Today I'm going back 27 years to 1994 and Tottenham Hotspur's opening day visit to Hillsborough to play Sheffield Wednesday. This game is one of my all time favourite Tottenham away trips. The sell out crowd of 34,051 were there to see the Premiership debut of German superstar Jurgen Klinsmann for Tottenham. Klinsmann had first come to the attention of the British football watching public at the World Cup in 1990 and, more recently, but less successfully at the World Cup of 1994. Klinsmann had a reputation for "going down easily" or diving in other words. Looking at his game through modern eyes however, his ability to earn a free kick for minimal contact was pretty unremarkable.
It was Teddy Sheringham and not Klinsmann who opened the scoring for Tottenham however after 19 minutes and Anderton made it two on the half hour mark cutting straight through the heart of the Wednesday defence. It was Wednesday 0 Spurs 2 at half time but the third quarter of the game saw Trevor Francis' Wednesday level the game at 2-2 following goals from Dan Petrescu and an own goal from Colin Calderwood. The crucial next goal came Spurs way and was despatched by Nicky Barmby on 71 minutes. But cometh the hour, cometh the man. With 8 minutes left on the clock that man Jurgen Klinsmann put a bullet header past Kevin Pressman in the Wednesday goal to give Spurs a precious two goal cushion. As the ball hit the back of the net, Klinsmann turned and ran to the touchline where he dived full length in the absolute definition of self-deprecating humour. It was hilarious and, at a stroke, he won over an awful lot of the British football watching public and the media. A German with a sense of humour! Who knew?
It turned out that Spurs needed that fourth goal because one minute later David Hirst made it 3-4 to set up a grandstand finish. There was no further scoring however as Spurs were victorious and halved their negative points total to minus 3, this following an FA six point deduction for financial irregularities. Klinsmann had been carried from the field on a stretcher just before the end following a nasty clash of heads with Des Walker. As far as I can remember nobody accused him of simulation that time. Spurs, under the management of Ossie Ardiles had started the season with a gung ho attacking policy which I for one enjoyed enormously when they were winning. 3-4? I'd take that every week provided it was Spurs with the 4! Sadly Ardiles' tactics were soon called into question and he was gone by November to be replaced by Gerry Francis. Spurs finished the season in 7th place with Wednesday finishing in 13th.
CRB Match No. 907
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