games
Windsor/Eton ------------ 5 pts from 10 games
Upton Park -------------- 2 pts from 10 games.

Now the discrepancy in the number of games played by each side came about because the league was never finished and was disbanded at the end of that season.

We started that particular season at Northumberland Park with a friendly against Paddington whom we beat by the scoreline 10-0. A newspaper report of the day read as follows;

"The Spurs have a vastly improved team. They have aquired the Edmonton Albion left wing pair, Brigdon and Ellis, Lomas from Luton, and Moody, the well known back. These all showed grand form on saturday, as did Sykes, their right wing and Briggs at centre-half. Jull, the popular skipper, is as fast as ever. Altogether the Tottenham Reds have a brilliant prospect and many of the Alliance will have a warm time of it at Park when they visit that excellent enclosure."

Note the reference in that to Tottenham 'Reds'. A reference to the fact that for a while in the 1890s we played in red Shirts and navy shorts.

Another interesting newpaper article of the day recorded the following:- "I hear that the Spurs are going to provide wooden trestles for their spectators to stand upon in wet weather, for which those people liable to damp feet will be thankful. Other Clubs please copy".

Always at the forefront of stadium design, even way back then.


Enough of that year, Let us now move on to the Autumn of 1898/1899 when the Spurs entered into three leagues. The Thames and Medway League, The United League and the Southern League.

Starting with the Thames and Medway League we won the opening fixture against Thames Ironworks (Now West Ham) 3-0 At Northumberland Park on 3rd September, goals being scored by McKay,John Cameron and Bradshaw. Our second fixture was away to Sheppey United on 26th September. We won 3-2 with goals from Willie Joyce, John Cameron and Mckay again. We went on to win our next four fixtures and finished 3rd in the league.

In the United League that season we started with two games agains Luton Town. At home on 5th September we won 1-0 with a Mckay goal and then away on 19th September when we won 4-3. Goals that day were supplied by Cameron, Joyce (2) and McKay again. In this league we won our next three and finished fourth.

Not such a good start in the Southern league though as the first game was a 1-1 draw against Bedminster but the Spurs Reserves did us proud that year winning our first ever trophy, The London League Competition.

Moving on one year to 1899/1900 and the Southern League of that season, it was a different story. We opened that campaign against Millwall at their ground on 2nd September and won 3-1 and followed that with a home 1-0 win over QPR on 9th September 1899. We won the next four before losing 2-1 at Bedminster on 14th October. Not to worry though because that season we won the Southern League. And that in the first season at our new ground White Hart Lane, which was nearly called Gilpin Park. but that's another story.

Back to todays opponents and our earliest encounters against them consisted of a friendly at Northumberland Park in April 1897 which we lost 2-1 and then an epic FA Cup tie in 1907. A 1-1 draw at home followed by a 1-1 draw in Blackburn which included extra time resulted in a second replay at Villa Park which we won 2-1 in front of 18,000 supporters. John Watson scoring in the first match, James Reid in the second and Joe Walton and James Reid in the Replay.

The first league encounters between the two sides were not until 1910. On 1st January 1910 we lost 1-0 at Ewood Park in a Division 1 match. The return fixture was in March when we got our revenge by winning 4-0. Billy Minter scoring our first ever League hat-trick in that game. Percy Humphreys scoring the fourth.