Today I'm going back 37 years to 1985 and Tottenham's First Division (or Canon League Division One as it was known) fixture against the Saints (Southampton) at White Hart Lane played in front of a crowd numbering 33,772.
The cover stars on this programme are Tottenham's Garth Crooks and Manchester United's Gordon Strachan. Strachan's journey to the top began in Scotland at Dundee in 1974/75 but his fledgling career almost never got going. Strachan was extremely lucky not to have been blinded in one eye following a playground incident whilst at school. He established himself in the Dundee side the following season and by 1976, aged just 19 he was made Dundee's youngest ever captain. The following year Strachan signed for Aberdeen working initially under Billy McNeil before Alex Ferguson took the reigns. Across six trophy laden seasons Strachan won two Scottish Premier League titles, three Scottish cups and even a European trophy, in this case the European Cup Winners Cup. In 1984 Ron Atkinson spent £500,000 to bring Strachan to Old Trafford. In five seasons with Manchester United, three of them under the management of Alex Ferguson once again, Strachan won only the FA Cup in 1985. It would take a move to Leeds United in 1989 for Strachan to secure an English championship medal and he spent over six years at Leeds being fondly remembered in a midfield quartet that comprised himself, Gary McAllister, David Batty and Gary Speed. Strachan's final club was Coventry City to whom he moved in 1995 as player/assistant manager to Ron Atkinson with an agreement that he would eventually be given the manager's job. By the end of 1996 he was made manager of the Sky Blues and he stayed there until 2001 when he lost popularity with the fans by taking Coventry down. Strachan followed up Coventry with managerial appointments at Southampton, Celtic, Middlesbrough and Scotland. As a player Strachan earned exactly 50 caps for his country scoring five goals and is probably best remembered for his goal celebration when playing for Scotland at the 1986 Mexico World Cup: he looked too small to jump over the pitch side advertising hoardings and so stopped short of doing so, resting his foot on the top of the hoardings instead.
The featured match was a triumph for Peter Shreeves' Tottenham who ran riot against the Saints and won the match 5-1. The first goal was scored by Ossie Ardiles and this made it one-nil at half time but there were further goals in the second half from Glenn Hoddle, Mark Falco, Garth Crooks and Gary Brooke with Southampton's sole reply coming from Danny Wallace. It was to be Southampton's biggest defeat of the season. Spurs finished the season in third place in the First Division behind Champions Everton and runners-up Liverpool but didn't qualify for Europe due to the ongoing Heysel ban on English clubs. Lawrie McMenemy's Southampton also did well finishing fifth.
CRB Match No. 362
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