Tottenham Overcome Burnley (13th August, 1969) Know Your Tottenham History

Tottenham recovered from the opening day defeat at the reigning Champions, Leeds United, to defeat Burnley on this day, 13th August, 1969, in their first home match of the 1969-70 season. The game was played in mid-week with 35,920 spectators in attendance at White Hart Lane to witness the success. Jimmy Pearce was recalled to the right side of midfield with Tony Want playing at right-back and Phil Beal dropping out. Both teams had lost their opening match but it was Spurs who recovered to get their season back on track.

Tottenham Hotspur 4 Burnley 0

Tottenham scored four goals without reply, Peter Collins, Jimmy Pearce, Jimmy Greaves and Martin Chivers being the scorers. This was Chivers’ first goal since returning from the serious knee injury which had kept him out for much of the previous season.

In the early 1960s Burnley were one of the top teams, Champions in 1960 and competing against the Tottenham ‘Double’ team for honours in the opening years of the decade. More recently, however, they had taken up a mid-table position but were well regarded as a club which developed outstanding young players. An influential player in the Burnley team was Ralph Coates who two years later would be making his Tottenham debut. At the end of season 1970-71, Burnley were relegated and Bill Nicholson immediately signed Coates for a fee of £190,000 to strengthen the Spurs team which had won the Football League Cup that year.

Team: Jennings; Want, Knowles; Mullery, England, Collins; Pearce, Greaves, Chivers, Gilzean, Morgan.

#knowyourtottenhamhistory  12th August, 1967