Today I'm going back 32 years to 1990 and Tottenham's midweek home fixture against the mighty Liverpool played at White Hart Lane with an attendance of just 25.656.
I think I've mentioned previously that the Liverpool team of the late 1970's and 1980's almost ruined football for me. They seemed to win everything, season in season out. It got tedious. It was something of a rare event to watch anything other than yet another Liverpool win but as the 1990's dawned, we didn't know it at the time but Liverpool were about to descend into what, for them, was an almost unprecedented fallow period during which they had to stand by and watch as Manchester United knocked them off their perch and proceeded to hoover up trophies in just the same way as Liverpool themselves had done a few years earlier. Over the years I've been lucky (?) enough to attend 43 Liverpool matches and they've lost on only seven of those occasions. This game was one such occasion.
Looking at the highlights video attached to my blog, Spurs appear to have been unlucky not to score more that the one goal that they did. Gary Lineker in particular missed a hattrick of chances, all saved by Liverpool's Bruce Grobelaar. The goal came in the second half when Paul Gasoigned robbed the ball from a Liverpool throw in and crossed for Paul Stewart, marking his return to the first team, to head home.
The programme cover star for this particular match is, of course, Paul Walsh of Spurs who proved once again that programme editors seem to be almost compelled to put a visiting club's former player on the cover of that match's issue. Walsh started out in 1970 at Charlton Athletic and moved on to First Division Luton Town in 1982. Averaging around a goal every three games, not exactly prolific for a forward, it was somewhat surprising that Liverpool came in for him in 1984 and, whilst at the club Walsh won "just" the First Division Championship in 1986 plus a whole series of runners-up medals. Following the arrival of new signing Peter Beardsley, Walsh began drinking heavily and was quickly moved on to Tottenham. Whilst at Liverpool he had scored 37 goals in 112 games as his one-in-three record continued. Walsh himself felt that manager Terry Venables went too easy on him at Tottenham and his drinking continued. He was a member of Tottenham's 1991 FA Cup winning side but he played only the final few minutes of the game having come on as substitute. When Walsh left Spurs for Portsmouth in 1992 his Spurs scoring record totalled only 21 goals in 156 games. He finished his career at Portsmouth and Manchester City and his overall club scoring record was 163 goals in 634 games. Walsh also managed five appearances for England with a single goal coming against Australia.
Come the end of the season and, you guessed it, Liverpool were Champions again, losing five games all season including the featured match. Spurs finished in a respectable third place but were some 16 points behind the Champions that season.
CRB Match No. 652
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