ON THIS DAY

Tottenham Hotspur played their 1993rd and last League match at their old White Hart Lane ground, their home since 1899. Spurs were moving to Wembley for the 2017/18 season to allow their old ground to be demolished and their new ground to be completed. They marked the occasion with a 2-1 victory over Manchester United to equal a club record of 14 consecutive home League wins. But it was perhaps their last two away matches of the season that made more headlines. On May 18th Harry Kane scored 4 in the 6-1 win at reigning champions Leicester and three days after that Kane scored three more in their 7-1 victory at Hull, their record away League win. Those goals saw Kane win the Golden Boot award for the top Premier League goalscorer for the second season in a row while the points won saw Spurs finish second, their best League finish since 1963 and perhaps more importantly for the first time since 1994/95 they finished the season higher in the League than north London rivals Arsenal.

Two front page stories in the Sunday newspapers ended any doubt – if there had ever been any doubt that is – that footballers just earn far too much money! According to The Sun when Coleen and the kids were away for a few days Wayne Rooney made a late night visit to a Manchester casino and proceeded to lose £500,000 in a couple of hours playing roulette and blackjack. But hey, his earnings were £300k a week! His former teammate David Beckham was a tad more sensible with his cash although the anniversary present The Star said he was buying for his missus, Victoria, did seem a tad over the top – a £7 million Caribbean island.

Just 11 years previously Wimbledon had been a non-league side but on this day in 1988 they caused a major shock by beating Liverpool in the FA Cup final, Lawrie Sanchez scoring the only goal of the match to deny the Merseysiders a League and FA Cup double. Wimbledon's skipper Dave Beasant became the first goalkeeper to save an FA Cup final penalty at Wembley (against John Aldridge).

Saturday 14th May 1983 was the day that Raddy Antic got a page to himself in the Luton Town history book. It was the last match of the season and Manchester City were playing Luton in a First Division match at Maine Road, The mathematics were straightforward enough. The winning team would stay in the top flight, the losing team would be relegated with a draw seeing City up and Town down. And it looked as if it was heading for a draw when Antic came on as a sub in the last half an hour but with four minutes remaining he scored the only goal of the match with a shot from the edge of the box. The Hatters stayed up and Raddy Antic became the hero of the day although Luton manager David Pleat did get a headline or two for himself with his celebration jig when the final whistle was blown. Luton were the Serbian's only club in England and after leaving Kenilworth Road he turned to management. Most of his managerial career was spent in Spain and the clubs he managed there included Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Not bad!

In their 68th competitive match of the season (they would play a record 70) Arsenal met Valencia in the first European final to be decided on penalties. Liam Brady and Graham Rix missed their kicks with Valencia winning the penalty shoot-out 5-4 at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium to take the European Cup Winners Cup.

The date of a shameful low-point in the history of English football. In May 1938 England had a short end-of-season tour of the European mainland starting with a match in Germany followed by fixtures in Switzerland and France. Europe was in turmoil at the time with Hitler’s Germany having just annexed Austria and although the Second World War was only a year away the British Government was attempting to avoid confromtation with Germany with a policy of appeasement. With that in mind the British Ambassador to Germany, Neville Henderson, ordered the FA to instruct the England players to give the Nazi salute prior to the match in Germany. The players strongly objected but were told that failure to comply with the order might damage the relationship between Britain and Germany and might also see the offending players missing from future England internationals. So on May 14th 1938 – in front of 110,000 spectators at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin - all 11 England players joined the German players and gave the Nazi salute during the German national anthem. England won the match 6-3 but it is what happened before the match that history best remembers.

I was asked a while ago if it was right that players started exchanging shirts after a match so that they could sell them on ebay to earn a few extra pounds. I'm sure a few do but the practice started before the days of the computer, back in May 1931 after a France v England international in Paris. It was the seventh time the countries had met and England had won all the previous six, usually by a big margin. But on 14th May 1931 things were different and France recorded - for them anyway - an historic 5-2 victory. So pleased were the French that they asked if they could have the England shirts to keep to commemorate the win, their request was granted and a tradition was started.