My first live game watching the Mighty Spurs

Guest Blogger - Gil Roberts - September 2025

My first live game watching the Mighty Spurs

I have always followed Spurs and continue do so, 67 years on and counting.

As a young lad growing up in Northern Ireland I was obsessed with football. Myself, along with all my friends, wanted to be professional footballers and all we dreamed/talked about was when we grew up was playing for our favourite team.

In 1958 while delivering the papers, I would read the sports pages, scanning all the articles. This was when I discovered Tottenham. Tottenham were all over the back pages - having finished 3^rd in the old 1^st division. Each night I read articles about a player who, a few years earlier, had signed for Spurs. This player was born near to my village, the late, great Danny Blanchflower. A superb player. So, my team became Tottenham Hotspur and over the years my following became an obsession. Everything I wore, played in, slept in was Tottenham.

It was pretty hard following Tottenham and living in Northern Ireland - there were hundreds of miles between us; a sea, another country, and I had no idea how I could achieve my dream of seeing them live. However, I worked hard, saved hard and managed to get over to London for the 1970/71 League Cup Final: Tottenham Hotspur 2 - Aston Villa 0, on Saturday, 27 February 1971. Through a friend who had a work colleague with a ticket for the final but could not attend, I purchased the ticket, at the normal cost - about £3 fifty pence I think, a week’s wages for me at that time. This all happened about a week before the Final – which is when panic set in. How the hell was I going to get to London? I started to plan my trip. I had never been out of my comfort zone, never ventured beyond NI! What was I thinking?

After talking to several people, I approached the local travel agent who booked my flight to London. I would leave Aldergrove airport at 8:30a.m., arrive in London at 9:30a.m. and return on the red eye flight back home. This left Heathrow at 10:45pm arriving back in Aldergrove 11:45pm. Seemed a reasonable trip, except that I had no idea about the size of London, where Wembley was, nothing! including no idea how to get from Heathrow to Wembley.

My knowledge of Tube travel did not exist - in fact, everything about getting around London drew a zero. After finally arriving, my brain was a fog, so I took the bus just like everybody else (I could have ended up in Liverpool for all I knew) and found myself in the middle of London (Oxford Circus, I was told by the conductor) still none the wiser how to get to the game. I wandered around, through Hyde Park up to Buckingham Palace back down the Strand completely lost, continuing to look at my watch aware of the time.

I stood on Oxford Street (I found out later its name) no idea where I was, when out of a shop came 4 or 5 people wearing Tottenham rosettes and scarves. I decided to follow along behind them onto the tube and soon found myself standing looking down at the beautiful sight of the Wembley Towers. Wembley Way was completely covered in people, more people than I had ever seen in my whole life, people everywhere. They carried flags, banners, sang songs, a mass of navy blue and white, and claret and blue, people moving towards a set of pillars called Wembley.

I had arrived more by luck than anything else. I was keen to get into the stadium just to feel the atmosphere, to look around this magnificent arena and get ready for my first live look at Tottenham. I soon found my gate/turnstile and rushed in, up the steps and stood looking around at people moving in all directions singing, cheering. The size of the stadium was immense, a mass of people. After my initial shock I found a barrier to lean against and continued to look at the stadium, overwhelmed by it all. However, my happiness soon turned to fear as I looked around.

I discovered I was in the Aston Villa end; I was surrounded by claret and blue. An old fellow of about 70 took one look at my rosette and scarf and whispered for me to hide them inside my jacket, don’t cheer for anyone and I would be safe. Have you ever stood at a football game and not cheered? Well, I couldn’t help myself, Chivers scored twice within 5 minutes of each other. For his first goal, I stood quietly however, for the second I leaped up and started dancing, (I just had to!). Suddenly a tin of beer hit me on the head, and I swung round ready to go to war. The old fellow grabbed my arm and stood in front of me saying something like ‘don’t be stupid, get to the nearest entrance and forget what happened.’ I ducked down, pushed my way through all the claret and blue and headed down the stairs into the bowels of Wembley. I was pissed off; I missed the end of the game, missed Spurs accepting the trophy. F… was I angry, but happy to have witnessed Spurs winning the Cup!

I must have walked all the way around the stadium until I found a group of Spurs fans and I joined in the celebrations. We walked up Wembley Way singing, cheering, down into the tube station still singing and before long I was back in Central London, lost again. Arriving at Wembley had been a quest but worth every minute.

Since then, I have reflected on my trip, happy to have got out alive. The return trip was just as eventful.

Bloody Hell what a cock up.

COYS!

Gil Roberts