The Grand Tour of '76

These days’ tours are very quick and involve promoting the brand as much as performing.  As we have seen before touring use to be very different.

This time we turn our attention to the summer of 1976 and the games that never seemed to end. 

The Grand tour that year would see Spurs encircle the globe, play in three continents and take a month doing so.  

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Terry Neil’s side had just finished 9th in Division One and reached the semi-final of the League Cup but Neil  would leave the club returning to Arsenal and his deputy Keith Burkenshaw would take over in the July. Meanwhile Tottenham however set out on the first leg of a long summer.  The first game arriving on April 27th in Canada just three days after the League season had ended.

We started in Toronto against the Metros–Croatia side and a win, the only goal coming from Ralph Coates. Then leaving Canada where the Olympics would be held soon after we headed west across the pacific ignoring the United States where England were involved in a bi-centenarian competition and arriving in Fiji.
There we played a Select XI running out 4-0 winners, Chivers, Duncan, Armstrong and Jones scoring for Tottenham.

Next stop was New Zealand and two games on the North Island. The first was in Auckland were we beat a local FA XI 5-3.  Duncan (left) 2, Pratt, Neighbour with an Osgood penalty. Then it was on to Wellington and the local FA there went down 3-2, Pratt Armstrong and Duncan.

One of the other main differences with touring in these days is the lack of detail, images and match reports if any rarely stretch past scorelines and various archives were unable to offer much. Even requests to the countries visited for any local papers was unsuccessful.

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The rest of the trip saw us travel to a fourth country Australia, starting in Melbourne on the 9th May we beat Victoria 3-1. From there it was on to Newcastle and New South Wales a game that saw us win 5-1. The press describing the game as a Spurs onslaught in which we were 3-0 leaders at the break

19 days after our first game and we played an Australian National XI in Sydney and a 3-2 win, Neighbour, Jones and Coates getting our goals that day. The next stop was in Adelaide and we overcome South Australia 5-2. The last stop and on 23rd May we were in Perth and defeated Western Australia by 4-0. A game which saw Martin Chivers score the only hat trick on the trip.

Tottenham finally went home having won all nine games on the tour, scoring 31 goals and conceding 11.

Martin Chivers top scored with 6, Jones 5, Duncan and Osgood netted four each, Osgood (left) had two penalties.  Coates and Pratt netted three each while Armstrong  and Neigbour scored 2 each with one goal each for Perryman, Young and Hoddle. We also were credited with one own goal.

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The Spurs lads were not finished traveling still.  After their holidays they set off for pre-season  this time to Germany playing the first game on 24th July beating Osnabruck 3-1 before losing to Eintracht Frankfurt 1-4 and  Cologne 1-3 before beating Baunatal 2-1 and finishing on August 6th with a 2-0 win over  FV Bad Honnef.

This second tour saw Jones hit five goals, Armstrong2 and one each for Young and  Conn.
Finishing just 15 days before the new season started. During which time we fitted in a trip to Swindon, losing 1-3 (Perryman) and entertaining Royal Antwerp at home in a 1-1 draw (Armstrong).
The following season Spurs finished bottom of the table and were relegated to Division Two.

COYS
Keith Harrison.
t- Keith 16024542
f - https://www.facebook.com/keith.harrison.9659
My profile / archive is @ http://www.indiaspurs.com/keith_harrison.html

Previous articles regarding the clubs tours can be found @
http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/the-lilywhite-files
Or you can try the Connections series @
http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/hotspur-towers-the-international-index