By Dave P
February 1 2005

Another of those days when we have not played our opponents on this day before so lets see what the records have to show for February 1st. The first match Spurs played on February 1st was way back in 1890 Another of those days when we have not played our opponents on this day before so lets see what the records have to show for February 1st. The first match Spurs played on February 1st was way back in 1890 when we played a home friendly against a team called 'Robin Hood' winning 1-0. There is no record of who scored the goal on that day.

Lets move on and try and find the first time we played a Lancashire side on February 1st. We don't have to go that far forwards, To 1899 in fact when we travelled to Manchester to play 'Newton Heath' away in an FA Cup 1st round replay. We had drawn the first game at home 1-1 with a goal from William Joyce, a player who scored 93 goals in 119 appearances for Spurs. We then travelled to Newton Heath (who later became Manchester United) on the first of February and won an eventful game by the score of 5-3. Our scorers on that day were c.McKay (of whom I know very little), a brace from Bill Joyce,J.McNaught (of whom I know even less) and T.Smith. Tom Smith was an Outside right with a tweaked curly moustache who played for Preston North End before joining Spurs in May 1898. In four years at Tottenham he won a Southern League championship and an F.A. Cup winners medal while scoring 41 goals in 181 games. He also played in an England XI in a game to boost players union funds. In 1904 he returned to Preston and also went on to play for Carlisle and Maryport Tradesmen. He died in April 1937.

Moving on to another away match on February 1st 1919 and a wartime London Combination match against the other lot from down the road. We won the match 3-2 with goals from Bennett, Billy Minter and Jack. At this time the rivalry between us and the goons had not really started but that was all to change the season after.

Spurs had finished bottom of division 1 in the 1914/15 season and because of the war normal football was sure to be suspended. Some results at the end of that season were dubious, in particular a match between Man U and Liverpool on April 2nd 1915. After a long libel case this was determined to have been fixed by some of the players and the significance of this was that Man U got away with it and ended the season with 30 points, Chelsea with 29 and Spurs with 28. Even if United had been deducted the two points we would still have been bottom on goal average but the League decided that the bottom two clubs would be re-elected after the war.

In 1919 however it was decided that Division 1 would be increased to 22 clubs and you would have expected Spurs and Chelsea to have automatically stayed up. Somehow this did not happen and whilst Chelsea were re-elected using the argument that they would have finished above Man U had the points been deducted,the other place was up for grabs by a management committee vote. It was suggested (with the aid of a certain Henry Norris and his money) that Arsenal should be rewarded as they had been league members longer than Tottenham even though they had only finished 6th in division 2. Wolves and Birmingham who had finished above Arsenal had also been in the league longer and were equally aggrieved by this suggestion as well. The League Management committee though seemed to have some reason (never explained to anyones satisfaction) for replacing Spurs with Arsenal and the voting was Arsenal 18, Spurs 8, Barnsley 5, Wolves 4, Forest 3, Birmingham 2 and Hull 1. Thus the pikey scum bribed their way into the top flight and have remained ever since.

Anyway, moving on to a final game played north of Watford on February 1st 1936 when we travelled to Port Vale for a second division match. We had won the home game 5-2 in September with 2 goals from L.Howe and a hat-trick from J.A.Morrison. The away match at Port Vale was attended by just over 10,000 supporters who saw us win the game 5-1. The goals on this occasion coming from F.A.Sargent, W.Evans and another hat-trick from J.A.Morrison.

Centre forward John Alfred Morrison scored 132 goals for Spurs in 189 games. 90 in 134 league matches, 25 in the wartime leagues and 14 in 21 FA cup matches. Signed as an amateur in 1931 and after a spell with the nursery club Northfleet he turned Pro in 1933 and remained at White Hart Lane until he retired in 1946 having guested for Millwall during the war. He died in South Devon in September 1984

A hat trick from one of our strikers tonight would be nice.