Back in 1882 a football club formed from former schoolboys from Eton College in Berkshire (Old Etonians) became the last amateur side to win the biggest prize in Association Football at the time, when they beat Blackburn Rovers 1-0 at the Kennington Oval in the FA Cup Final. The following year Blackburn Olympic earned revenge for the North beating the Etonians  2-1,  and took the FA Cup North.

In that same year a group of school pals in North London were hanging around under a gas lamp in a suburb of North London (after playing cricket on nearby farm land owned by two of the boys’ uncle) and wondering what to do with their time during the winter months. They came up with a hair brained scheme to form a football club playing association rules (not that the rules had been ratified at that stage – that didn’t come until a few months later when the four national associations held their first formal meeting) and the Hotspur Cricket Club had become the Hotspur Football club.

The date of the birth of the club is generally recognised as 5^th September 1882, the date the first subscriptions were received from the eleven founder members. E. Beaven, Bobby Buckle, Fred Dexter, Stuart Leaman, E. Wall, J. Anderson, T. Anderson, L. Casey, Ham Casey, Jack Thompson and Peter Thompson (whose uncle let them use his land to play cricket on). 11 boys (soon to be joined by a further 8) to whom we all owe a great debt of gratitude.

Why Hotspur? The name is believed to have been suggested by another Casey brother. It was the Caseys father who gave the boys their first goalposts (painted rather prophetically White and Blue). Harry Hotspur or Sir Henry Percy to give him his proper name had died at Shrewsbury while leading forces against Henry IV came from the Percy family who next to the crown were arguably the most powerful family in England dominating the Scottish borderlands and North East England from their bases at Alnwick and Warkworth castles. They owned huge tracts of land to the north of London in the area we know as Northumberland Park. The new football club held some of their early meetings in the YNCA building, Percy House and  at various times used the Northumberland Arms as their changing rooms so the name seemed a natural choice and gave them a certain uniqueness amongst the various Towns, Uniteds and Rovers.

The Hotspurs first Fixture was against local rivals Latymer on the 6^th January 1883 and the result is recorded as being an 8-1 defeat. However by the 1883/84 season the boys had approached a prominent local figure, John Ripsher, to help run the club. (He had helped with the running of the cricket club). He was a local churchman (All Hallows Parish Church) and was prominent in the YMCA where as I mentioned the club based itself in the early days. He called the clubs first AGM in August 1883 which was attended by 21 boys. They played their matches on marsh land between the Great Eastern Railway and the River Lea behind Northumberland Park station and a friendly station master allowed them to store the goalposts at the station.

The organiser of the first AGM was a local man called John Randall who had joined the club from local neighbours The Radicals. After joining Randall was elected Captain (taking over from Bobby Buckle, the first captain) and his deputy was a certain Billy Hartson. Hartson partnered Buckle on the Left wing for ten years and then moved behind the scenes. Sixty years later, still serving the club as Press Box Steward.

Boys will be boys even in those days and it was not long before The Hotspurs had to find a new base after a YMCA councillor checking out the noise coming from the basement was hit in the face by a ball. They were ejected from the premises and after a brief  spell at Dorset Villas they moved into The Red House for six years. Little did they know that The Red House would become the Clubs administrative offices when it was later purchased by the club. We of course know ‘The Red House’ better by its address – 748 High Road.

In 1885 another seemingly insignificant event took place that shaped the clubs history when the then secretary Sam Casey received mail addressed to London Hotspur. who were another football team in the London area. In order to avoid confusion it was decided to change the name to Tottenham Hotspur in order to avoid confusion. They needn’t have bothered really as London Hotspur faded into oblivion and there would then be only one Hotspur. It was also around this time that the team went to Kennington Oval to witness Blackburn Rovers beat Queens Park 2-0 to win their second successive FA Cup Final, and in their honour the boys from Tottenham decided to change their strip to that of Blackburns – The Blue and white revived for next season’s commemorative strip.

In the early days the games on the marshes were becoming a hindrance to the club. It was common land and anyone had a right to play there. The club could not charge for admission and there were often rows about who used the pitches. Despite being known as the best side in the district it was evident that a better solution was required. An article in ‘The Football News’ penned by player P.J.Moss in 1900  alluded to the problems of having up to 4000 spectators crowded around the pitch. “They were not always considerate of the feelings of visiting teams and I well remember some east End Cup ties in which the visitors were pelted with mud, rotten turnips and other vegetable refuse” he reported. A better solution was needed and Bobby Buckle, Sam Casey and Jack Jull found a pitch for rent of Northumberland Park for the princely fee of £17 per year. They played their first match there in September 1888 against Stratford St. Johns) and took 17 shillings in gate receipts. Not bad for what was still a group of ex school friends playing friendlies and a few cup matches.

In the period leading up to the move to Northumberland Park Tottenham Hotspur had played their first Cup matches, Their first game against Royal Arsenal (winning 2-1 although they tried to deny it as they turned up late and got the match abandoned because it was too dark – see, cheating even way back then), and had reached their first ever cup final losing 1-0 to the Caledonians in The East End Cup but the move to Northumberland Park had to be made and a wise move it was too. In their first season at their new ground they mad a profit of £6 – not to be sniffed at in those days. On 13^th October 1888 Tottenham played hosts to Old Etonians. Ok they lost 8-0 but bear in mind that Tottenham had only existed for six years and six years earlier Old Etonians had won the FA Cup

In 1889 Tottenham Hotspur joined the Football Association, crowds swelled to as many as 3000 for the visit of Casuals in the London Senior Cup but the situation of playing Friendlies could not continue. In 1887 a meeting had been held with Royal Arsenal about setting up a Southern League but nothing had become of that. In 1892 twelve clubs tried to form a Southern league but Spurs could not join – at a meeting they only received one vote – their own and still the situation went unresolved. The London FA threatened to suspend any club that embraced professionalism. Royal Arsenal ignored this threat and joined the Football league in 1893 and Spurs had joined the newly formed Southern Alliance with Erith, Slough, Windsor and Eton, Polytechnic, Old St. Stephens and Upton Park. They lost only three games that season and reached the fourth round of the London Challenge Cup. However they were forced to turn professional after the affair of Paynes Boots. Ernie Payne had moved to Spurs from Fulham after he could not get a game there but when he turned up for his first match his kit had disappeared. He was given ten bob to go and buy himself a pair of boots Fulham found out, reported Spurs who were found guilty of paying inducements and suspended for two weeks. Because of this incident Spurs decided the London FAs attitude to professionalism was a problem and so in December 1895 Tottenham became a professional football club.

Spurs finally joined the Southern League in 1896 and in twelve years in the Southern League they never finished lower than seventh but then it was not a particularly strong league with only half a dozen good sides. However the success of 1899/1900 showed that the club was one of the strongest sides in the South.

And so to the 1900/1901 season, the culmination of which saw 114,000  supporters cram into Crystal Palace (Still the third highest attendance for a football match in England and the first ever match to attract more than 100,000) on 20^th April to witness Tottenham Hotspur draw 2-2 with Sheffield United. The replay at Bolton on 27^th April only attracted a crowd of 20,740 but it saw the Northern sides’ dominance of the FA Cup end as Spurs won 3-1. It was the first time since the Old Etonians in 1882 that the cup had come south. Just under twenty years since a group of lads met under a gas lamp on Tottenham High Road and little did anyone know at the time  that it would be twenty years before the cup came south again.  

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