Quick trip down The Lane

40 years ago I went "daaan ve lane", as a cockney might say, to see Forest play away at Tottenham Hotspur in a first division game. I freely admit I was absolutely terrified at the prospect as the ground had a bad reputation among Forest fans and my visit to West Ham's ground, Upton Park - not a million miles away - last season was very scary indeed. But this was going to be my 46th ground, my first new one for quite a while (since Highfield Road, Coventry at the end of last season) so I was determined to go.

Luckily for me, I had just made friends with a Spurs fan at Nottingham University and, thanks to Jake Holloway, I managed to watch the game feeling relatively safe and get back to Nottingham in one piece.

As the ground has now been demolished and Tottenham fans anxiously await the opening of their splendid new stadium (pretty much on the same spot) I am dedicating this post to that fine old ground, that I eventually went to eleven times.

Previous Post: Evertons.

White Hart Lane - 46th Ground Visited

Visiting Tottenham would signal the half way point in my still nascent quest to visit all 92 league grounds. It wouldn't actually reach fruition until the year 2000.

So, here's a brief history of a famous old ground.

Spurs formed in 1892, as I described in the blog post for the opening league game of the season. Their first seven years were played on a couple of local grounds but as Spurs got more successful (in the Southern League at the time) it became clear that they needed a better, bigger, more secure place to play.

The last straw came when they played Woolwich Arsenal, soon to become their big rivals, but in those days a club quite a distance away, in Woolwich. A record attendance of some 15,000 was there and it got so packed that fans started to climb on the roof of a refreshment stand causing it to collapse.

A new ground was found east of Tottenham High Road. It wasn't originally named White Hart Lane and there are various accounts as to how the name became adopted. My favourite is simply that to get to the ground you went down a lane next to a pub called The White Hart. Easy.

The White Hart - next to it, a lane that goes to the ground

The first match played on the ground, on 4th September 1899, was against a team from Nottingham. Not us, alas, but Notts County. Spurs won 4-1. 

Spurs first game at the Lane, against Notts County in 1899.

The first league game was against QPR in the Southern League. In 1904 the Park Lane end had a massive bank built on it increasing the capacity of 32,000. A year later, the Paxton Lane end was similarly extended taking the ground capacity to around 40,000. Three years later, the ground was hosting games in the football league (the first against Wolves in 1908) and the season after that, having won immediate promotion, White Hart Lane hosted first division games.

To celebrate their new first division status a quite modern looking West Stand was built, at the time the biggest in the football league. It held 5,300 seats and standing room for another 6,000 at the front, all covered. The stand was opened for Spurs' first first division game, against Manchester United. The game ended 2-2. 

Brand New West Stand opened for Spurs' First Division debut in September 1909

Here's an early map of the ground's location...

After successes in the F.A. Cup, the ground was extended in the 1920s and both the Paxton Lane end of the ground and the Park Lane end had similar two tier stands built. All three stands were designed by the Scottish Architect Archibald Leitch.

Archibald - early WHL architect

By 1928 Spurs ground could hold 58,000 with 40,000 covered.

White Hart Lane in 1928

The East Stand, not yet built in 1932

The final side of the ground to be developed was the East Stand. The club spent £60,000 on a massive double-decker stand with the lower, standing, section in two tiers. The middle tier became Spurs' famous "shelf".

The East Stand was opened in 1934 for a league game against Aston Villa. It provided standing room for almost 19,000 fans and took the overall ground capacity close to 80,000.

And it wasn't long until that capacity was reached. The record attendance at White Hart Lane still stands, today, at 75,038 for Spurs v Sunderland on March 5th 1938 in the 6th Round of the F.A. Cup.

75,000 packed into White Hart Lane to see the Cup quarter final tie against Sunderland

Here's a classic news clip of the game...

White Hart Lane's first floodlights were installed in 1953 and were repeatedly upgraded as the years went by.

This is what the Spurs ground looked like in 1966...

Here's a neat presentation of the evolution of the ground...

Bringing us right up to date, here's Spurs two famous Argentinian imports outside the ground at the start of the current (1978-79) season.

This is pretty much what the East Stand (where I stood) must have looked like on the day I paid my first visit...

Y'goin tut match, yooth?

Now, as I said, I was pretty terrified at the prospect of going down to London after my scary visit to West Ham the season before but luckily for me, in Sherwood Hall, at Nottingham University there was a Spurs fan who I'd already got drunk with a few times. He'd end up christening me "Bongo" - and might have already done so even by this point in time, although that might just be a slip in memory as big as the slip on the dance floor at the night club that made me crash into a bongo drum, chipping my tooth.

Jakey at Sherwood

Don't mess with Jake

Having befriended Jakey, we decided to go down to London together to watch the game. We caught the train from Nottingham station and I was pleased that I was able to save Jake from being attacked by a mob of Forest hooligans that were also going down for the same game. (OK, it almost certainly was just one fan who noticed Jake's Spurs scarf and I probably said something like "He's all right mi duck. We're together.")

Somehow, I felt safer with Jake

Once in London, Jakey was able to repay the favour a hundred times over as we made our way through packed crowds to get to the stadium, going to all the right places and pubs (Rudolfs, maybe?) before going to the ground looking cool as a proper cockney.

I am pretty sure we stood near the front on the East Stand terrace, so we got a pretty good view of the game.

So, after a wait of almost seven months, finally, a another new ground to add to my list. Now I was half way to the 92.

Exponential progress halted - then it was White Hart Lane

I suppose university had stressed me a bit so my football fanaticism had waned a little since the end of last season, but now, with a new set of university mates, who were also mad on football, I was to become more of a fanatic than ever.

This was my fourth consecutive Forest game attended at the time , which I agree is not much but it was in my top ten consecutive runs at the time. In fact it was to stretch to ten over the next few weeks.

My all time record, however, is still 26 during Forest's league and League Cup winning season. 

Best runs of consecutive Forest games at the time

26 consecutive Forest matches - my best run ever.

Of course it dropped off a lot after the next few seasons as I left Nottingham, got married, had kids and eventually emigrated to Australia. But as I write this, I have currently been to the last three Forest games for the first time since 1985.

So, this was it, match 284 and the first at White Hart Lane... 

Match 284: Tottenham Hotspur 1 Nottingham Forest 3 (1st match at White Hart Lane, Tottenham 4th, Forest 222nd)

Here's the match day programme...

17 year old Gary Mills made only his second start in the first team in place of Martin O'Neill and John O'Hare continued to fill in for John McGovern.

Tottenham Hotspur
1 Mark Kendall, 2 Terry Naylor, 3 Don McAllister, 4 James Holmes, 5 John Lacy, 6 Steve Perryman, 7 John Pratt, 8 Osvaldo Ardiles, 9 Colin Lee, 10 Glen Hoddle, 11 Peter Taylor.
Goals: John Pratt 1.

Substitutions: Ricardo Villa (12) came on for Osvaldo Ardiles(8).

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Ian Bowyer, 4 David Needham, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 John O'Hare, 7 Archie Gemmill, 8 Gary Mills, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : Viv Anderson 1, Gary Birtles 1, John Robertson 1.

Attendance 50,451

As always, I have few memories of the game other than it was a cold wet day and Forest played really well in the second half. I do recall John Robertson terrorising Terry Naylor on our side of the ground and he must have come close to us a few times to take throw ins.

Here's the report from the Guardian.

The game was shown on the Big Match in London and it's great to hear Brian Moore commentating on this great Forest win. Just watch John Robertson, making his 107th successive appearance for Forest, twisting Terry Naylor inside and out before scoring the second goal... Viv Anderson's was a peach too.

Other Games

In other games that day, Bristol City beat Bolton 4-1.

Alister Brown's goal at Portman Road gave West Brom maximum points.

And Liverpool were back to winning ways at QPR. 

The biggest crowd of the day was at White Hart Lane.

So this was how the table looked 40 years ago...

Forest remained in top spot in the current form (last 3 home/away games) table.

After a very drab start to the season, Forest now had two players in the first division's 14 leading scorers.

And in the 1977-1979 combined table, Forest still led at this stage...

White Hart Lane since then

Since that game, I have been to White Hart Lane on eleven occasions, my fifth most visited league ground.

In the 1981-82 season I went three times, including a big European night against Barcelona when I had the dubious honour of starting off a song off.

I'm not proud to admit it but the whole shelf joined in with my rendition of ...

"You'll never take Gibralta!"

... for all of three or four seconds.

My last visit was in 2008 when I went with another couple of Spurs mates (I seem to always attract them somehow) my old muckers Gerry Touhey and Rory O'Brien from Penn, High Wycombe. We saw a frustrating season opener at home to Sunderland, which they lost 2-1. Tragically, Rory passed away a few years ago but I know his daughter is still a regular.

This was the way the ground looked around 2008...

Of course, at the end of the 2016-2017 season, Spurs played their last game at the old White Hart Lane. Fittingly, like their first in the top flight, it was against Manchester United.

Last game at White Hart Lane...

A brand new stadium was built right next to the previous ground.

And, although delayed, it should open soon. I must admit, it does look fantastic but it's a further step away from the good old days of stadiums with character towards an era where they all look the same.

Next... to Bolton Wanderers