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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...s-double-60-years-conquering-soccers-everest/
Tottenham's Double 60 years on: conquering 'soccer's Everest'
Spurs made the 'impossible' possible in 1961 and White Hart Lane's immortals became the first team to win Cup and league in the 20th century
By Rob Bagchi 6 May 2021 • 8:00am
Mission accomplished: Matchwinner Bobby Smith and captain Danny Blanchflower parade the Cup around Wembley Credit: Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images
The road to Tottenham’s 1961 Double, the diamond anniversary of which supporters commemorate today, May 6, began in the Soviet Union. It had its roots in other places, too: Bill Nicholson’s native Scarborough, where the manager inhaled a terse style of Yorkshire stoicism with his mother’s milk; in Musselburgh, birthplace of Dave Mackay and John White, Nicholson’s two most audacious transfer coups, and on the streets of Cheshunt near Tottenham’s training ground where the players undertook ‘Bill’s Road Run’, essentially a brisk five-mile walk followed by a one-mile dash devised by their manager as their regular conditioning routine.
But it was in Moscow, during a post-season tour in 1959, where individuals forged a bond that would turn them into a team, transforming them from a side that finished 18th in 1958-59, the season Nicholson took over, to one that would miss out on the title by only two points in 1960.
They went to the circus, too many times for even the most diplomatic members of the squad, saw Rudolph Nureyev dance at the Bolshoi, visited the Kremlin, queued to see the embalmed bodies of Lenin and Stalin in the Red Square mausoleum, and played three friendlies in front of packed stadiums in the capital, Kiev and Leningrad. “It was neither an education nor an adventure,” Mackay wrote. “[But] I shall always believe we laid the foundation of the team spirit and genuine friendship which has since played a notable part in the success of Tottenham Hotspur.”
Because the League and Cup Double has been won nine times in the past 60 years, it has been forgotten that for most of the last century it was often called “the impossible Double”. Aston Villa were the second team to have achieved it in 1896-97, finishing top after a 30-match First Division campaign and winning the FA Cup, which had only four ‘proper’ rounds before the final.
Yet teams were edging closer to the impossible towards the end of the Fifties. The Busby Babes won the title in 1957 and were only denied the FA Cup in the final, coincidentally by Villa, in large part by virtue of Peter McParland bulldozing the United goalkeeper Ray Wood after six minutes and shattering his cheekbone. In an era before substitutes, let alone substitute goalkeepers, 10-man Manchester United, with centre-half Jackie Blanchflower in goal, were defeated 2-1.
In 1960 Wolves had led the league on Saturday night after completing 42 games only to be pipped by Burnley on the Monday, winning their game in hand to take the title by a point. Wolves had the consolation of winning the Cup five days later but their manager, Stan Cullis, refused to congratulate Burnley for ruining his dream. “I am disappointed and do not wish to make any comment,” he said.
Those near misses persuaded Jackie Blanchflower’s elder bother, Danny, the captain of Tottenham, that far from being inconceivable, the Double was possible and that Spurs were just the team to prove it. Danny was 34 in the summer of 1960 and remains one of the most influential British players in the long history of our national game. The right-half was elegant, erudite, radical, waspish, astute and the author of pithiest of homilies, one of which, “the game is about glory”, has become part of his club’s branding.
Blanchflower came to believe it could be done on his return from the USSR, saying there should be no bashfulness about it. The Double had to be an explicit goal to which the whole club must subscribe. “It couldn’t be done with a weak heart and the team which might do it would have to really believe it could do it,” he said. First, the “impossible” prefix had to be banished. Nicholson, usually so hard-boiled it was said he laboured under the belief that “smiling takes up precious time”, surprised his captain by agreeing: “I think it can be done too.”
The captain was a season premature with his announcement when, after beating Newport County in the third round of the FA Cup in January 1960 with Spurs at the top of the league, he told the press that the Double was on. They were still in first place when they demolished Crew Alexandra 13-2 in a fourth-round replay but the balance of the team, particularly at inside-right, and the fact that White was still serving his final year of National Service in Berwick-upon-Tweed, making a couple of games unreachable after a full day’s duty, undermined their progress. Blackburn Rovers beat them in the fifth round and mid-April home defeats by Manchester City and Chelsea, who would finish 16th and 18th respectively, ruined their title bid. Had they won either of those games, they would have won the league championship on goal average instead of missing out by two points.
Fred Bearman, the Tottenham chairman, had joined the board in 1909 and must have heard it all during his 51 years’ service. But instead of taking an unsentimental tone when his romantic captain told him on the eve of the 1960-61 season, “We’ll win the Double for you”, he replied: “All right, my boy. I believe you will.”
“We started – as Robb Wilton used to say – like a house on fire,” wrote Blanchflower in his autobiography, quoting the late, droll star of music hall, radio and film. It was like a palace on fire, in truth, as they won their first 11 games, a record that still stands, putting six past Aston Villa, four past Manchester United at the Lane and hammering Wolves, champions in 1958, 1959 and runners-up in 1960, 4-0 at Molineux.
With the barnstorming, buccaneering and deceptively skilful Bobby Smith at centre-forward, the far more mobile and elusive White replacing Tommy Harmer at inside-right, and the prolific, tireless grafter Les Allen at inside-left, plus the dynamic Terry Dyson, also a son of Scarborough, on the left wing, the blisteringly quick and mesmerisingly skilful Cliff Jones on the right, Spurs simply overwhelmed opponents. In 42 games they were scoreless in just two, scored more than one goal in 32 matches and ended the season with 115, a post-war top-flight record.
For all the verve of their forward line the half-backs were the chief ‘glory’ of Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur. With the creative prompting of the fulcrum Blanchflower at right-half, Maurice Norman in the centre, with his heading prowess at both ends, his uncanny gift for interceptions and forays up front when all four limbs would seem to work independently of one another, like an octopus on speed, and the imperious Mackay, one of the ten greatest British footballers, in the No6 shirt, Spurs were irrepressible. Mackay’s talent is too often demeaned by overplaying the fierceness of his competitive zeal and physical aggression. He was a fine passer, long and short, had a thumping left-foot shot, which hammered in a 35-yard screamer at Goodison in December, and a mastery of the ball the equal of any fancy Dan.
Frank McLintock, who would become the century’s second Double-winning captain with Arsenal in 1971, recalled how Mackay, Scotland's injured captain, used the sureness of his touch and his indomitable, gallus spirit before a match against Spain at the Bernabéu in 1963 when Francisco Gento, Alfredo Di Stefano and Luis Del Sol tried to intimidate the Scots in the warm-up with their skill and swagger. “We all knew Dave Mackay’s party-piece,” said McLintock “and Jim Baxter decided now was the right time to unveil it. Jim called over and shouted, ‘Hey Marquis, see if you can catch this!’”
With that he tossed a coin 20ft in the air and Mackay “thrust out his right leg, bent at the knee, and caught the coin on his toe. He stood there for a second then flipped it back up in the air, caught it on his forehead, knocked it back up and caught it in his left eye socket then rolled it down his shoulder into his open blazer pocket and waltzed off back to the dressing room to thunderous applause.” Scotland won the match 6-2, a victory most of the players put down to Mackay’s capability to fight Spain’s psychological warfare in kind.
Part II below
Tottenham's Double 60 years on: conquering 'soccer's Everest'
Spurs made the 'impossible' possible in 1961 and White Hart Lane's immortals became the first team to win Cup and league in the 20th century
By Rob Bagchi 6 May 2021 • 8:00am
Mission accomplished: Matchwinner Bobby Smith and captain Danny Blanchflower parade the Cup around Wembley Credit: Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images
The road to Tottenham’s 1961 Double, the diamond anniversary of which supporters commemorate today, May 6, began in the Soviet Union. It had its roots in other places, too: Bill Nicholson’s native Scarborough, where the manager inhaled a terse style of Yorkshire stoicism with his mother’s milk; in Musselburgh, birthplace of Dave Mackay and John White, Nicholson’s two most audacious transfer coups, and on the streets of Cheshunt near Tottenham’s training ground where the players undertook ‘Bill’s Road Run’, essentially a brisk five-mile walk followed by a one-mile dash devised by their manager as their regular conditioning routine.
But it was in Moscow, during a post-season tour in 1959, where individuals forged a bond that would turn them into a team, transforming them from a side that finished 18th in 1958-59, the season Nicholson took over, to one that would miss out on the title by only two points in 1960.
They went to the circus, too many times for even the most diplomatic members of the squad, saw Rudolph Nureyev dance at the Bolshoi, visited the Kremlin, queued to see the embalmed bodies of Lenin and Stalin in the Red Square mausoleum, and played three friendlies in front of packed stadiums in the capital, Kiev and Leningrad. “It was neither an education nor an adventure,” Mackay wrote. “[But] I shall always believe we laid the foundation of the team spirit and genuine friendship which has since played a notable part in the success of Tottenham Hotspur.”
Because the League and Cup Double has been won nine times in the past 60 years, it has been forgotten that for most of the last century it was often called “the impossible Double”. Aston Villa were the second team to have achieved it in 1896-97, finishing top after a 30-match First Division campaign and winning the FA Cup, which had only four ‘proper’ rounds before the final.
Yet teams were edging closer to the impossible towards the end of the Fifties. The Busby Babes won the title in 1957 and were only denied the FA Cup in the final, coincidentally by Villa, in large part by virtue of Peter McParland bulldozing the United goalkeeper Ray Wood after six minutes and shattering his cheekbone. In an era before substitutes, let alone substitute goalkeepers, 10-man Manchester United, with centre-half Jackie Blanchflower in goal, were defeated 2-1.
In 1960 Wolves had led the league on Saturday night after completing 42 games only to be pipped by Burnley on the Monday, winning their game in hand to take the title by a point. Wolves had the consolation of winning the Cup five days later but their manager, Stan Cullis, refused to congratulate Burnley for ruining his dream. “I am disappointed and do not wish to make any comment,” he said.
Those near misses persuaded Jackie Blanchflower’s elder bother, Danny, the captain of Tottenham, that far from being inconceivable, the Double was possible and that Spurs were just the team to prove it. Danny was 34 in the summer of 1960 and remains one of the most influential British players in the long history of our national game. The right-half was elegant, erudite, radical, waspish, astute and the author of pithiest of homilies, one of which, “the game is about glory”, has become part of his club’s branding.
Blanchflower came to believe it could be done on his return from the USSR, saying there should be no bashfulness about it. The Double had to be an explicit goal to which the whole club must subscribe. “It couldn’t be done with a weak heart and the team which might do it would have to really believe it could do it,” he said. First, the “impossible” prefix had to be banished. Nicholson, usually so hard-boiled it was said he laboured under the belief that “smiling takes up precious time”, surprised his captain by agreeing: “I think it can be done too.”
The captain was a season premature with his announcement when, after beating Newport County in the third round of the FA Cup in January 1960 with Spurs at the top of the league, he told the press that the Double was on. They were still in first place when they demolished Crew Alexandra 13-2 in a fourth-round replay but the balance of the team, particularly at inside-right, and the fact that White was still serving his final year of National Service in Berwick-upon-Tweed, making a couple of games unreachable after a full day’s duty, undermined their progress. Blackburn Rovers beat them in the fifth round and mid-April home defeats by Manchester City and Chelsea, who would finish 16th and 18th respectively, ruined their title bid. Had they won either of those games, they would have won the league championship on goal average instead of missing out by two points.
Fred Bearman, the Tottenham chairman, had joined the board in 1909 and must have heard it all during his 51 years’ service. But instead of taking an unsentimental tone when his romantic captain told him on the eve of the 1960-61 season, “We’ll win the Double for you”, he replied: “All right, my boy. I believe you will.”
“We started – as Robb Wilton used to say – like a house on fire,” wrote Blanchflower in his autobiography, quoting the late, droll star of music hall, radio and film. It was like a palace on fire, in truth, as they won their first 11 games, a record that still stands, putting six past Aston Villa, four past Manchester United at the Lane and hammering Wolves, champions in 1958, 1959 and runners-up in 1960, 4-0 at Molineux.
With the barnstorming, buccaneering and deceptively skilful Bobby Smith at centre-forward, the far more mobile and elusive White replacing Tommy Harmer at inside-right, and the prolific, tireless grafter Les Allen at inside-left, plus the dynamic Terry Dyson, also a son of Scarborough, on the left wing, the blisteringly quick and mesmerisingly skilful Cliff Jones on the right, Spurs simply overwhelmed opponents. In 42 games they were scoreless in just two, scored more than one goal in 32 matches and ended the season with 115, a post-war top-flight record.
For all the verve of their forward line the half-backs were the chief ‘glory’ of Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur. With the creative prompting of the fulcrum Blanchflower at right-half, Maurice Norman in the centre, with his heading prowess at both ends, his uncanny gift for interceptions and forays up front when all four limbs would seem to work independently of one another, like an octopus on speed, and the imperious Mackay, one of the ten greatest British footballers, in the No6 shirt, Spurs were irrepressible. Mackay’s talent is too often demeaned by overplaying the fierceness of his competitive zeal and physical aggression. He was a fine passer, long and short, had a thumping left-foot shot, which hammered in a 35-yard screamer at Goodison in December, and a mastery of the ball the equal of any fancy Dan.
Frank McLintock, who would become the century’s second Double-winning captain with Arsenal in 1971, recalled how Mackay, Scotland's injured captain, used the sureness of his touch and his indomitable, gallus spirit before a match against Spain at the Bernabéu in 1963 when Francisco Gento, Alfredo Di Stefano and Luis Del Sol tried to intimidate the Scots in the warm-up with their skill and swagger. “We all knew Dave Mackay’s party-piece,” said McLintock “and Jim Baxter decided now was the right time to unveil it. Jim called over and shouted, ‘Hey Marquis, see if you can catch this!’”
With that he tossed a coin 20ft in the air and Mackay “thrust out his right leg, bent at the knee, and caught the coin on his toe. He stood there for a second then flipped it back up in the air, caught it on his forehead, knocked it back up and caught it in his left eye socket then rolled it down his shoulder into his open blazer pocket and waltzed off back to the dressing room to thunderous applause.” Scotland won the match 6-2, a victory most of the players put down to Mackay’s capability to fight Spain’s psychological warfare in kind.
Part II below
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