Same Again Please - COYS

Hatch99 · 25-08-2010 10:56am #1

A lot has been said over the years about the Glory Nights at White Hart Lane when people talk about Spurs exploits in Europe. Old men will talk with tears in their eyes about the days when a Wednesday night at Tottenham was something really special. The older generation will talk of the strains of Glory, Glory Hallelujah coming from the four sided Tottenham Wall of Sound. Listen to these old men and you will think of something rather magical.
These days we get the slow version of ‘Oh When the Spurs’ from the Park lane and the Shelf. Occasionally the Paxton will join in but the four sided wall of sound at White hart lane occurs very infrequently indeed. Recent times are obviously the ‘Que Sera’ of the 5-1 defeat of the old enemy from South London and probably more relevant to this piece, the atmosphere on the 12th April 2007 when we needed to try and lift the team against Seville while we were 4-1 down on aggregate. We may not have succeeded that night but that was surely one of the best atmospheres inside the old stadium since the UEFA cup final of 1984.
Other clubs have of course since hijacked the Glory Glory song but all of those that have, add their team name to that line. Tottenham’s version is unique to Spurs. We are the only club that sang Glory Glory Hallelujah.
So let’s go back 48 years to when it all started. Bill Nicholson had put together the team that had just won the first double in the modern era and everyone raved about The Double Side. Reward for that was entry into the European Cup and most Spurs fans believed that all they had to do was turn up. Benfica were the current holders, a great side but surely Bills’ double side were better?
The first match took Spurs behind the Iron Curtain and to Katowice in Poland. The opponents were Gornik Zabre and this was only the preliminary round, a formality. But let’s not also forget that Spurs were one of the first British teams to face the rigours of an away game in Eastern Europe and Bill Nicholson said of the planning trip. “They took me to this terrible place and told me this is where we would be staying. I told them that they would be staying in the best hotel in London and I wanted Spurs to stay in the best hotel in Katowice. They said this was the best hotel in Katowice”.
Danny Blanchflower described passing “prisoners digging up cobbles guarded by men with machine guns and women on their hands and knees cutting the grass with what looked like large pairs of scissors. The stadium, massive, lit and tall like a distant castle, was the only welcoming thing about the whole place”. Massive enough in fact, to hold a crowd of 70,000 and Gornik had not read the script. By half time the Poles led 4-0 and Tottenham were dead and buried.
Nicholson described himself as having been ‘Bloody upset’ and whatever he said at half time made a difference as Cliff Jones and Terry Dyson pulled back two goals to give Spurs some hope in the return leg. That return Leg came a week later on September 13th 1961. The Poles were outnumbered by over 56,700 to 11. They themselves admitted later that they were battered into submission by the noise of the home fans coming at them from all four sides of the ground. In Blanchflowers words “The sound came from everywhere. It was marvellous. When they sang, they all sang together, fathers and sons, old and young.”
The Poles even dared to score first and put themselves 5-2 up in the tie but from the moment Macnamaras Band introduced the teams to the pitch and the crowd bombarded the Poles to Tottenhams hymn of choice, there was only ever going to be one result. The team duly obliged and went on to score eight goals. Spurred on by the ferocity of the crowd Blanchflower scored from a penalty, Cliff Jones got a hat-trick, Bobby Smith bagged a brace and Dyson and White also snatched a goal each. At the end of the game the crowd slumped exhausted from their efforts to inspire the side and the legend of the Glory Nights at the Lane was born.
Bill Nicholson was determined that never again would we travel to an away game in Europe unprepared. The players would be educated about the social conditions of the countries we visited and preparations would ensure that flea ridden beds were never experienced again.

Move forward to 2010 and Spurs first foray into the Champions League and the first return to the top European trophy since that season back in 1961. I don’t expect bedbugs were a problem in Switzerland but the plastic playing surface obviously was as the Young Boys raced to a 3-0 lead inside half an hour. Again we looked dead and buried at the first attempt. Again we scored two goals to get ourselves back into the tie and again, a week later we return to the Lane. A very different stadium these days but one that on its day can still generate one of the best atmospheres in club football anywhere in the world. Young Boys are no strangers to intimidating atmospheres. Don’t forget they won 1-0 in the Hell Hole that is Fenerbache so it will take something special to unsettle them.

We can do that at the Lane. All four sides of the ground (put your prawn sandwiches down you lot in the West Upper) and every man women and child present needs to get behind the team. We need to restore ‘Glory Glory Hallelujah’ as our wall of sound and we need to lift the effin roof off .

Let the new era of ‘Glory Nights’ begin tonight and may the legend be reborn for us to tell our grandchildren.