By Dave P
August 22 2006

Back in 1901 Tottenham Hotspurs started their season in the Southern League with a 3-0 defeat at home to Millwall. Who was to guess that the season would end in glory with Tottenham becoming the first Southern Side to win the FA Cup.

Back in 1901 Tottenham Hotspurs started their season in the Southern League with a 3-0 defeat at home to Millwall. Who was to guess that the season would end in glory with Tottenham becoming the first Southern Side to win the FA Cup. Southampton had become the first southern professional club to challenge the working class northern sides in an FA Cup final the season before but Tottenham were the first southern professional club with a working class background and a widespread support to reach the final.

 

And what support. The first match against Sheffield United (played at Crystal Palace) caused the Spurs supporters to turn out in their thousands and contemporary press reports sized the crowd at 114,815.  This was the very first game in football history to attract a crowd of over 100,000 and it still remains the third highest crowd ever to attend a game of football in England. Only the 1913 and 1923 finals drew higher gates.

 

The crowd on the day was so large that the Spurs side could not get in through the players entrance so our director Ralph Bullock took the team round to the front and the official entrance to the ground. To be greeted by beaurocracy personified as they were told “you can’t come in ‘ere mate – you ain’t got the right tickets”. Well he might not actually have said that but it took some smooth talking by Frank Bullock to persuade the FA officials that it might be in their interest to let one of the participating teams in.

 

Our Opponents that day were of course Sheffield United. The blades at that time were a team of some repute having won the Football League in 1898, the cup in 1899 and beaten Sunderland, Everton, Wolves and Aston Villa en route to the final, . All top First Division sides at the time. Sheffield started the game as favourites and included the 21 stone Bill (Fatty) Foulkes in goal.

 

The game kicked off at 3:30 pm and after only 12 minutes Spurs had gone 1-0 down but none of the Spurs fans were too bothered seeing as The Spurs had managed to do this in each previous round. Sure enough, Sandy Brown equalised 13 minutes later. After half time Brown scored again to send the crowd into delirious celebration.. This was not to last however as only a minute later one of the most contentious goals ever seen in a cup final was scored by Sheffield United. To this day it has never been decided who the scorer was as Bert Lipsham hit a ball Spurs’ keeper Clawley could not hold. William Bennett then hit the ball and forced it off Clawley who was behind the line. Clawley appealed for a goal kick, Bennett appealed for a corner (supported by the linesman)  and the ref gave a goal. Nobody in the ground thought the ball had actually gone in the net and the filmed evidence (First game committed to film apparently) supported that view, the company that filmed it realising the significance and rushing prints out within a week.  Copies of this film still exist and support the view it was not a goal but it stood and the game ended 2-2.

 

The replay a week later was played at Burnden Park, Bolton and a meagre 20,740 fans turned up. One of the main reasons for this was that Bolton’s station was being re-built and the Railway Company did not want thousands of Football supporters invading their station. They refused to offer cheap day returns so no-one went. This low crowd remains the lowest gate for a cup final since the turn of the century as very few Blades or Spurs fans showed up. As a result pie salesmen lost a fortune and had to throw away their uneaten produce and the FA decide to never award a final to Bolton again.

 

 

Once again Spurs fell behind, this time five minutes before the half time interval and had to wait until the 55^th minute for a John Cameron equaliser. Spurs then took control of the game and gained a second through Tom Smith and then Sandy Brown scored the third, and his fifteenth of  that seasons FA cup campaign.

 

The trophy was presented to Spurs by Lord Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird, the President of the FA. Ironically, as captain of Old Etonians in 1882, he himself was the last man to receive the trophy on behalf of a southern side and that was before Tottenham had even been formed (just).