By Dave P
September 13 2006

Forty five years ago today an English football side full of confidence travelled to Eastern Europe to pit their skills and footballing style against a foreign side in a competitive game for the first time. Forty five years ago today an English football side full of confidence travelled to Eastern Europe to pit their skills and footballing style against a foreign side in a competitive game for the first time. Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and that lot from down the road have all gone into European competitions in recent years with hopes high and all have had some success but none of their supporters would have been as confident as the supporters of that team that took to the pitch on the evening of 13th September 1961 in the city of Katowice in Poland.

That side were arguably the best football team this country had ever seen having just won the double the previous season and so were surely destined to bring home the European Cup. Their first round opponents were Gornik Zabrze of Katowice, the Polish Champions and this was Tottenham's first European competition. Bill Nicholson had been on an advance trip out to Poland to check training facilities and accommodation and was shown what he described as a ‘terrible place’. He told them that when they were in England they would stay at the finest hotel in England and so he wanted Tottenham to stay at the best hotel in Katowice only to be told it was the best hotel in Katowice. And thus Spurs were introduced to life behind the Iron Curtain. Bill described prisoners guarded by men with machine guns digging up cobbles and en route to the stadium seeing women cutting the grass in the park with ‘what looked like large pairs of scissors’. With this in mind it must have been a relief to get onto the pitch at the Slaski Stadium for what observers thought would be the formality of a Spurs win. Trouble is – no-one told the Poles as within an hour they were 4-0 up. Fortunately the Poles eased off late in the game allowing Terry Dyson and Cliff Jones to nick a couple back and give the mighty Spurs a glimmer of hope to bring back from what was then a very different Eastern Europe to the one today’s stars and fans will be travelling to.

The early sixties and the Glory Nights were about to be invented in North London. European ties were not on TV and White Hart Lane became one of the greatest European stadiums of its day as all four sides of the ground resounded to the strains of McNamara’s Band and Glory Glory Hallelujah. Note – we sing the word Hallelujah and not the name of the club – such is our status in football – Everyone knows who we are. “The sound came from everywhere, It was marvellous” said Nicholson, “When they sang they all sang together, fathers and sons, old and young”

There is a school of thought that says that the glory nights at White Hart Lane only lasted for two seasons and seven home games. Others will disagree – myself included as I count the two UEFA Cup Triumphs as glory nights but whichever school of thought you subscribe to, the two seasons of 61/62 and 62/63 are where the Glory Nights started.

Seven home matches, four in the European Cup and three in the Cup Winners Cup the season after. And the true birth of the Glory Nights and the legends that surround them all started with that first return leg against Gornik. Leading 4-2 from the first leg they scored first in the second match through Pohl. Spurs were now 5-2 down and surely dead and buried. Then the crowd joined in. The Poles (who were used to wide open stadiums incorporating athletics tracks) found themselves in a cauldron of noise and outnumbered 60,000 to 11. Even one or two of the Spurs players said afterwards that the intensity of the support was frightening. Danny Blanchflower got a penalty and then driven on by the crowd Cliff Jones scored a Hat-trick, Bobby Smith scored twice, Terry Dyson and John White got one each and at the end the crowd went surprisingly quiet – exhausted by their own efforts. The Glory Nights at the Lane had been born and it is debatable whether the old ground has ever experienced anything like that night since when a 4-2 deficit was turned into a 10-5 victory.

We were of course destined not to win in that first campaign in Europe having been denied by the woodwork three times and on the wrong end of two incorrect offside decisions in the Semi Final against Benfica but that is a story for another time and thus we had to wait another year before we became the first British side to bring back a European Trophy but as we start our seventh UEFA Cup campaign in a much changed Eastern Europe let us not forget our heritage. Let us hail those supporters that inspired, or even terrified, our side to that first European victory.

Forty Five years (and one day) on and around 4000 of our number will be in Prague singing their hearts out for the boys. Whatever the result on Thursday night, wouldn’t it be nice to have a full White Hart Lane singing at top volume in a fortnight as we start our European Campaign. I don’t expect any 10-5 aggregate scores but I do expect passion from Players and Supporters alike. This is Europe, This Is Tottenham Hotspur and we are back where we belong.

As Bill Himself said;

“It's magnificent to be in Europe, and this club - a club like Tottenham Hotspur - if we're not in Europe.... we're nothing. We're nothing”