Lasting Memories: First Visits to White Hart Lane - Nottingham Forest 1994
Monday, July 01, 2013
By Lewis Callanan / @lewisca99
Tottenham Hotspur 1 – 4 Nottingham Forest 23rd September 1994
Well, where do I start? My first Spurs game and we got beaten convincingly by Nottingham Forest (of all teams!) To be fair to Forest, they finished 3rd in the league, with us finishing 7th in the 94/95 season, and featured the likes of Collymore (who was sold for a record British fee the following summer) Bryan Roy and Stuart Pearce to name a few.
This was the season that we all envisioned Spurs putting their stamp on the Premier League, especially after the shock signing of Klinsmann in the summer of '94, along with the legend that is Ardilles pulling his managerial strings and assembling a team with the likes of Popescu, Dumitrescu, Anderton, Barmby and Sheringham. Looking back at that team, I think we can all agree that a) what a team it was on paper, and b) why on earth we didn’t achieve more than a 7th place finish!
I had just turned eight years old a few weeks beforehand and was very excited to be going to my first Spurs game with my old man. My only memories prior to this visit were from listening to games on Radio 5 Live through my “ghetto blaster” and watching the 1991 FA Cup Final on repeat every few weeks on VCR! My Dad had been going to the Lane since the late '60s and I think he was just as excited to take me to my first game as I was to go!
I remember travelling up on the train from Kent on the morning of match day. It would mainly involve reading through the Saturday papers and playing some sort of football dice game (I'd love to know what happened to this to see if I can even remember how to play.) From what I remember it involved five multi coloured dice where you would throw one at a time and it would lead you to scoring a goal – sounds fun I know, but it really was at the time!
Another thing I fondly remember was my old man telling me how to make a “Millwall Brick”. “What the hell is a Millwall Brick?”, I asked. "Well son, it’s a weapon used by fans on match days made up of Saturday papers!" Wow, what an introduction to a match day, although I don’t for one minute believe my old man was ever involved in any hooliganism during his heyday. He would simply enjoy the experience of travelling with his pals to go and watch Spurs. I lost count of the number of times he would mention various stories about his own match day experiences – there was the story about Sheffield Wednesday away in the same season of the Hillsborough disaster. Both himself and his close friend experienced trouble trying to enter the stadium before the game, they both lost each other due to the crushing and overcrowding and could sense something serious might happen in the near future if the problems weren’t addressed.
We arrived at WHL around 1pm to soak up the pre-match atmosphere. Whenever I go to home games nowadays I never bother going into the Spurs shop as it’s all a load of tat, in my opinion, but when I was younger I used to love going into the shop, looking at all the merchandise and buying the latest player profile pics! I remember having the A5 player pics plastered all over my bedroom wall at the time as well as the most recent team photo. My dad would then take me to some café on the high road that he and his mates would always go to – egg, chips, beans and a tea x2, lovely jubbly!
At the time of my first visit, WHL was getting re-developed with the Park Lane end not even existing on this occasion and the Paxton was non recognisable from what it is now! The Paxton was where we would sit for a number of years, I remember my dad saying the Paxton end was the “McDonald's family stand” and the only place suitable for children in the stadium! I can’t even remember the cost of the ticket so I suppose I can count myself lucky that I even went to football games at that age!
I'll never forget my first memories of the infamous WHL atmosphere, the passion, the roar of the crowd, the nerves I felt at the time were indescribable, a mixture of excitement and bewilderment! It saddens me to think that WHL in recent years has been fuelled with hypercritical fans that have set expectations so high, that moaning, getting on players backs is becoming common among groups of fans.
As mentioned previously it wasn’t a particularly good first game to attend with the final score in mind! We took a rampant Forest side 1-1 going into the break, Steve Stone scored an early goal for Forest, with Ilie Dumitrescu equalising to make things level at the break. The second half saw Forest run riot with three goals coming from Franz Carr (2) and Lars Bohinen.
After the game I remember hanging around outside the West Stand hoping to catch a glimpse of my idols at the time. A picture that always stays in my head from that day is having a photo taken of me wearing the horrible goalkeeping kit at the time – remember the grey kit with blue wriggly lines that Thorstvedt always wore? Thinking back on it, it would no doubt be a popular choice on the Twitter feed “Full Kit Wankers!”
I knew from this moment on that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride being a Spurs fan, but isn’t that what being a football fan is all about? Following your team through the highs and lows? I couldn’t imagine my life supporting Man Utd consistently at the top of league watching their trophy cabinet growing
bigger each season!
The years that followed were even worse, if I am being honest, Gerry Francis came in, our kit was sponsored by Pony and Arsenal became the “Invincibles!”
This entry was written by Lewis Callanan, posted on Monday, July 01, 2013
By Lewis Callanan / @lewisca99
Tottenham Hotspur 1 – 4 Nottingham Forest 23rd September 1994
Well, where do I start? My first Spurs game and we got beaten convincingly by Nottingham Forest (of all teams!) To be fair to Forest, they finished 3rd in the league, with us finishing 7th in the 94/95 season, and featured the likes of Collymore (who was sold for a record British fee the following summer) Bryan Roy and Stuart Pearce to name a few.
This was the season that we all envisioned Spurs putting their stamp on the Premier League, especially after the shock signing of Klinsmann in the summer of '94, along with the legend that is Ardilles pulling his managerial strings and assembling a team with the likes of Popescu, Dumitrescu, Anderton, Barmby and Sheringham. Looking back at that team, I think we can all agree that a) what a team it was on paper, and b) why on earth we didn’t achieve more than a 7th place finish!
I had just turned eight years old a few weeks beforehand and was very excited to be going to my first Spurs game with my old man. My only memories prior to this visit were from listening to games on Radio 5 Live through my “ghetto blaster” and watching the 1991 FA Cup Final on repeat every few weeks on VCR! My Dad had been going to the Lane since the late '60s and I think he was just as excited to take me to my first game as I was to go!
I remember travelling up on the train from Kent on the morning of match day. It would mainly involve reading through the Saturday papers and playing some sort of football dice game (I'd love to know what happened to this to see if I can even remember how to play.) From what I remember it involved five multi coloured dice where you would throw one at a time and it would lead you to scoring a goal – sounds fun I know, but it really was at the time!
Another thing I fondly remember was my old man telling me how to make a “Millwall Brick”. “What the hell is a Millwall Brick?”, I asked. "Well son, it’s a weapon used by fans on match days made up of Saturday papers!" Wow, what an introduction to a match day, although I don’t for one minute believe my old man was ever involved in any hooliganism during his heyday. He would simply enjoy the experience of travelling with his pals to go and watch Spurs. I lost count of the number of times he would mention various stories about his own match day experiences – there was the story about Sheffield Wednesday away in the same season of the Hillsborough disaster. Both himself and his close friend experienced trouble trying to enter the stadium before the game, they both lost each other due to the crushing and overcrowding and could sense something serious might happen in the near future if the problems weren’t addressed.
We arrived at WHL around 1pm to soak up the pre-match atmosphere. Whenever I go to home games nowadays I never bother going into the Spurs shop as it’s all a load of tat, in my opinion, but when I was younger I used to love going into the shop, looking at all the merchandise and buying the latest player profile pics! I remember having the A5 player pics plastered all over my bedroom wall at the time as well as the most recent team photo. My dad would then take me to some café on the high road that he and his mates would always go to – egg, chips, beans and a tea x2, lovely jubbly!
At the time of my first visit, WHL was getting re-developed with the Park Lane end not even existing on this occasion and the Paxton was non recognisable from what it is now! The Paxton was where we would sit for a number of years, I remember my dad saying the Paxton end was the “McDonald's family stand” and the only place suitable for children in the stadium! I can’t even remember the cost of the ticket so I suppose I can count myself lucky that I even went to football games at that age!
I'll never forget my first memories of the infamous WHL atmosphere, the passion, the roar of the crowd, the nerves I felt at the time were indescribable, a mixture of excitement and bewilderment! It saddens me to think that WHL in recent years has been fuelled with hypercritical fans that have set expectations so high, that moaning, getting on players backs is becoming common among groups of fans.
As mentioned previously it wasn’t a particularly good first game to attend with the final score in mind! We took a rampant Forest side 1-1 going into the break, Steve Stone scored an early goal for Forest, with Ilie Dumitrescu equalising to make things level at the break. The second half saw Forest run riot with three goals coming from Franz Carr (2) and Lars Bohinen.
After the game I remember hanging around outside the West Stand hoping to catch a glimpse of my idols at the time. A picture that always stays in my head from that day is having a photo taken of me wearing the horrible goalkeeping kit at the time – remember the grey kit with blue wriggly lines that Thorstvedt always wore? Thinking back on it, it would no doubt be a popular choice on the Twitter feed “Full Kit Wankers!”
I knew from this moment on that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride being a Spurs fan, but isn’t that what being a football fan is all about? Following your team through the highs and lows? I couldn’t imagine my life supporting Man Utd consistently at the top of league watching their trophy cabinet growing
bigger each season!
The years that followed were even worse, if I am being honest, Gerry Francis came in, our kit was sponsored by Pony and Arsenal became the “Invincibles!”
This entry was written by Lewis Callanan, posted on Monday, July 01, 2013
