England's great entertainers: United and Spurs

For this fixture, it’s very much a case of where you’re at, not where you’re from. United’s fourth-most played opponents – Sunday marks the 201st meeting since our first dance in 1899 – Spurs’ fabled motto audere est facere (‘to dare is to do’) has long struck a sympathetic chord in M16. 

 

When Danny Blanchflower, skipper of Spurs’ 1961 Double winners, and older brother of United’s Jackie, spoke so eloquently of the ‘glory game’ the words could equally have come from Matt Busby’s lips.

 

“It’s about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot – not waiting for them to die of boredom,” said Blanchflower.

The personnel and the times have changed, but the song remains the same: two teams wedded to the notion of football as entertainment, with fan bases that demand it. 

 

Blanchflower’s words carry strong echoes in Bobby Charlton’s ‘Theatre of Dreams’ observation. Sir Bobby may have left us, but his 15 goals in this fixture – a record shared with Denis Law – sum up that frisson whenever United meet Spurs. 

 

There are so many memorable affairs on all fronts, served up in black and white or colour.

 

That elusive champions code finally cracked in 1952, Matt Busby’s Babes set about redrawing the map – and how they enjoyed bringing their own dazzling crown jewels to the capital. The feeling was mutual: 57,724 crammed into White Hart Lane in November 1956 to see Eddie Colman grab a late equaliser for Busby’s boys, champions in 1955/56, in a 2-2 draw. 

 

At Old Trafford in April 1957, 60,349 watched a 0-0 stalemate, the Reds retaining the title 11 points clear of a Spurs side now managed by Jimmy Anderson. Games between the clubs had become appointment viewing, and if Munich was the hardest of stops for United’s juggernaut, Spurs advanced into the gap they had left to fly the flag for English domestic excellence as football’s floodlit age dawned.

 

While United slowly and patiently rebuilt, Bill Nicholson’s Spurs became the first Double winners of the century in 1960/61 (though United beat them 2-0 at Old Trafford). The scrap wasn’t just for league points, either. In 1961/62, Spurs, en route to retaining the FA Cup, put the Reds to the sword 3-1 in a semi-final played in blizzard-like conditions at Hillsborough. 

Two seasons later, cup revenge was served on the European stage, when the Reds saw off Nicholson’s European Cup Winners’ Cup pioneers – they were the first British winners of a European trophy when they won the competition the previous season.

 

A 2-0 defeat in the second-round first-leg at White Hart Lane was overturned a week later on a dramatic December night at Old Trafford. United mirrored their 4-1 league success (featuring a Denis Law hat-trick) a month earlier, thanks to two goals apiece from David Herd and Bobby Charlton.  Nights like these under the lights, as the Reds inched slowly towards that long-awaited continental glory of 1968, were proof positive that Busby’s dream could yet be realised.

 

Danny Blanchflower’s ‘glory game’ comments were made flesh by United’s title-winning sides of 1964/65 and, particularly, 1966/67. Fittingly, given the high-water mark approaching for United in May 1968 at Wembley, 1967/68’s Charity Shield curtain raiser was a coruscating 3-3 draw with, guess who? Spurs’ FA Cup winners raced into an early 2-0 lead at Old Trafford – including one that came courtesy of goalkeeper Pat Jennings’ ludicrously wind-assisted kick – on an afternoon notable for Bobby Charlton’s glorious rising drive and the iconic jumping, finger-snapping celebration that followed his second goal, leaving the scores 2-2 after a breathless opening 20 minutes.

 

Speaking of glorious goals, they don’t come much better than George Best’s audacious lob at Old Trafford during United’s 2-1 win in February 1971. The goal is all the better considering the panic in the Spurs box that precedes the calmest, most outrageous of finishes. To dare is to do. If you wanted one moment that characterised the off-the-cuff expressionism that has brought that sense of glory to these games, it’s hard to beat...

 

More recently came Wembley glory in 2009 – Ben Foster, take a bow – with United’s defeat of the League Cup holders, 4-1 on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes. Foster’s pre-shoot-out, iPod-cramming penalty homework took up a few column inches, but victory should ultimately have been no surprise given Sir Alex Ferguson’s vice-like grip on this fixture.  In 61 games against Spurs, Ferguson lost just nine – a win ratio of 62.3 per cent.

 

Whatever the actual date of the Scot’s ‘Lads, it’s Tottenham’ pre-match team-talk tale, the Reds seemed almost impregnable against the Londoners on Ferguson’s watch. 

 

Exhibit A is the nerve-jangling return from a goal down, firstly through Beckham bending it like himself and then through Andrew Cole’s sublime cushion and exquisite finish to tee up the first leg of the Treble on the final day of the 1998/99 Premier League season, a fifth crown in seven seasons.

 

Exhibit B? The sensational 5-3 victory after trailing 3-0 at the break in September of 2001/02, when goals from Cole (46), Laurent Blanc (58), Ruud van Nistelrooy (72), Juan Veron (76) and finally Beckham (87) completed an astonishing recovery at White Hart Lane.

The most-recent high stakes encounter also went our way, with an FA Cup semi-final victory in 2018 over Spurs at their temporary ‘home’ of Wembley. 

 

Trailing to Dele Alli’s 10th-minute opener, Alexis Sanchez levelled, before unlikely hero Ander Herrera sent the Reds through to a record-equalling 20th FA Cup final and condemned Spurs to an eighth consecutive semi-final defeat.

 

There’s a new face in town in Ange Postecoglou, but history is very much on our side: We have won the last two at Old Trafford – you may remember Cristiano Ronaldo’s hat-trick in March 2022 – and 66 of the 100 home meetings before this weekend...