The Ghost of White Hart Lane by Julie Welch

Author:Julie Welch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407092294
Publisher: Random House

Alan Hoby, Sunday Express, March 1961

Like the lost opportunity against Wolves, this was exactly the sort of game that five months back would have been problem-free. Instead, after Cliff had put them into a first-half lead an eighteen-year-old number 10 called Billy McPheat announced himself with an equaliser just after the restart. Spurs were totally fazed. No one was where they had dreamed of being. If they couldn’t beat Sunderland, they certainly wouldn’t be able to hold everything together in the title race. Beating a Second Division team was a basic, Year One qualification. Without that, there would be no Double.

Reports in the papers were scathing: ‘Blanchflower, White and Allen, all key men, failed to find the customary accuracy of pass.’ John, in particular, was singled out. He was never to recover his ‘poise and accuracy’ during the game; after being presented with a ‘dream chance’, he ‘blazed wildly over the bar’; ‘Tottenham’s forwards could not find any rhythm, largely because White was not putting his passes right.’

Then abruptly, after that day at Roker, a corner was turned. It’s impossible to identify what it was – perhaps recovery from fatigue, or the sudden awareness of the lighter days. But after weeks of struggling to find his touch, the whole picture seemed to brighten. A burst of energy propelled John forward. His mojo was working again and he could sense the patterns made by his team-mates without having to think about them consciously. His opponents found it impossible once again to keep track of his movements.

It sounds miraculous to the point of absurdity, but at the replay with Sunderland, which Spurs won 5–0, everything he did went right. The goals were from Les, Bobby, Terry (two) and Dave, but it was John (that ‘flitting genius’) who set them up: ‘White, who with Danny Blanchflower fashioned the stream of fantasies of soccer which streamed from Spurs …’; ‘Amid all the hubbub one man stood out – the frail-looking White at his impeccable best. The match had three decisive moments, and the first came from one of White’s inimitable moves …’; ‘In a twinkling White unfolded two matchless individual efforts … Recovering instantly when beaten … he turned like a hare and shook the crossbar with a drive. Next, opening a gap in defence with a twist of the shoulders, he glided through and shot. The ball spun off Hurley. Allen, racing in, lashed it in.’

It would be going too far to say everything was easy from then on. Just before the Cup semi-final against Burnley, Spurs lost 3–2 at Cardiff. The press verdict was that ‘Cardiff’s middle line … was on peak form and Allen and White were blotted out’. But at Villa Park on 18 March Tottenham safely negotiated the obstacle of Burnley 3–0 (John made the third goal, for Cliff ).

So Spurs were going to Wembley, and a Cup final against Leicester City. Whether they’d be going there as League champions suddenly didn’t seem such a certainty. Since the beginning

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