By Dave P
December 28 2004

Never having played Palace on the 28th December we'll mention a couple of games played near this date before going back in time to some Early matches. Never having played Palace on the 28th December we'll mention a couple of games played near this date before going back in time to some Early matches.

On 27th December 1994 Crystal Palace were our visitors and 27730 turned out to see a not very memorable 0-0 draw. The other game that will get a quick mention here was on 26th December 1969. 32,845 fans saw us win the game at White Hart Lane by the score of 2-0 with our goals coming from Alan Mullery and Steve Perryman. hat match was only the second time we had played Palace in the Football League. The first occasion being in August of the same season when we visited Selhurst park again winning 2-0 in front of just over 39,000 supporters. Our goals on that day came from Jimmy Pearce and Martin Chivers.

The first time we played Crystal Palace in December was on the 2nd December 1907 when a crowd of 2000 saw us defeat them 1-0 in a Western League game with our goal scored by Outside left Herbert Middlemiss.
The first time we ever played crystal Palace at White Hart Lane was earlier (5th October) in the same season when 18,000 saw us lose a Southern leagus match 2-1. Our scorer on that day was a utility forward able to play anywhere on the front line, Harold Stansfield. His record for Spurs was 4 goals in 81 appearances in his four years at Tottenham.

A quick look at a acouple of very early games that took place on 28th December. First of all in 1895 when we played hosts to a team called Freemantle for a friendly. The score on that day was 2-2 with Bob 'Topsy' Clements scoring the first a penalty from centre forward Peter Hunter. Two years later we played hosts in another friendly to a visiting team from Stockton. On that day we were 3-0 winners with agoal from Bob Clements and a brace from William Joyce. William Joyce played for Spurs from May 1897 until May 1899 and scored a remarkable 93 goals in 119 games. In his first season at Totttenham he notched up 36 goals in competetive games and the following season scored a further 35 competetive goals. His tally of 93 goals included four hat-tricks, three fourtimers and one five. A sort of Jermaine Defoe of his day who when he left Spurs was transferred to Thames IronWorks and later on appeared for Portsmouth and Burton United. Born in Scotland around 1870 he played for Greenock Morton and Bolton Wanderers before joining Spurs. Never given the representative honours that his amazing goalscoring prowess deserved he did on one occasion play for the United League against the Thames and Medway League. His only representative appearance and he managed a goal in that game as well. His overall playing career showed a return of over 200 goals in 350 games.

Jermaine, Fredi or Robbie, Thats something for you to aspire to and a few goals today would be very nice!