Mario Kempes Played for Spurs – Know Your Tottenham History

The first of a daily edition of Know Your Tottenham History goes back to this day, 4th August, 1984 when the 1978 Argentine World Cup winning striker, Mario Kempes played for Tottenham. He was a friend of Ossie Ardiles who had arrived at White Hart Lane with Ricky Villa, immediately after their World Cup success. Villa had left Spurs the previous summer. Ardiles and Kempes had both been members of the Argentine World Cup winning team in 1978 where Kempes had finished as leading scorer with 6 goals including two in the Final against Holland.

Kempes had been playing in Spain with Valencia for the previous two seasons but was hoping to impress so that the Spurs manager, Peter Shreeves, would offer him a contract with Tottenham.

Kempes had been given a two match trial and he made his Spurs debut in a pre-season friendly against Enfield. Tottenham won the match 7 – 0 but surprisingly, Kempes, now aged thirty, was not among the goal scorers. The player most under threat from the possible signing of Kempes, Garth Crooks, responded by scoring four goals. Gary Stevens, Micky Hazard and Garry Brooke scored the other goals.

Two days later Kempes turned out for Spurs against Nice in a 2 – 2 draw but again failed to score or impress and so was not offered a contract. He returned to Spain and continued playing for another twelve years with clubs in Spain, Austria, Chile and Indonesia before retiring at the age of forty two.

This match against Enfield was his only appearance for Tottenham in England.

Team: Clemence (Parks); Stevens (Brooke), Hughton, Roberts, Miller, Perryman (Thomas), Ardiles (Bowen), Kempes, Galvin, Hazard, Crooks.

Mark Falco, when asked about Mario Kempes not making it at Spurs, said, tongue in cheek,

"“I was surprised he didn’t make the grade but I don’t think he really got to grips with Enfield”"

The Enfield players must have had the shock of their lives to see two World Cup winners in the Tottenham team and I’m sure the defenders are still ‘eating out’ on stories of how they stopped Mario Kempes from scoring that day – twenty eight years ago, today, on 5th August, 1984.