Spurs in History - 1st July

1st July, 1995

Intertoto Victory.

Spurs 2 Rudar Velenje (Slovenia) 1

Every season as Spurs failed to achieve automatic qualification for Europe, the argument raged – should they enter the Intertoto Cup.

In 1995 Spurs, Wimbledon and Sheffield Wednesday agreed to enter the competition to assist the Premiership when no other club would participate.

However, their reluctance was clear as they extracted certain conditions from the authorities – they would not play at their home ground, they could play weakened teams and could play loan players.

Spurs played at Brighton and put out a reserve team which lost their first game against FC Lucerne, 0- 2, at the end of June.

They won the second game away to Rudar Velenje of Slovenia by 2 – 1, their only success, although it was not considered a first-team match.

Thankfully, Spurs have avoided this dilemma over the past two seasons with automatic qualification for the UEFA Cup.

The Intertoto Cup was always regarded with disdain in England with no-one wanting to take part but across Europe top clubs who had failed to qualify for European competition saw it as another way of playing in the UEFA cup.

However, now-a-days even in England it is taken more seriously with clubs looking to the Intertoto Cup as an alternative route into Europe. Newcastle United have used it successfully on a number of occasions - the only draw backback, from the players point of view, is a very early start to preseason training - mid-June.