London Football - Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur - Sunderland 2-0 (1-0)
16 November 1996, FA Carling Premiership

White Hart lane, Attendance: 31,867.


On november 14, 1996 Wouter van der Helm and I went to London by ferry for a special soccer-weekend! We have met via Internet and started mailing a couple of months before.

As this was my first visit to White Hart Lane (Wouter's second) it was a fantastic experience! The whole atmosphere around English matches is totally different from the Dutch approach. Almost 75 percent of all fans wear the shirt of their favourite team and most of them visit a pub before and after the match. We also put on our Spurs-shirts, caps and scarves and went to White Hart Lane early to meet some of the members of the Spurs-list in the Railway Tavern, a pub near the ground, where only home-supporters are allowed!


It was great to meet all these Spurs-fans, who met each-other on Internet. There are a lot of overseas Spurs-supporters, most of them turn up in the Railway Tavern before and after the match. We also visited the Spurs Shop, where we bought a lot of souvenirs, like video's, historybooks, mugs, Zippo's (Wouter) and a teddybear for my Spurs-supporting son Jazzley. There is a hughe choice in all sorts of stuff, we were fortunate to go early, when it was not very busy. Just before kick-off it gets really crowded...


Then we went for a short walk to White Hart Lane, the famous home of Tottenham Hotspur, to see the match between Spurs and Sunderland. The match was almost sold-out, there where only some empty seats on the South-Stand. We had tickets for the Upper East Stand, from where we had a good view on the pitch, but where unable to see the big Sony Jumbotron screen. But the ground impressed me anyway, and it was a great feeling to be finally "there"!!...


The match didn't impress us very much, as the quality of play from both sides was poor. Afterwards in the Railway Tavern we were told that this was the best homematch this season and that most fans were sattisfied with the way Tottenham played. From my point of view a lot of work has to be done by Gerry Francis to have this team play "the glory-way". We were really surprised by the quick return from injury by Darren Anderton, Chris Armstrong and Andy Sinton when the speaker announced the team-formations.

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Allthough Spurs had the better of the first half and were quickly 1-0 up after a superb Andy Sinton goal (his first for Spurs!), they were never really in control of the match. The disallowed goal by Chris Armstrong (the linesman waved for offside, I disagreed) even helped Sunderland gain confidence and they soon had the chance to equalize. The referee showed a lot of doubtfull yellow-cards, but was absolutely right to send off Paul Stewart in the second half for a bad foul on Colin Calderwood. Even then, with 11 against 10 and just 1-0 in front you just felt that the equalizer for Sunderland was still possible. Teddy Sheringham managed to hit the outside of the post from the penalty-spot, but 2 minutes later he finished an Anderton-cross in style to put the final score to 2-0, which is of course a good result. Ronny Rosenthal came up as late substitute 2 minutes from the end and immediately showed Gerry Francis again that he had to be in the match earlier, as he was in scoring possition twice. Two goals, a dissalowed goal, a couple of yellow cards, a red card and a missed penalty; not bad for an average league-match!!


We were suprised by the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd during the match and about the small variety of songs we heard from the terraces (not more than four different songs). This might be caused by the ridiculous behaviour of the stewards, who were constantly trying to keep everybody seated and quiet. Nevertheless I had a great weekend and I would like to thank Bruce Lewis for arranging our tickets and for organizing a great night out in the Comedy Store! Robin Viester, November 1996.