1991/09/04 - Tottenham Hotspur 1 Sparkasse Stockerau 0 - European Cup Winners' Cup Preliminary Round 2nd Leg

 

Today I'm going back 31 years to 1991 and Tottenham's European Cup Winners' Cup Preliminary Round 2nd Leg against the second tier Austrian cup winners Sparkasse Stockerau who had, surprisingly, beaten Austrian heavyweights Rapid Vienna 2-1 in the 1991 Final. It was Stockerau's first and only Austrian Cup win.

The town of Stockerau is located 15 miles north-west of Vienna and the town's football club SV Stockerau underwent a name change to become SV Sparkasse Stockerau in 1990, reflecting the sponsorship of Sparkasse, a German bank. Their star has fallen somewhat since this game was played and, today, they can be found plumbing the depths of Austria's fifth tier known as Lower Austria 2 Landesliga Ost. 

The featured game was Tottenham's first game in Europe since defeat to Real Madrid in a Quarter-Final tie in 1985. Spurs were obliged to enter at the Preliminary Round stage in order to trim the competition down to 32 clubs before the 1st Round and the 1st Leg was played at the Praterstadion in Vienna rather than Stockerau's quaint but wholly unsuitable home ground (capacity 3,500). The attendance on the night was 15,500 and the crowd witnessed a single goal scored by new signing Gordon Durie followed by a penalty save by goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt to give Spurs the cushion of a 1-0 away victory and an away goal. Perhaps confusingly, Stockerau had switched from red to black shorts at halftime in that 1st Leg to match the black cycling shorts that some of their payers were wearing. The fact that the black shorts clashed with Tottenham's dark blue was apparently irrelevant as the referee applied the letter of the law rather than a modicum of common sense. The 2nd Leg, played two weeks later at the old White Hart Lane, in front of a respectable crowd of 28,072, proved to be another tight affair with the all-important goal scored just three minutes before halftime by Gary Mabbutt shooting in from the edge of "the D" to send Spurs through to the 1st Round 2-0 on aggregate. 

Spurs would go on to overcome Hajduk Split (2-1 on aggregate) in the 1st Round followed by Porto (3-1) in the 2nd Round. However, they were to meet their match in the 3rd Round when they came up against Dutch giants Feyenoord who beat Spurs 1-0 on aggregate. German side Werder Bremen would go on to win the Cup Winners' Cup that season beating AS Monaco 2-0 in the Final in Lisbon. 

CRB Match No. 730