Spurs in History - 16th March

16th March, 1912 & 1985
Victory at Anfield

Spurs won the 1st Division game in 1912 by 2-1 through goals from Ernie Newman and Thomas Mason, two players who don’t rank highly in Spurs history making only 39 appearances between them and this was the only goal scored by Mason.

However, events over the next 73 years brought greater significance to their feat that day because in that time no Spurs team won at Anfield. Amazingly, on the exact same date in 1985 Spurs unexpectedly returned to London having won 1-0, thanks to a goal from Garth Crooks. It was a well deserved victory and at last Spurs supporters didn’t have to listen to tales linking the ‘Titanic’ and their results at Anfield.

Bye Bye Jimmy – on this day in 1970 Spurs greatest goalscorer, Jimmy Greaves, was transferred to West Ham United.

16th March - Spurs in History

16th March, 1985
Liverpool 0 Spurs 1

Garth Crooks

Before Spurs recent local difficulty with Chelsea, there was Liverpool at Anfield. As commentators still love to remind us, before this win in 1985, Spurs had failed to win at Anfield since before the sinking of the Titanic.

In the week prior to this game Spurs had lost at home to Manchester United so were not in the best of form for such a game.  Their prospects did not look good and with Spurs record at Anfield the odds were stacked heavily in favour of Liverpool.

However, the team showed much resilience throughout and took the game to Liverpool.  Midway through the second half (70th minute) came the defining moment. Mark Falco charged down a Liverpool clearance, ignored calls for hand ball he played the ball to Micky Hazard whose shot was blocked by the Liverpool goalkeeper, Grobbellaar. The ball ran to Garth Crooks who scored to end one of the longest records in football.

Team: Clemence, Thomas, Hughton, Roberts, Miller, Perryman, Chiedozie (Hazard), Falco, Galvin, Hoddle, Crooks.


For the record:

16th March, 1912
Liverpool 1 Spurs 2

Ironically, Spurs previous victory at Anfield had also been on 16th March.  Spurs goals came from Ernie Numan and Thomas Mason.

Little did they know that it would be 73 years before Spurs would record another win at Anfield.