Tottenham On This Day: Gerard McMahon – Spurs v Glenavon
By Logan Holmes
As part of the transfer agreement which took Gerard McMahon from Glenavon, Tottenham played a pre-season friendly against the Irish League side on this day, 1st August, 1992.
Tottenham on this Day
1st August, 1992
Glenavon 0 Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Pre-season Friendly)
Scorer: Samways
Team: Walker; Tuttle, Edinburgh (Austin); Gray, Cundy (Howells), Ruddock (Cundy); Nayim, Durie, Samways (Allen), McMahon (Anderton), Fenwick
With the new season just over a fortnight away, it’s time for the return of the Tottenham on this Day feature. A look back at some of the events from Tottenham’s past on a particular day.
Little of note has occurred on this day, bringing me to a match for the Tottenham supporters in Northern Ireland. The game between Tottenham and Glenavon was arranged as part of the transfer of midfielder Gerard McMahon to White Hart Lane in the summer of 1992 for a fee of £100,000.
Gerard McMahon played for the Irish League side, Glenavon and had signed for Tottenham after scoring for the Co. Armagh side in the Irish Cup final win over Linfield the previous May. The 17-year-old McMahon had only broken into the Glenavon first team the previous February but was the star as the team progressed to the Irish Cup Final. He scored the winning goal from a free-kick as Glenavon defeated the favourites.
Speaking about the Final, McMahon told the Lurgan Mail,
"I still remember most things about it, I remember my goal……..It was some occasion, the day leading up to it, the week before it. It was a special week for me and of course I knew I was going away after it to Tottenham."
Terry Venables was chief guest and opened the new stand that the club had just built at Mourneview Park. It was a near full strength Tottenham team that played and Spurs won with a goal from Vinny Samways. A good passing movement between Nayim and Gordon Durie sent Samways clear and with just the goalkeeper to beat he side-footed home.
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Gerard McMahon played against his old team mates and after taking time to settle at Tottenham, he went on to make 22 League and Cup appearances for Spurs, including 8 as a substitute. His debut came in May, 1995, a 3 – 1 home defeat by Coventry City.
McMahon retained his place for the final game of the season against Leeds United which marked the last appearance of Jurgen Klinsmann’s first spell at Spurs. He was part of Tottenham’s Intertoto team and scored his only goal for the club in that competition in the summer of 1995.
He was a regular in the first team squad in the early months of the following season but never managed to establish himself. In May, 1995 he won the first of 17 international games for Northern Ireland, scoring twice. He was transferred to Stoke City for £450,000 in the summer of 1996 and later played for St. Johnstone and then returned to the Irish League with Glenavon.
Glenavon v Tottenham 1992 [Photo: Logan Holmes]