10th October 1960 Tottenham Drop First Points of 1960-61 ‘Double’ Season

Bobby Smith

Tottenham won the opening eleven games of season 1960-61 but Manchester City denied them their twelfth win at White Hart Lane, today, 10th October, in 1961. Tottenham had already recorded wins over Everton (h), Blackpool (h & a), Blackburn Rovers (a), Manchester United (h), Bolton Wanderers (h & a), Arsenal (a), Leicester City (a), Aston Villa (h) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (a). The team had scored 36 goals while conceding only 11. While Spurs had maximum points (22) they were only three ahead of Sheffield Wednesday in 2nd place.

10th October, 1960

Tottenham Hotspur 1 Manchester City 1

Scorer: Smith

Manchester City became the first team to deny Tottenham a win in their double-winning season. They held Spurs to a draw at White Hart Lane, equalising in the second half after Bobby Smith had put Spurs ahead. Spurs dominated the first half but had only one goal advantage at the interval. In the second half City managed to equalise against the run of play but Spurs continued to attack but were unable to score – their domination was reflected in the game statistics: Spurs had 39 shots to City’s 9 and won fourteen corners to City’s two.

Team: Brown; Baker, Henry; Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay; Jones, White, Smith, Allen, Dyson.

Spurs had only used 14 players in those opening twelve matches – Frank Saul had played two matches in place of Smith, Tony Marchi was called in when Dave Mackay was also absent through injury and Terry Medwin was the most used reserve playing six games for the injured Cliff Jones.

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