Hotspur Towers - Hibernian

This rather different Hotspur Towers takes the opportunity to look back at just one programme, from the 1956 / 57 season. Having been asked several times about programmes from this era I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to show one.
It is from the Anglo-Scottish Floodlit competition which we looked at in detail in Hotspur Towers earlier this week. Thus this edition serves two purposes.  

left - the Tottenham faithful, 1956 version.

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You will notice that Tottenham Hotspur Football and Athletic Company Limited show the names of the directors and club Medical Officer on the headed banner.

Next down its Volume 49. Although Tottenham have been producing programmes since 1893 it was not until they entered the Football League they started numbering each season in volume numbers.
To save you looking the current season is 108 and is on the spine of the 100 page match day programme.


The programme stayed this size until the end of the 1960/61 Double season. Which explains why is it is very hard to find any from this period without a crease across the middle of the page and very often another from top to bottom as they were folded to fit whichever pocket it was being pushed into.

It was quite common for the front page to be taken up with an introduction to the visitors. Here you will see that Hibs face the problem of their two first choice goalies currently doing their National Service. It gives a real feel to the time.

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Quite often during the 1950's pen pictures of their players filled the space on page one. Some years THFC would use it to review our own teams last outing.  The message at the bottom of the page was to try and keep those those horrible children with autograph books off the pitch.

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You will have noticed that the Spurs gossip of the week, this was long before social media, includes a reference to the Anglo-Scottish Floodlit competition which we looked at in Hotspur Towers - Anglo Scottish Cup earlier this week. There is an interesting match report for the Burnley game, with the early kick off as it was getting dark.

Page 3 of the programme and the line -ups. This was actually the Tottenham line-up that night. Harry Clarke is the skipper even though Danny Blanchflower is in the side. Blanchflower had resigned the captaincy at this point after a disagreement with manager Jimmy Anderson.

At one point pages two and three were split into three columns each and teams would be shown across four of them leaving a boarder of text around them.

With room for 50,000 under cover the ground only saw 16,561 attend the game.
The game did fall on Halloween but that should not of kept people away. Twenty six thousand had watched the Partick Thistle game the month before and there was twenty five thousand at the friendly with Racing Club De Paris earlier that season.
You will remember (Under the Lights) that it was Paris who played the first floodlit game in 1953. In December Hungarian side MTK would attract 31,860.

The half time scores is interesting as in a number of the photos over the years you will have seen this board running down each side of the pitch. Here it is left blank not because there were no other games but to the best of my knowledge it was only used to show other games at weekend matches.

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The back page and the fixtures and tables. You will see that the first team and reserves are doing well. The A team usually the youth players against older sides are not faring too badly as you may of noticed they always played away.

Full details of the Anglo-Scottish Floodlight Challenge are given in the previously mentioned articles but in case your wondering the game ended 3-3. Tottenham's goals coming from Hopkins, Medwin and Brooks.

More stories about THFC programmes can be found in Hotspur Towers  21 and 48.

COYS
Keith Harrison
Twitter - Keith16024542
Facebook -Peter Shearman (old non de plume).