When the Year Ends in One

When the Year Ends in One

How Tottenham Hotspur’s 1991 FA Cup win saved the club and transformed English football

By Ewan Flynn (Pitch Publishing)

A cup final in which the result would resonate far beyond just the winning of a trophy; a squad hit by significant injuries; a backdrop of boardroom turmoil and fan discontent. Sound familiar? 

I read this pacey account of the events of 34 years ago (it really is that long) in the run-up to the this spring’s Europa League Final in Bilbao, and that made the similarities between the two periods resonate even more. And I’ll confess I did allow myself to think this was a sign that the outcome, of the final at least, might be the same. 

For those that don’t remember, the 1991 FA Cup Final came amid rumours that Spurs could go out of business after a run of poor business decisions, with the sale of superstar Paul Gascoigne looking to be the only way of keeping the banks happy, and with manager Terry Venables engaged in a lengthy boardroom conflict with then chairman Irving Scholar.

Flynn tells the tale with verve, providing the context of Gascoigne’s rise to global stardom and a game on the verge of change after England’s run at Italia 90 had ushered in a whole new ball game. THFC were pioneers of the new order, but were also flailing, with diversifications into the clothing and ticketing systems sectors proving costly. 

Robert Maxwell, remember him?, was heavily rumoured to be set to buy in – something that alarmed fans already fuming over Scholar’s decision to build executive boxes on The Shelf terrace. Flynn notably includes the story of fan organisation against Scholar and for the club to be run sustainably as a football club first and foremost alongside accounts of each game in the cup run, speaking to some of the key protagonists in the Tottenham Independent Supporters Association (TISA) as well as players such as Paul Stewart – thoughtful and considered as always – and figures such as Jonathan Pearce.

I’ve read some online criticism of the inclusion of the boardroom politics here, but that misses the point of the book. This is a tale of a time that changed the game, when a sport was changing into a sporting business, and what happens off-field is key. There’s plenty, though, for those who just want to relive the on-field events. Flynn peppers the accounts of matches with adjectives in a style that evokes the press reports of the time, which were written to describe a game few had witnessed, rather than as analysis of what a TV audience had seen.

Gazza, obviously, looms large, and is the source of a host of stories. There’s also the infamous nightclub brawl before the Portsmouth game, a cast of characters that would be rejected as unrealistic in a work of fiction, the tale of Chas n Dave’s “other” Cup Final song that the club distanced itself from, that semi-final at Wembley against Arsenal, and much more. 

The names and incidents mentioned certainly brought back memories, Stumps and Martex the clothing companies, ticketing firm Synchro Systems, boxing promoter Frank Warren, mysterious businessman Larry Gillick, David Buchler and Mel Stein, Jeff Randall’s coverage in The Sunday Times, Annelise Jespersen standing on tables in The Railway Pub on White Hart Lane to get fans’ attention as TISA organised.

Turmoil and triumph rarely seem far away from Spurs, and there’s a distinct feeling that while much has changed in football and at the club, much has stayed the same. Whether the cup win itself, as the book’s title asserts, changed English football or whether it was part of what contributed to that change is arguable though. 

Yes, the now infamous meeting at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel from which Alan Sugar phoned Sky TV to tell them to blow the BBC bid for TV rights out of the water occurred after the final. And the cup run was played out in the context of a game that was recovering from being “a slum game watched by slum people” (as The Times infamously described it) into a modern entertainment phenomenon. But what this book really describes is the end of the chapter that preceeded the new era.

It’s Jonathan Pearce whose observation most neatly positions this book. “It’s almost as if that Tottenham–Arsenal semi-final and the final against Forest in the old Wembley were two of the last great occasions in the UK phenomenon that was the FA Cup.” 

Martin Cloake