ESPN sports, otherwise known as channel 442 for those of us who have bought in to the Murdoch miracle. (The rest of you probably have it too, but I know not the number of your particular beast). The destination channel for when you’ve flicked around the bewildering and ever lengthening available stations. A comfort blanket for when you think you may just have to watch ‘I’m a Celebrity…’
Most of the time it’s a series of relatively un-important Football/Cricket/Rugby games where the over-riding conclusion tends to be that old sport was pretty poor. I re-watched a number of Five Nations Rugby International, including England’s Grand Slam year and frankly it’s rubbish. Obviously the rules have changes but I don’t remember knock-on’s, forward passes or permanent offside being actively encouraged let alone outlawed…maybe the referee’s have just got better.
Football doesn’t escape here either. We all, well those of us of a certain age, bemoan the advent of the ‘protected player’, watching 1990 Coventry v’s West Brom, part of ESPN’s sometimes curiously named Dead Good Match series makes the free-flowing modern game seem a miracle.
The channel have carefully mined the vaults of the BBC and ITV, the ghosts of Brian Moore and Jimmy Hill (I know he’s not dead but he definitely haunts people) are released from their sweet slumber. Obviously there are some seams that have been hard to bring to the surface. As far as I can tell the only Queens Park Rangers games that were ever on television between 1970 and 1999 were defeats. This clearly isn’t true…so why are they never shown.
Most recently I found that as part of their ‘Happy Endings…Spurs’ series, the 1982 cup final and Replay. For many of us this brings back a wealth of emotion. Personally I always remember this final as the sign that Venables knew what he was doing and that the good times were just around the corner. In darker moments I recall that I was in the midst of a disastrous string of ‘o’ levels that, mixed in with a timely dose of Glandular Fever, combined to deny me a replay ticket and ultimately stop me getting a proper job until the 1990’s.
The first game I remember better, though not the foul weather. My brother, eight years younger had based his choice of Football team on brazen glory and the winners of the ‘81 trophy became his obsession. (I should take this moment to add that in some 25 years of following Spurs he’s never actually witnessed them score a goal…he’s been to enough games to be genuinely considered a jinx, long may it continue). He developed, pretty much straight away, his method of watching football…high-pitched indignance and uninformed ranting. So watching the game without his incessant whine was surreal.
The first thing that you recall is Clive Allan. Any hope we had was based upon the goal poacher extraordinaire. He just wasn’t fit. My pre-game dream, where Allan scored the winner in a mud bath (which was strangely prescient) and wearing our mid 70’s Feyenoord away kit wasn’t going to happen. Rangers were disjointed and often hanging on. Attacks tended to revolve around Simon Stainrod trying to control the ball and kick as many Spurs defenders as possible. Spurs weren’t much better mind. The much-vaunted silky skills of Galvin, Hoddle and Hazard were shackled by conservatism, Crooks and Archibald were blunt and their solid, dependable and borderline thuggish defence remained largely un-interested.
They created chances, but not great ones and even if they had the magnificent Hucker was more than a match. In my circle we talk about a person’s magic moment, the moment when a giant finger appears from the sky and a monolithic voice booms out… ‘this is your perfect moment, it will not get better than this’…and you’d be there, squirting mustard on a hotdog and your arm thinking ‘this can’t be it, this can’t be my moment’! Not Hucker, he had two. Never has a man appeared out of mediocrity and grasped magnificence like this. In the space of Five days he became a god.
You could define that first game as Hucker v’s Spurs; you could define the two as Hucker v’s Archibald. It lends the contest an epic quality that in truth it lacked. Certainly in that first game neither side played well. As the heavens open showering the players with displeasure at their collective performance another 30 minutes extra time seemed unnecessary. Weary bodies dragged themselves around, desperate lunges and over hit passes were the order of the day. Then it happened, fate intervened, tired of the endless stalemate. The referee, a seemingly ineffectual figure decided to make his mark. Balking Waddock he delayed the ginger stoppers progress towards a 60-40 with Hoddle. Despite the self-idolising poseur being favourite for the ball he still contrived to step over it and rake Waddock’s shin. The referee was obviously too close or in awe of the occasional England internationals’ gleaming thighs, ignoring the foul Hoddle progressed, bouncing a pass off the hapless Hazards shin he collected a shot towards Huckers goal.
Tony Currie was a magnificent footballer, utterly right for Rangers and generally bestrode the pitch like a passing colossus, but he’ll be mostly remembered for the unfortunate interventions in two FA Cup finals. This was his first, Hoddle’s shot was good, but Hucker would not have been beaten. The ball, however, brushed the unfortunate Currie’s inner thighs the ball arrowed into the corner. Ten minutes left and no real sign of the energy to come back.
By this time Spurs had released one of their archetypal players into the game, Gary Brook. Tubby, neat and probably a decent bloke, but destined, as most Tottenham youngsters are, to drift down the leagues into obscurity. Tottenham now buy everyone else’s youth in order to waste their talent, but in those days they developed their own future cab drivers and delivery boys.
As I recall, I think I’d settled for ignominious defeat, my brother had shouted himself out and the game appeared to be drifting to a close…but it didn’t. Rangers sort of rallied, forced a corner or two and then a throw. Stainrod, he of chiselled jaw, sharpened elbows and bristling with belligerence trotted over and proceeded to hurl the ball into what I can only describe as a near-deserted area. Nowadays, 1-0 up in the dying embers of a cup final, the team defending this most precarious of leads would have the whole team back in the six yard box. You’d see camels straining through needles rather than gaps in which you’d thread a shot. But here there appeared to be a couple of Ranges players and Spurs going man for man.
The magnificently random Bob Hazell, 100% brilliant or 100% arse depending on whether it was an odd or even minute, rose. He headed the ball across the rapidly ageing Clemence’s box and time stood still…
…Well, not really, as I remember, Fenwick had nodded in and was running towards the mass ranks of befuddled ‘Tottingham’ fans before it had registered that we’d equalised. Even watching it 25 years later it doesn’t seem real.
I’m pleased for Fenwick. He had two good games here, particularly the second and built the foundations of a good career. He was never really England class, but made the most of what he had and I’ll always have time for him.
The seconds ticked on, then the whistle. Some gentle taunting of my brother and checking to see what time Match of the Day was on…Saturday drifted on.
The advertising break between the two programmes doesn’t really match up to the five days of waiting for the replay. Tickets were easier to come by. But the difficulty of living four hours away could not be changed and any thoughts of being there were shelved.
I’d obviously missed the little introduction to the first programme, now I was treated to Phil Cornwell, who despite his incarnation as Gilbert the Green Monster, tends to look like a bloke doing an impression of someone you can’t quite recognise and some bloke from the production office possibly pretending to be a Spurs fan, such was his ignorance. They, misty eyed and brimming with emotion described how magnificent Spurs were in this replay and one of them lyrically remembered Roberts gliding past at least 15 Rangers players before being chopped down when about to pass the ball into an empty net…hmmm! Utter-cock!
Before the first game at least four of the superstars of Spurs were supposedly carrying injuries that threatened their participation, all four played, all four managed 120 minutes in appalling condition and all four were ready again come the replay.
Rangers were not so fortunate. The luckless Allan failed to make the replay and the Rangers captain Glenn Roeder, straight of back an possessor of the sweetest step-over before Christiano drew breath, was hit by that most iniquitous of punishment…the delayed suspension. You can debate about whether football has progressed in the last 25 years, but there’s no debate about the ending of this ridiculous system.
Fenwick moved into the centre, Warren Neill, who’d had a profound effect in previous rounds came in at right back. Gary Micklewhite who had an effective game as a sub on the Saturday, started instead of Allan. Steve Burke, one of a host of Rangers left wingers who came and went without leaving too much of a trace, was on the bench.
From the kick off, Spurs had their best 10 minutes of the whole replay. The early eighties were synonymous with a number of footballing fashion statements, most obvious in this game were the short-shorts, pulled up a little further to accentuate the thigh. Most noticeable here was Glenn Hoddle, shirt pulled down to give the impression he wasn’t wearing shorts (one assumes). His is a career that promised much, but so often disappointed when it was most needed. This was to be no different, but for that first ten minutes he was the dynamic presence on the field.
Spurs pushed the ball around, probed the re-built Rangers defence and after only seven minutes, found the breakthrough.
I didn’t believe my eyes at the time, I certainly didn’t believe the deluded ‘fan’ at the start of this programme. I can only assume the parting of Rangers midfield at the approaching Graham Roberts meant that they couldn’t believe it either.
Lets take a moment to remember Roberts. Only a Spurs fan could love him, a triumph of will over skill, given the careers of the likes of Terry Butcher and John Terry, I’m surprised he didn’t get more than 6 England caps. He was basically Paul Miller but with basic football ability.
Picking up a loose pass, he trundled through the non-existent midfield, he didn’t actually beat anyone, they all went missing!
Most spectacularly of all was Bob Hazell. Like a moribund Russian missile he flew at Roberts, arriving some seconds after the ponderous lump had moved on and ending in an unexploded heap on that most hallowed of turf.
By now Roberts was in the area and he could’ve pulled the trigger, but you’d not have backed him to beat the imperious Hucker with the angle he had, defenders were closing in, but unfortunately it was a midfielder who got there first. Tony Currie got nowhere near the ball and the tree like Roberts came crashing down.
Hoddle neatly despatched the penalty and probably expected to be able to stroll through the next 83 minutes before checking his hair and then lifting the trophy. For a few minutes it looked like that would happen, Rangers were shell-shocked and looked markedly more tired than the opposition.
It’s testament to the Venables built Rangers resilience that this didn’t continue. This collection of ageing pro’s, journeymen and youngsters suddenly started to compete. They got slap bang in the faces of their self-regarding opposition who didn’t like it. Stainrod, Gregory and Flanagan were putting challenges in whether they were required or not. I believe the phrase is…get in to ‘em, **** ‘em up!…and they did.
With it came a new confidence, to survive on the much-maligned plastic pitch this Rangers team had become a decent passing outfit and suddenly it was being unleashed. Spurs were chasing shadows and while there were no real clear-cut chances being created they were feeling the pressure. Either side of halftime they survived a number of scares. Clive White, the referee almost certainly knew all the Spurs players first names, this must have helped his interpretation off a penalty shout and an ‘offside’ goal at the end of the first half. The latter proving that whatever the confusion of the current rule, its got to be better than this interpretation which cost us so dear.
The second half continued in much the same way. Spurs had breaks, but more often than not the mere sight of Hucker put the million pound marvels Archibald and Crooks off.
Rangers had a second penalty claim waved away, the referee rightly guessing that Tony Currie’s legs had just given up running. Gary Waddock produced probably his only shot of the season to extend Clemence, Stainrod bristled with menace and was causing the Spurs back four all kinds of trouble.
Then our ex-manager John Gregory produced the moment that for Rangers fans everywhere that probably signalled the end of our cup dream. A neat build up found Stainrod on the left, he worked space for himself and floated a superb ball to the far right of the area, Gregory had stolen in behind the back four and deftly (unless it was meant to be a cross) lob-volleyed the static Clemence. The ball floated on…and on, striking the crossbar and bouncing out. From that moment the game was up really. Burke was thrown on to little effect, a few goal mouth scrambles but the big moment had come and gone.
There was time for Archibald to go one on one with Hucker, despite Motson’s (as rubbish then as he is now) assertion that the blond Scot had finally beaten Hucker, replays revealed that the now giant keeper had got a hand to the rifled finish and had deflected it on to the post. In many ways this defined the two games and Hucker had defined himself as the stand out player.
At the final whistle the men in red sank to the floor, some 210 minues on the notoriously draining Wembley pitch had taken its toll. At the time i felt a strange pride at our performance and no little hope for the future that life with Venables promised.
I do remember the charmless Keith Burkinshaw, the then Spurs boss, when asked after the game to comment on the plucky losers could only muster, ‘a year from now people will only remember that we won’. Not me Keith, my memories may well be hoop-tinted, but i’ll not forget this final.
April 16th, 2008 
The Ron Around