| As a child, when I first
began attending matches at White Hart Lane, there always
seemed something comfortable about the team. Maybe it was
the way they always seemed to be there, with very few
changes. Maybe the fact that I had read about them and
seen them on TV, but now they were flesh and blood - more
real somehow. Perhaps it was because they were so BIG as
I looked up at the pitch from the front of the terracing
over the iron loops on top of the perimeter wall. The
biggest of them all was our centre-half, Mike England. A
rock in the middle of our defence of Knowles, Kinnear and
Beal, who always was there when needed and hardly lost
anything in the air. Well, that was the way it appeared
back then anyway. The
core of that team remained together for quite a few
years, with Pat Jennings being behind them should
anything get past our defence. It was one of the most
successful periods of the clubs history as Bill Nicholson
built his second great side during his tenure as manager.
At many an AGM of Tottenham
Hotspur plc, the question would be raised "When are
we going to get a decent centre-half as we have never
adequately replaced Mike England." The closest in
recent times that the club had come to this was Richard
Gough, who would have been the cornerstone of a
successful Spurs side if he (and David Pleat) had stayed,
but his return to Scotland left a void unfilled until the
emergence of the man who would be God - Sol Campbell. As
long as I can remember (and I mean no disrespect to other
Tottenham centre-halves here) the ability to win the ball
in the air at the back and at set-pieces at the other end
has been missing. Only Roberts and Miller could lay claim
to a defensive partnership that could threaten at both
ends. Mike scored many goals for Tottenham, sometimes in
the most important of games. Unfortunately, I can also
remember his "hat-trick" against Burnley at
White Hart Lane in 1974, when in a 2-3 defeat, he scored
twice for Burnley and once for Spurs !!
In his first season for
Tottenham, he was a Wembley winner in the FA Cup victory
over Chelsea in 1967, turning in an imperious display. He
missed out on the League Cup win in 1971 after breaking
an ankle in the semi-final against Bristol City, but
returned for the trip to Wembley in 1973 ending up on the
winning side. He was also the possessor of one winners
and one runners-up medal in the UEFA Cup finals of 1972
and 1974.
But it wasn’t all
about trophies with this man. He had to do well and that
was for club as well as country. His ability for a
centre-half of those days was quite unusual. He could
control the ball well, pass accurately and bring the ball
out of defence in the days when all that was usually
required of the position was to head or hoof it out of
danger. This approach may have been a result of his early
days in Wales, when he played as a forward and thus had
more of an appreciation of what was required when he
played the ball out of the back. His aerial ability was
second to none and at that time there were some
excellent, hard central defenders around. Jackie Charlton
at Leeds, Arsenal’s Frank McLintock, Charlie Hurley
of Sunderland and the Merseysiders Brian Labone (Everton)
and Ron Yeats (Liverpool). Mike stood on a level with
these and his fee of £95,000, when Spurs bought him from
Blackburn Rovers, was a record for a defender at the
time. His captaincy of his country was a great honour to
him and he served them well, making Wales a half-decent
side in those days.
It is an old cliché that
he was skilful for a big man, but he also had the speed
to recover should a player get away from him. His
strength in the tackle was obviously another asset that
put fear into the forwards he had to face, but his
dominance in the air could not be doubted. That is why he
remains so highly thought of amongst Spurs fans to this
day.
His service to the game at
all levels was rewarded with the MBE in 1984 and he went
on from being captain of his country, to take over as
manager when he finished playing, presiding over a fairly
successful time for the Welsh national team.
However, there was a side
to the man that did not make him popular to all parties.
When he wanted to leave Ewood Park and his club tried to
stop him, he threatened to quit the game. At that stage,
it appeared that he would be on his way to Manchester
United, who were keen to keep him in the North-West, but
he perhaps decided that he would have more opportunity to
develop at Tottenham where the need for a centre-half was
urgent following Maurice Norman’s retirement through
injury.
His departure from White
Hart Lane was tinged with a little bitterness too. Having
taken many knocks during his career, his ankles finally
started to give him problems and a shock announcement of
his retirement came in the middle of the 1974-75 season.
This had been a tough time for the club and it looked
like they might be relegated. The apparent baling out of
Mike England was a blow to all concerned with Tottenham.
The side managed to finish in 19th position and just stay
up, but the cornerstone of their defence had gone. Not to
be replaced for many a year.
My own personal memories of
the man are two-fold. One, on the pitch - a giant,
winning headers for Tottenham at a time when we won
things. The second was at the Cheshunt training ground,
where as a young boy I asked for his autograph after a
training session. He walked past as though I wasn’t
there. It shattered my illusions of the men I followed
with such devotion.
BARRY
LEVINGTON
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