Growing up just on the outskirts of London, I have always been around Spurs fans all my life. A large part of my family on my mum’s side support Spurs as have many of my mates both at school and at college.
Due to this, I have come to know a lot about what makes the average Spurs fan tick and what really gets under their nose. Banter between football fans is one of the great things about the beautiful game and rivalry between supporters does always create a great atmosphere at a ground without a shadow of a doubt.
Aside from the incredible game which we won at White Hart Lane 5-3 after being 3-0 down at half time and the ‘goal’ that was never given to Pedro Mendes up at Old Trafford in 2005, one of my favourite memories down the years was when United signed Teddy Sheringham.
Growing up the first football tournament that I really watched was the European Championships that were held in England in 1996. That summer was the summer when (as any fan will know who was around then) ‘football came home’ and despite England falling short ultimately in the semi-finals to our old foes Germany on penalties (thanks alot Gareth Southgate!) it was a summer of discovery for me as a football fan.
Why I hear you ask? Well it was the first time when I really paid attention to other players. Before throughout the 1995/96 season when I had been watching a game other than when United were playing I didn’t really pay enough attention about the other players in the game and more often than not walk out of the room if the game wasn’t interesting.
Of course during Euro 96, the England games really did grip the nation and in wanting to know more about the stars of the team led by Terry Venables I asked my dad about some of the players. I had remembered Teddy from earlier in the season when Spurs beat United 4-1 but didn’t know too much about him.
Teddy of course started all of England’s five games in the tournament and scored twice in a famous 4-1 win over the Netherlands at Wembley which confirmed England’s passage to the quarter-finals.
Despite not scoring the goals that he would have wanted for Spurs the following season by now Teddy had established himself as Alan Shearer’s regular strike partner for England and was regularly in Glenn Hoddle’s squads.
Of course surprisingly at the end of that season Eric Cantona retired leaving a big space open in our squad for a striker. Looking back at it 14 years ago now, I cannot remember who we were linked with in the papers but when the news broke about us wanting to sign Teddy, I have to admit I was completely surprised and so were my mates and family who supported Spurs.
As we know the deal went through quite quickly and before you know it at the end of June the fixtures were out for the 1997/98 season. I can remember laughing when I found out United had got Spurs away first up and looked forward to the day in the hope that Teddy would score for us helping us to a win to start the season.
Of course as we all know the game didn’t exactly go to plan for him as although we did win the game 2-0 after two late goals, Teddy famously missed a penalty in the game much to the enjoyment of the Spurs crowd who had been giving him stick the whole game.
I can remember watching the game at my Aunt’s as particularly in the summer she always used to put on a ‘family function’ which in other words was just a posh name for a BBQ with light refreshments.
My family were giving me and my dad stick the whole game and were rubbing it in when Teddy missed his penalty. ‘He’s a Judas’ my uncle said, ‘If he loves Spurs so much why has he gone to United?’. My dad quickly responded with ‘Simple Dave, he’s gone there to win trophies something he’s hardly like to achieve at Spurs on a regular basis’.
Of course that annoyed my Uncle and Grandpa greatly (as we expected it to) and an argument quickly broke out much to the laughter of my cousins and I as we continued to watch the game as the women in the family just looked on puzzled.
‘He’ll never win trophies for United’ snarled my Uncle as we made our way back out into the garden after the game finished. How wrong he was after all Teddy didn’t just win trophies for us but had a leading role in our Treble-winning season the following year before moving back to White Hart Lane in 2001 at the age of 35.
He may not have been able to replace Cantona as the figure-head of our side. To be fair to him how was he going to fully replace Eric’s legacy when of course Teddy was almost 2 months older than our iconic Frenchman when he retired. What Teddy did do though was achieve more for United than the doubters believed he could and that’s something that no United fan or Spurs fan will ever forget.
By @ADennehey87
