On This Day - 29th October

29th October, 1960

Newcastle United 3 Spurs 4 (1st Division)

The demand to see Spurs is illustrated in the attendance at this game which was 17,000 more than any of Newcastle’s previous games. Spurs had responded to their first dropped point of the season at home to Manchester City, earlier in the month, by defeating Nottingham Forest 4-0 at the City Ground in their next match.

This, their next game saw them a goal behind after thirty minutes as Newcastle took the lead but Spurs had equalised within two minutes with a goal from Maurice Norman [Pic: Maurice Norman scored some important games for Spurs]. Newcastle regained the lead before half-time, the first time that Spurs had been behind at the interval.

Bill Nicholson’s half-time talk saw Spurs raise their game and they scored twice through John White and Cliff Jones. However, a mistake by Bill Brown allowed Newcastle to equalise. With a draw looking the likely outcome, Bobby Smith scored the winner from a Les Allen cross with only three minutes remaining.

Team; Brown, Baker, Henry, Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay, Jones, White, Smith, Allen, Dyson.

29th October, 1994

Spurs 3 West Ham United 1

The Spurs players responded well to the disappointing Cup defeat at Notts County during the week. A very poor 0-3 defeat against County who were bottom of the 1st Division at the time had increased the pressure on manager Ossie Ardiles and it was generally believed that regardless of the result in this game against West Ham, his time as manager of Tottenham was over.

Spurs won, in a good performance, with goals from Jurgen Klinsmann, Nicky Barmby and substitute Teddy Sheringham.

As was expected, two days later Chairman, Alan Sugar sacked Ossie Ardiles. It had been a difficult seventeen months for Ardiles who had been appointed in the aftermath of the Sugar/Venables fall out. The start of his second season in scharge had been blighted by the deduction of points and FA Cup ban imposed by the Football Association for financial irregularities. Ardiles was a 'Legend' as a player but his managerial record at the highest level does not stand up to scrutiny.

His assistant, Steve Perryman remained at the club, was appointed as Caretaker, at least until the end of the season with the brief of taking Spurs away from relegation. He took charge for the next game at Blackburn but was released when Gerry Francis was appointed in the week before the home game against Aston Villa.