The most memorable Tottenham games of the decade (Part 2 of 2)
Supporting a football club is amazing because it is simultaneously deeply personal and fully collective – we all experienced the same games, yet we experienced them in infinite different ways. Welcome to Part Two of:
The Top 10 most memorable Tottenham games of the 2010’s.
However you experienced the past decade of Tottenham Hotspur, I hope this sparks nostalgia for you. Enjoy the trip down memory (WH) Lane (Part 2)!
6. Spurs 3-0 Manchester Utd, April 10th 2016
“LAMELAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
An iconic piece of commentary I actually didn’t hear live, as I was privileged enough to be at White Hart Lane for what felt like a result for the ages, a generation in waiting: crushing the walking entitlement complex that is Manchester United.
See, Man Utd were shit this season and had been for a while (and now still have been for a while). Spurs are better. Man Utd and their fans have issues – they think they deserve to win because they had a dominant era, and feel the lack of success is undeserved. Yet it isn’t. It is fully deserved and this dismantling by our rampant Spurs team in ten devastating second half minutes felt like a defining moment for us to say “your time at the top is up – go home”. The joy at the first goal, surmounted by absolute ecstasy at the second goal, eclipsed by what can only be described as a stadium-wide orgasm at the third. It was a triple punch knockout, a whirlwind, a blitz. I have never seen the home stewards celebrate like they did at that third goal. It was a long time coming and I was there to see this humbling of the fallen giants, and ones who barely deserve to be called giants of any kind anymore anyway.
As a side note, this was also the clearest moment that I felt like winning the league was on. Most people point to the “Battle of the Bridge” a month later as our downfall, but in fact even had we won that, it was almost certainly too late. The game we gave it away in was the previous game against West Brom that we drew 1-1, a game rife with complacency after a devastating run of form, which lent the Battle of the Bridge false importance. Win the West Brom game and the Chelsea game becomes less defining, they play less like it’s their cup final, we win that and I think we might have won the whole thing.
This was the only vid I could find with the OG commentary and it’s about a second behind – apologies. Just look how excited (and young and innocent) they all were!
7. Man Utd 1-0 Tottenham, December 11th 2016
The irony of course being that this was the same calendar year as the previous game and against the same team, plus the fact that we lost; the inclusion of this game in the list might seem quite confusing. This season contained arguably our greatest performances of the decade – we went unbeaten at home winning 17 of 19, got our highest PL points total of all time, should have won the league, and yet here I am naming a game we lost to an average team. I guess this is where the words “personally memorable” come into play.
I was living in Istanbul, Turkey at the time and December had been quite a hard month; I had split up with a girl I was seeing, the country had entered a tense political period and the weather – the whole reason I moved in the first place – was fucking horrible.
On Saturday night, December 10th, a huge explosion occurred outside the Besiktas stadium, killing over 40 people nearby. A terrorist attack, targeting mostly police, by the Kurdish separatist militia. I lived in the neighbourhood and the attack shook me; had this occurred just an hour earlier, the area was full of football fans and local residents, myself included. At the time of the explosion I was in a different part of the city celebrating a friend’s birthday, a celebration that abruptly came to a halt as news of the attack came in. We went home, half drunk and half dazed that something like this could happen so close to our home, outside of the city centre, in an area that had previously felt so safe.
Sunday was meant to be a busy day of work with a large-scale sports tournament taking place at one of the community centres I worked at along with the annual board members’ dinner. This was all cancelled due to security fears, as was everything else that day. Weeks and weeks of preparation down the drain. Spurs were playing Man Utd later – at least I’d have something to do. I dragged myself to a local pub to watch the most lacklustre performance of the season and a 1-0 loss, sitting entirely alone as people were scared to go out, while checking my phone for any security news or a message from my recent former flame. The rain poured outside. The rain poured during the game on TV. The rain poured in my brain. At least we weren’t worried about bombs going off outside White Hart Lane. A terrible weekend, a terrible match and just when I needed something to lift me up, Spurs didn’t come through. Not their fault of course – but a memorable matchday nonetheless. It can’t be entirely good – it is Spurs after all.
8. Spurs 5-4 Leicester, May 13th 2018
The 2017-18 season was a weird one. In theory, we should have pushed on from the disappointment of 2016-17 and the fact that our points total would have won the league in most of the previous seasons. We should have consolidated, added a couple of quality players and had a real run at it for 2017-18. Instead, we sold Kyle Walker and sort of used the move to Wembley as an excuse to coast a bit, with topsy-turvy results and an attitude of disappointment that never really said “we believe we are title contenders this year”. Playing at Wembley was probably a major factor in this, although (unpopular opinion incoming) I quite liked Wembley, as it was always easy to get a ticket and when full, it was rocking. Ultimately, we had a great season that was perceived as “indifferent” or “average” despite coming third in the league, simply because the expectation bred by the previous two seasons had exceeded what we could realistically achieve.
I highlight this game because it was the last game of the season and I remember it for its absolute chaos and slew of wonder goals. I was in Japan on a very unusual family holiday, the game had no real significance as we had secured Champions League football and it was at 1am Tokyo time. I stayed up with my dad and sister, yet after a sloppy first half which saw us losing 2-1, my sister went to bed. Leicester even scored a screamer immediately after the restart, seemingly justifying her decision.
Cue the fun. I didn’t mention earlier that her favourite player is Erik Lamela; the reasons why are complex and nuanced and don’t merit discussion here. Yet suddenly Erik turned up with what was essentially a smash and grab hattrick, scoring 3 goals in 11 minutes.
The first time, in it goes – BAM! “Your boy has just scored!”, I shout upstairs. She came down, she saw the replay and then waited a minute or two before going back up. Two minutes later – BAMBAM. “He scored again!” Down she comes in disbelief, sees the replay, can’t believe she missed the second goal by only a minute. Waits a couple more, the game gets tame, she goes back up. Erik isn’t finished toying with her heart however, as BAMBAMBAM – the triple is complete as I scream and shout, she comes running back down this time in tears that she has missed a hattrick from the love of her life, and stays for the rest of a game that had no significance, although she did get to see a beautiful winner from Kane. An appropriately odd game to finish an odd season, one that nobody really talks about in the midst of the highs and lows of Poch’s reign. And Lamela’s second was later given as an own goal – daylight robbery.
This must have been so much fun to watch in the stadium on a sunny May afternoon with no consequences, Wembley or not.
9. Ajax 2-3 Tottenham, May 8th 2019 (Tottenham win on 3-3 away goals aggregate)
Cliched as it might seem, the final game in the list is of course the iconic semi-final second leg vs Ajax, the game that in some ways was the jewel in the crown of Pochettino’s Spurs and yet should have been the final, not the semi. Not much more needs to be said about the game itself and we all have our stories of where we experienced this game and this extraordinary moment in Spurs history, so I’ll keep it brief: I was on a plane about to take off to South Korea of all places, watching on my phone.
We were meant to take off on what would have been around 70 minutes but the plane got delayed on the runway, I tweeted #bbcfootball live text with my situation and got it printed (lifegoals), and then my video cut out on 94 mins as we sped down the runway…
Luckily, the audio kept going. As we fully left the ground, I decided I should probably put my phone on Airplane mode at this point, resigned to the loss. And yet, I broke the rules, meaning I got to hear those now legendary words. “Sissoko…Here’s Deli Alli…Here’s Lucas Moura…OOHHHHHHHH THEY’VE DONE IT!!!!!!! I CAAAAN NOTT BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!” and the audio cut out.
I quickly shifted the phone to Airplane mode, shaking. I was zooming through the sky for the next 14 hours yet safe in the knowledge of what had happened. I was pure adrenaline flowing, I may as well have been flying the plane (it is good, however, that I wasn’t). It’s safe to say I couldn’t sleep. The thought that taking off just a minute earlier would have meant I didn’t know what had happened until we landed haunted me. I will always wonder if the reason we got delayed on the tarmac is that the Korean pilot was a Son-induced Spurs fan and wanted to watch the rest of the game. I’d like to think so.
If you don’t have this saved in your favourites to watch every time you’re feeling down, then you’re not a real fan. I still well up slightly every time.
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Well, because I missed out 2013-2014, we get to number 10 and are finished, so I’ll indulge in a game from the 2019-20 season given half of it was in the correct decade. A surreal season and one that we have a whole TV show to document so that it will (somewhat unnecessarily) live long in the memory. What a shame that it wasn’t 11-12, 15-16, 16-17 or 18-19, seasons that contained the most epic of narratives, even if none quite ended in the perfect way.
So, 10. Leicester 2-1 Tottenham, September 21st 2019
Ending the list with a loss? Typical Spurs fan. Most people would say that our most bitter foes are Arsenal, and of course historically I agree. Some would say that the team who always seems to fuck us over and the one that provides us the most pleasure in defeating are Chelsea. Personally, I love beating Man Utd. Yet in some ways, Leicester have been our real arch-nemesis of the decade. This game was also our first experience being screwed over by VAR after having lauded it so dearly against Man City in the CL just 6 months earlier. It contained that excellent Kane goal where he was falling over yet still managed to score, and a fairly in control performance capped off by Aurier’s 61st minute strike…that was chalked off due to a now familiar “armpit offside” from Son in the build up. This knocked our momentum and gave Leicester belief and they pushed on to take the 2-1 win. I still think had that goal not been ruled out, we win the game, the team goes on an upward trajectory and Poch might still be around. Maybe it’s wishful thinking. It felt defining at the time, a sad, frustrating moment and one that saw us lose something we should have won, a microcosm of how we had finished earlier seasons and our cup runs under Poch.
I suggest you stop watching at 1:10 which is where the highlights should actually have ended.
The incredibly bitter moment of Pochettino’s sacking may still in hindsight prove to be a masterstroke as at the time of writing we are having an…eventful…20-21 season that leaves us with realistic chances of winning a trophy, despite our inconsistent league form. Yet if we do, it will be tinged with some regret – the fact that Pochettino wasn’t the one to do it, the fact that fan-favourite players of the decade like Jan Vertonghen and Moussa Dembele won’t receive a medal, the fact that the dream of playing beautiful football while also winning things wasn’t quite attainable, and the fact it will probably happen without fans there to witness it. Yet here we are.
Onwards and upwards – I just hope that in ten years’ time I have a list about Spurs in the 20’s that is as epic to write about as this past decade was…
COYS