Today I'm going back 28 years to 1993 and Tottenham's Premier League home fixture against Oldham Athletic. Yes, difficult as it may be to imagine these days, Oldham were once in the Premier League! Not only that but Oldham were one of the Premier League's founder members.
Since that very first Premier League season (or FA Premiership as it was called then) in 1992/93, fifty different clubs gave graced the top flight. Preston North End are the only club who were once Champions of the old First Division never to have played Premier League football. Interestingly, both Luton Town and Notts County were members of the First Division at the time that the Premier League was under discussion with the FA and indeed, both clubs resigned their place in the Football League as part of the formation process. However both sides were relegated from the First Division just prior to the kick off of the first Premiership season, both have subsequently fallen into Non-League and neither has appeared in the top flight since.
At Spurs' former White Hart Lane ground and in front of 24,613 fans, Tottenham had a field day against the struggling Oldham Athletic side. After just six minutes, Steve Sedgley opened the scoring for Spurs with the kind of goal that nobody could possibly miss with the ball coming off the post and running along the goal line into the path of the onrushing Sedgley. As a goalkeeper, the sight of Teddy Sheringham bearing down on your goal one-on-one was the stuff of nightmares, but when you are Paul Gerrard and you've just gifted the ball to Sheringham with a horrendous miskick, the nightmares must have lasted for days afterwards. Sheringham made it 2-0 and Spurs were in complete control. In the eighth minute (yes that's eighth!) Spurs were three up following Gerrard's second horrendous miskick of the afternoon. This time Sheringham seemed to have successfully slotted home until Steve Sedgley was once again on the goal line to apply an unnecessary finishing touch and claim the goal. The crowd then had to wait until the 62nd minute for Tottenham's fourth goal and, once again, Sheringham was the provider with a delightful chipped cross to the far post for Gordon "Jukebox" Durie to volley home a rare goal. With less than five minutes remaining Spurs completed the rout with a fifth scored by Jason Dozzell. It was his first goal at the Lane and the commentator on the highlights video attached to my blog described it as "beautiful" when it looked more than a little scuffed to me!
For a while there in the early 90's Spurs seemed to have a habit of paying comparatively significant sums for bang average strikers. Scottish International Durie was one having been signed from Chelsea for £2.2 Million. He had the honour of getting Tottenham's first ever goal in the brand new Premier League but went on to score a total of just 11 goals in 58 League games before being offloaded to Rangers. In 2016 Durie was declared bankrupt with debts of more than £200,000 after investing in a failed film production company. It was the costliest of flicks for the former footballer for sure! Another comparative failure as a striker at Spurs was Jason Dozzell, signed for £1.9 Million who managed just 14 goals in 89 League appearances for the club. Dozzell does hold one record but it wasn't obtained while playing for Tottenham: Dozzell is the youngest player ever to score in the top flight (he was playing for Ipswich Town against Coventry City) aged just 16 years and 57 days. Since the formation of the Premier League other youngsters to score whilst still 16 include James Milner and Wayne Rooney but neither were as young as Dozzell. Programme cover star Dozzell was eventually loaned back to Ipswich Town before finishing his career in the lower leagues.
Ossie Ardiles' Spurs experienced a season of struggle and finished 15th (out of 22) just three points clear of the relegation zone. Sadly for Oldham Athletic however, it was to be their final season at the top table and they ended up being relegated in 21st place and have never looked likely to return since. Today Oldham are slumming it the fourth tier (League Two). As I write this article, the Latics sit in 92nd position (out of 92) and are in severe danger of becoming the first former Premier League club to be relegated into Non-League football.
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