Part 1 of a heartwarming reminder of the 90s and why we love Spurs
- Gareth Dace
- Mar 12
- 6 min read
Takeover, Trophy and Survival
When I was asked to write a new article for this brilliant platform I considered several options about my current take on this absolute mess that is 2026, what might happen for the rest of the season or to share with you all my several anxieties of a dystopic rest of the season/year/decade/lifetime.
In the end I decided that I’d try and make myself and you, the reader, feel good about supporting Spurs specifically through the prism of my formative years in the 90s. There is therefore no deeper hidden meanings or reflections contained within this piece beyond simply remembering some of my golden moments on this rollercoaster journey that we all unwittingly embarked on when we discovered Spurs for the first time.
To break this up and make it more digestible – and with Editor Andrew’s encouragement - I’ve split this article up into three parts. They'll appear weekly, on Wednesdays.
You can read about all these players, matches and events in my books and all have been covered in some detail on my Spurs nostalgia podcast series ‘Is Gascoigne Going To Have a Crack?’ - https://podfollow.com/is-gascoigne-going-to-have-a-crack-the-spurs-nostalgia-podcast
11. A Spoonful of Sugar
Full transparency here – I really wasn’t old enough (10 years) to appreciate the magnitude of our financial crisis in 1990/91 and how close we came to bankruptcy but I’ve since read and learned a lot about it – read Ewan Flynn’s excellent book ‘When the Year Ends in One’ and/or listen to my podcast episode with him about that season.
Reading the front and back pages of tabloid newspapers was a dangerous thing for a primary school aged child around this time. Was Saddam Hussein going to bomb London? Were Spurs going out of business? The headlines and playground speculation suggested both were certainties. Neither happened but as Spring 1991 came around Spurs’ existential crisis loomed.
One of the more likely outcomes appeared to be that Robert Maxwell (now the second most notorious member of the Maxwell family) would buy a controlling stake in the club. Being the biggest media personality of the time Maxwell ensured there was plenty of positive PR about his possible buy-out of the club promising that Gascoigne would remain a Spurs player.
However, at the eleventh-hour Alan Sugar, in partnership with Terry Venables (that must work out well right?) presented previous incumbent Irving Scholar with a banker’s draft and a compelling case to sell to him instead.
While Alan Sugar’s tenure as Spurs chairman did not work out well nobody can deny that Maxwell buying the club wouldn’t have been anything but an unmitigated disaster. For a few months (probably weeks is more accurate knowing what we know now) the double act of Sugar and Venables as custodians of the club in the immediate euphoria of winning the FA Cup appeared to set Spurs up for a glorious 90s.
10. 1999 League Cup Final
Winning a Cup Final can be a truly euphoric occasion where the standard of football matches the occasion and memories that live on. 1981 and ‘its still Ricky Villa’ is the ultimate example…but even for Spurs is an outlier.
In 1999 we’d gone a whole eight years without a trophy or Wembley success and with the lot down the road having won the double in 1998 there was a real sense of desperation which is encapsulated by the appointment of George Graham as manager. By the late 90s the League Cup had become maligned. The new and developing Champions League put the focus firmly on league finishes for the best clubs who’d started fielding their reserves or youth team players in England’s secondary cup competition. Even the sponsor – Worthington’s lent itself to nickname the competition the ‘Worthless Cup’. For midtable team like Spurs, and our opponents in the final, Leicester City it created a vacuum that Martin O’Neill’s team used to their advantage to win it in 1997 and then again in 2000.
Having beaten an out of sorts Liverpool at Anfield, a semi-reserve Manchester United side and then finally putting aside Wimbledon after 180 minutes of non-football we arrived at Wembley in March 1999 confident Ginola (more on him to come) could guide us to our 3rd League Cup success.
The game itself was turgid. Both teams set up not to lose. Leicester had marginally the better of the match until, perversely, Spurs were reduced to 10 men with Justin Edinburgh sent off for flicking Robbie Savage’s hair (look it up – it really was that soft). Spurs rallied, rolled up their sleeves determined to right this injustice and managed to score, via Allan Nielsen, in the final minute causing ‘limbs’ all around us.
Whether it was the relief of ‘finally’ winning a trophy, the prospect of return to European football or simply just that we’d avoided another 30 minutes of extra-time non-football the joy and jubilation leaving Wembley and going to school the next day were euphoric.
9. Staying Up
For a majority of the 90s we were simply mediocre. We finished between 7th and 14th in seven of the ten years of the decade with just pipe dreams of qualifying for European football. Invariably seasons were defined by cup runs and when those avenues were shut off the remainder of those campaigns descended into malaise.
Therefore, the two relegation scares in 94 and 98 generated some ‘excitement’. On both occasions we were perilously close to the drop. In 94 we lost seven consecutive games between January and late February only recording our first calendar year win at the end of March. Fortunately, we’d started the season well so had points in the bank and never dropped into the relegation zone though on a few occasions we were one defeat away from doing so.
Four years later we fell below the dreaded dotted line as early as December with Christian Gross’ appointment not helping. We remained in the bottom three until February when we unexpectedly and fortuitously won 3-0 at Blackburn. We hovered just above the drop zone for the rest of the season – most precariously we travelled to Barnsley in mid-April and fell a goal behind meaning we were temporarily in the bottom three. Calderwood scrambled an equaliser and we even coped with 10-men after Vega was sent off with over half an hour remaining.
Both seasons are remembered for the victories at Oldham and Wimbledon respectively and they both provided mathematical certainty that we’d stay up. In the case of the former at Oldham’s expense meaning, it was akin to a cup final. The sheer relief of staying up having feared that relegation was a certainty fired up the sort of dopamine hit that should only be reserved for cup final wins.
Cult heroes come in many shapes and sizes but Ronny Rosenthal is the ultimate 90s cult hero. Signed as an emergency striker to try and alleviate our goalscoring problems and crippling injury situation in 1994 Rosenthal was most famous for a miss from close range while playing for Liverpool at Aston Villa in 1992. He scored on his Spurs debut but made very little impact and was well out the picture when Klinsmann and Dumitrescu signed in summer 1994.
However, Gerry Francis liked him – specifically his work rate and capability to play as a left winger. Rosenthal was a sub as we travelled to Southampton for an FA Cup replay in March 1995 but was called upon before the half-time whistle as a ‘Hail Mary’ having fallen 2-0 behind.
Rosenthal was erratic but its hard to recall a better hat-trick scored by any Spurs player since – Bale at the San Siro is close and Lucas Moura’s in Amsterdam come to mind. The first an instinctive half volley at the front post; the second a piledriver having cut in from the right and then the third an audacious swerving rocket from long range in extra-time that put us on our way to an emphatic 6-2 victory.
IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THIS ARTICLE I’LL BRING YOU JOY THROUGH THE MEMORIES OF A WHITE HART LANE GOALFEST, VICTORIES AT ANFIELD AND THE JOY OF GAZZA AT WEMBLEY!
Gareth Dace is the author of "Hot Shot Tottenham" and "Is Gascoigne Going To Have a Crack?"
