Can you beat Spurs too often?
There are many ways of looking at this. In the interests of clarity I’ll avoid the more metaphysical and philosophical aspects of the question and stick to the football side of things. Spurs’ record since the foundation of the Premier League is impressive: they won the League Cup in 1999 and, er, ah, okay, that seems to be it, but still, more to life than winning trophies eh?
Anyway, we all know that Chelsea’s success is down to Russian mob money and that five children die of malnutrition in Moscow each time Frank Lampard scores. It’s dreadful. This fact (and I use the word in the tabloid sense) about Chelsea’s relative success appears to overlook a few FA Cups, a few League Cups, the European Cup Winners’ Cup, a European Super Cup, a few Champions League qualifications and, if I’m not mistaken, the odd Community Shield. However in the spirit of goodwill we’ll say that the recent - i.e. Premier League pre-mobski - trophy haul of the two clubs is not that different. Stop laughing at the back.
Obviously it would be unfair to dwell on the fact that there are now legal age voters who weren’t born the last time Chelsea lost a League game at White Hart Lane. However the question ‘Can you beat Spurs too often?’ needs a time frame, so we’ll use the Premier League since its foundation. That’s a decent spread, over thirteen years, should be enough to iron out any statistical anomalies.
Clearly most of the defeats suffered by Spurs during this period were down to bad luck and gross misfortune. Not to mention corrupt officials, low flying aircraft, global warming, plagues of locust and other assorted acts of God. If you look at the record closely, I mean really scrutinise it, you’ll see Spurs came close to winning at least a handful of the twenty-seven Premier League games against Chelsea.
No better opportunity was presented to Spurs than in the very first game between the sides at White Hart Lane, in the newly formed Premier League, on Saturday 5th December, 1992. Chelsea had no fit strikers, I mean none at all. So we played a one-paced, defensive midfield player in attack, the legendary Eddie Newton. He scored twice. He’s never scored two goals in a game, before or since. In fact he hardly ever scored at all. But this was Spurs.
I was lucky enough to be at The Lane that day, and Spurs tried to copy Chelsea by throwing a defender into attack, the 17-year-old Sol Campbell (his debut?), and he did actually score. Right at the end, bundling the ball home in front of the Chelsea fans, who were the only people left in the ground at the time. Oh joy. Spurs would regret letting that opportunity slip; with respect to the lads, the 1992 vintage was one of the weakest teams Chelsea have put out in the Premier League.
They weren’t quite the weakest though. That privilege was reserved for the Chelsea team that played the following season, in 1993/94. This was a low point for the club in Premier League terms; they finished 14th, their worst ever placing. In truth that side had more than its fair share of cast-offs and lower league players (much though I loved them). They were also being managed by an ex-Spurs player. Enough said.
Both teams were struggling near the foot of the table when the match came round at Stamford Bridge, on Sunday 27th February, 1994. Spurs went 2-0 ahead. Was the unthinkable about to happen? No, Chelsea pulled it level. Spurs went ahead again and then they missed a penalty. Chelsea pulled the game level for a second time at 3-3 and in the dying minutes, in a pumped up Stamford Bridge, Mark Stein scored a memorable goal to win the game 4-3 for Chelsea. Oh dear. Never mind Spurs, shame about that penalty.
And so it went on. Who could forget the 6-1 humiliation we handed Spurs in front of their own fans in December, 1997, which included a hat-trick from Tore Andre Flo? Mind you I thought Spurs were unlucky that day; they were level at kick off. Okay. I’m being unkind, I feel bad. I will try to be a better person and not mock the afflicted with such relish. Nope. I just can’t do it. SIX-ONE! Get in.
Since then Chelsea have put more and more daylight between themselves and the glorious Hotspurs. If Chelsea should scrape into the top six this season that will make ten consecutive top six finishes. During the same period our friends from N17 have finished in the top six, er, let’s see, surely that can’t be right? Zero times? A Eurovision-esque ‘nil points’? A scandal. A blight on the face of football. This epitaph could be premature of course, Martin Jol might get Spurs into the top six this season. Then again.
So in all fairness I have to ask: can you beat Spurs too often? Can a man tire of watching misery being inflicted on Tottenham? However poor they may be, however far behind us they are in the league, however bare their trophy cabinet, is there just something unique and utterly gratifying about beating Spurs?
I think it is possible to earn too much money. I think it is possible to have a girlfriend who is too good looking (just, close one that). I actually think, at times, it is possible to be too happy. But, and I mean this most sincerely folks, in my opinion it is simply not possible to beat, nay thrash, Spurs too often. I am filled with an almost spiritual sense of well being every time it happens. Listening to the new set of excuses is just one of many added bonuses. The precisely thought out justifications as Spurs fans desperately try to rationalise yet another defeat.
Has Radio Five Live’s 606 phone-in ever been a better listen than after Chelsea have thumped Spurs, again? “I thought Spurs were weally, weally unlucky, all sweet boy Mido did was forearm smash one of their nasty defenders, what’s wrong with that?” Absolutely nothing, as long as you don’t mind watching Mido walk like an Egyptian straight off the pitch. Not our fault if one of the Spurs players carries out a blatant assault during the game is it? I guarantee you that red card will not be rescinded, despite the bleatathon coming from Spurs fans.
I can also tell you why Chelsea always beat Spurs. It’s simple. We’re better. Have been for years, approaching decades now. I’m loving it. Can’t get enough of it. You?
Related links:
- Hearts ruling heads over Mido red
- Mido appeals against his red card
- FA rejects Mido red card appeal
- Living in the Past
- Mido challenges FA conduct charge
- Mido cleared of FA conduct charge
- Posted at 08:10 PM · Permalink · Print · 6764 views · Last indexed by Google on the 11th May 2008
- Tags: Chelsea, Premier League, Premiership, Spurs, Tottenham Hotspur
Thanks to a crap ref this time,also how many trophies have you won you should never have beaten Wigan and fluked a goal vs Arse*** so your not that good especially as your team cost how much ?? shouldnt you be beating every team easilly?
Chelsea are lucky they have enough well trained divers in their squad that they can make a referee who admitted he didn’t even see any form of elbow just a ’strong challenge’ from 30-odd yards away.
Had Del Horno not been a weak little Spaniard he would have stayed on his feet - if it’d been Terry I’m sure he would’ve stayed on ‘em but it was a Pu55y from Spain - don’t they just love to roll about as if they’ve walked on a landmine.
Until then we matched you had Rob Styles shown an ounce of sense as so many pundits have said then Mido would have got a yellow.
Same old Chelsea always cheating. Go ahead, cheat your way to the title again, see if we care while we’re building a side that can actually play football instead of boring teams to sleep and then scuff in a goal why they’re dosing from the lack of quality football from Chelsea.
What a load of rubbish. Without Abramovich ur nothing. Mido shud not have been sent off. went for the ball and 2 shit goals. u probably will win the league again BECAUSE U HAVE UNLIMITED MONEY. Im sure spurs would have won the league by now if we had abramovic
u talk crap m8. im a portsmouth fan and u were rubbish. spurs could have won. Mido neva a sendin off.
you’ve bought the title and you still struggled against 10 men, I can’t wait to see abramovich pull out and chelsea collapse and all their “stars” who are loyal walk out. Good luck in the future though!
chelsea have been better than spurs for decades!?!?!? bullshit, spurs have boasted an immensly better team than you for the last 40 years until the 90s,also our trophy cabinet is alot more impressive than yours over the years.im afraid that football WAS happening before the premeirship began and before then, chelsea were the worst team in london by far. and also mido’s sending off ASSAULT!?!?? this is the kind of biased crap i would expect from a typical today chelsea who hasnt been a fan until 2 years ago when everyone agreed that it wasnt a sending off. the fact that you try to boast your clubs trophy cabinet is exactly why our fans were chanting “WERE YOU THERE WHEN YOU WERE SHIT!?” because im afraid people like you just dont understand football
8 goals for none against, best goal difference, maximum points, top of the league - How easy do you think we should make it, Jason?
Your average crowd for years before the late 90s was 15,000, this is why I don’t and never will consider you to be a massive club, no history!
Good stuff, Blingo. Upsetting Spurs fans makes my day!
I see you’ve attracted the stereotypical responses from IQ deficient Spuds fans: we’re all new fans, we have no history etc., blah, blah blah. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: rival fans are like stuck records. Do us a favour and come up with some new whinges.
WE HAVE NO HISTORY, WE’RE CELEBRATING OUR CENTENARY…
all that dirty Russian’s money, bank holiday weekend, that ref went to his pocket to quick for him to have been a load of money and the use of the yacht over the weekend. cheating scum.
Did not Spurs beat Chelsea 5-1 in the second leg of the Worthington Cup in 2002? That is a strange omission from your history lesson.
I am a Spurs fan and I would like to say something here. I cant argue with the fact we have not beaten you in the league for longer than I care think about, I cant argue that at the moment you are the top team in the country - however I would have loved to have seen the game yesterday be played with 11 a side, i dont agree with the sending off (I may be biased) and even though you may still have beaten us at least then there could be no arguments about it. Anyway, best of luck this season to you all - look out for the mighty Charlton though.
Chelsea are still a small club - can’t sell out their away allocation at Wigan and can’t sell out their away allocation for a London derby at Spurs - pathetic. Spurs had 12,000 applications for 2,000 tickets at Portsmouth.
In recent shirtl sales Chelsea shifted 80,000 in a season compared with Spurs who shifted 200,000!
Says it all really….
Youre talkin bollox mate, Spurs are a massive club and you know it, rumour has it that rob styles has ties with chelsea (was at your training ground) check it out..and I think we all saw where his loyalties were, anyway we played you off the park before the sending off.
Spurs are on the way up where we belong, we”ll pass you on your way down..you”ll see.
Spurs Honours
League Champions: 1950, 1951, 1960, 1961
Division Two Champions: 1920, 1950
FA Cup Winners: 1901, 1921, 1961, 1962, 1967, 1981, 1982, 1991
League Cup Winners: 1971, 1973, 1999
Charity Shield Winners 1921, 1952, 1962, 1963, 1968 (joint), 1982 (joint), 1992 (joint).
Cup Winners’ Cup Winners: 1963
UEFA Cup Winners: 1972, 1984
Chelsea Honours
League Champions: 1955, 2005
Division Two Champions: 1984, 1989
FA Cup Winners: 1970, 1997, 2000
League Cup Winners: 1965, 1998, 2005
Charity/Community Shield Winners: 1956, 2000, 2005
Cup Winners Cup Winners: 1971, 1998
Super Cup Winners: 1998
Nuff said really, call us when you do the double (several times)…
Uninformed arrogant rubbish. Just what we’ve come to expect from the glory hunting Chelsea fans.
No tradition. No history. No class.
Erm…i don’t need to add anything other than what’s already been said. I watched the game live on that Arabic satellite channel ARR (or whatever it was called) and i saw the Mido incident in full camera zoom. I am absolutely positive that there was no “intent” from Mido, he was actually protecting himself from Del Horno’s head, otherwise they would have butted each-other and probably ended up BOTH cold on the deck. Idiot referee (i use that word diplomatically) couldn’t see what was actually going on from 30-odd yards and instead branded the incident a “heavy challenge”. This is clearly nonesense because it wasn’t a “challenge”, Mido was just going for a 50/50 “ball-in-the-air”. Clearly in the rules of the game; a “heavy challenge” as perpertrated for the first time by a player will merit a yellow card AT WORSE…but to run all of 30-odd yards brandishing a red icard s clearly OUT OF ORDER especially from a modern day Premier League referee. Play us again 11 men each for 90-minutes and we’ll show you what’s what. By the way, Essien “hardest player on the pitch”…nah mate, Davids WALKED him off the ball. Nuff sed.
Wow, I’m sorry that us poor spurs have offended you by being in your bought championship!!
If Chelsea are so damn good why have you only won the league tittle a handful of times and your talking rubbish about your silver wear??
Liverpool knocked you out of the champions league and to be honest wigan should have thrashed you on your opening match. I have to say that even found myself supporting erm ARSENAL just because Chelsea have become the most dis likable team, both on and off the pitch your becoming frankly boring.
Bottom line is your no MAN U, dominating for more than a decade, and at least they used grass roots football and a youth system. You just threw money at the rest of the football world and hey, the tittle was yours.
But still if you think you have a glorious trophy cabinet you keep on biggin yourself up, How many league tittles- not many actually
How many European cups - virtually none actually
How many FA cups - less than spurs you muppet i think a whopping 3 Vs 8 for us HA Ha ha
Chelsea have overtaken Arsenal on my passionate hate list. These souless and bought-out “fans” have no idea what supporting a football team (not a business venture) is like. This is clearly apparent by the distinct lack of knowledge posed by the gentleman who opened the topic thread. His screen-name alone should suggest a certain stupidity and arrogance as documented in his opening gambit ‘Chelsea have been better than Spurs for ages’.
This certain individual also seems to hold the memory capacity of a small household goldfish - I might point out to this gentleman that before the tidal wave of dirty Russian money came flooding into Chelsea, they were a week away from complete bankrupcy. There is no disguising this matter, Chelsea overspent and should have paid the price by being put into administration.
The fact that you bought yourself the league title last season does not make up for the absense of other trophys in your cabinet. Tottenham, may I remind my peer (if he be so lucky to be my ‘peer’), boast a substantially larger trophy hall than that of the side he “supports”.
I am glad that those overpriced tickets have thinned your wallet considerably and for your information the game might have been somewhat different if you had been playing 11 vs 11 and not 12 vs 10.
I would do your research before making stupid remarks, well done you, you are one of the millions who now support Chelsea and know f*ck all about them!!!
COYS
YID ARMY
Josh
Yeah and with out your Russian friend, chealski would been out of money and with huge loans…but why not be happy soon there will be a new president in Russia…And your owner will face abit of prison time and the money will dry out ….what a happy day that will be.
QUOTE
rival fans are like stuck records.
this made me laugh. i forgot chelsea fans were at the lane on saturday until u handled the 2nd goal into the net. then you couldnt stop sing all 3 of your songs for the remaining minutes.
essien 24 million. davids free. who was in whos pocket. taxi for essien.
drogba 24 million aswell!!!???
glenn roader could win you the title with that sort of money lads fix yourselves up.
you struggled againt 10 men and man united will stuff you this season and i cant wait till we visit the bridge.
Fancy resting your best players midweek, in a game you might have won, in the forlorn hope that it would’ve made a difference yesterday. Very silly decision wouldn’t you say? Your desperation to beat us after all these years is so tangible, you can actually smell it!
Apart from Mido’s snide attempt to knock Ferriera’s head off, Davids should’ve walked as well, for a bollock high tackle on Lampard.
Spurs really shouldn’t try to muscle teams out of games like they did us yesterday, it doesn’t suit ‘em.
Fact is, if it wasn’t for your keeper (who’s pretty good), we’d have put at least a couple more past you. Cech on the other hand, could’ve gone Saturday afternoon shopping, thanks to our awesome defence!
It was Chelsea who were advertising on the radio last week for people to buy tickets for the West Brom game.Great champions you are if you can not sell out a home fixture……….
Are you another one of these halfwits who have never been to Stamford Bridge? I think so.
How much has your russian mob boss spent ? And you can only beat the weak spurs 2-0 through a dodgy ref descion and a lucky deflected goal what happens when the czar gets bored and finds another toy to play with ? leeds united all over again .
one bitter spurs fan
I still think the most interesting fact about the game last saturday was that Chelsea’s sub bench cost more than our first time and subs all put together. I read that the other day, I’m not sure if it’s entirely accurate but if it is… dont you feel embarressed that you couldnt beat a 10-man team more than two goals? Without that Russian I think things would be very different indeed! At least if Spurs won something now, we could put it down to HARD work… not buying our way to the top. I’d prefer to lose all those games against Chelsea than to be a supporter of a team who need to spend obscene amounts just to win one season! You couldnt ever beat Liverpool in the CL…! Sort it out
COYS
the fact that only 2 chelsea so called fans have followed up your comment is testamony that you are in fact a tiny club full of part time followers. as the song goes, youre all w4nkers from the bridge, thats if you were there to hear it. amazin how many chelsea shirts you see around these days, yet strangely enough i doubt any of them have acutally seen the team play. 8 fa cups, 2 uefa cups, 1 cup winners cup, 3 league cups, 2 championships, and that magnificent double. ahh, there there, something you will never have.
Oh, and one more thing… You may be celebrating your CENTENARY, but just remember to let everyone else know when you become a real football club, not just some cheap plastic version of a football club. Its never a good idea to pick a fight with Spurs fans, cos we’re ACTUAL fans!
Let me add my tuppence worth. I am a Chelsea fan and have been since 1957. I go home and away and, when financially able to, into Europe as well. Remember competitive games in Europe you Tottenham boys.
The piece about can we win too much against Spurs was, in my humble view, the best piece of irony I have read for a long time but within the irony was fact. Facts that the Rottenham fans wont like but facts all the same. A sense of humour and an understanding of irony is also clearly lacking from those Spurs fans who read the piece and as for those that were there on Saturday, the only word to describe them would be Neanderthals . Their antics and actions across the police cordon as we came out was a complete throw back to the bad old days. We as a Club have evolved but it seems opposition fans have regressed in direct correlation to our success.
The article was written was about Spurs’ record against us in the Premiership so the 5-1 beating was left out because it was the League Cup (please note SpursHistorian or whatever you call yourself). If the author was going to bring that into the story then he would have been quite entitiled to bring in the next two games against Spurs which followed that 5-1 defeat. Two, read it two, 4-0 defeats. One in the League and one in the FA Cup. Normal service had indeed been resumed. Of course after beating us and making a final what did Spurs do then…….oh they lost. “Oh Andy Cole, scored a bloody great goal……”
History is bunk as some old guy said and so it is. All these teams that go on about history are talking about their club’s successes in 20th Century, and the middle of the 20th Century at that. This is now the 21st Century and the Premiership is only a few years old in comparison to history and in that particular competition we hold the upper hand over our rivals from N17. And long may it continue.
Blingo,
Please, spare a thought for the inappropriately named “Spurs Historianâ€? reminding you of 5-1 win against Chelsea in the 2002 Worthington Cup. And he considers it “a strange omission from your history lessonâ€?! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
No, Blingo! I cannot get tired of seeing Chelsea trash Spurs!
What a read; an absolutely marvellous read!