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Full Cup Record against Southampton

FA CUP

SEASON   RD   H/A  RES    SCORERS
1901-02  1     H   1-1    Copeland
1901-02  1r    A   2-2    Hughes (2)
1901-02  1r2   N   1-2    Kirwan
1947-48  6     A   1-0    Bennett   
1982-83  3     H   1-0    Hazard   
1989-90  3     H   1-3    Howells
1994-95  5     H   1-1    Klinsmann
1994-95  5r    A   6-2 (a.e.t)
                          Rosenthal (3)
                          Sheringham, Barmby,
                          Anderton  
2002-03  3     A   0-4    -


LEAGUE CUP

1968-69  5     H   1-0     Collins
1988-89  4     A   1-2     Osman (o.g.)

My seat number is 1066. This will be a battle!

Spurs travel to St Mary's for the second time this month and must face a Southampton side in fine form. As recently as December 14th, after losing at home to West Ham, Southampton were in the bottom three. Look at them now! After winning five of their last seven Premier League games the “Saints” have climbed to ninth place. The last of these wins was a 2-0 on Tuesday night at Selhurst Park when Ralf Hasenhuttl even rested top scorer Danny Ings until the last 20 minutes.

Danny Ings is behind only Sergio Aguero and Jamie Vardy in this season's Premier League top scorers' list. Bearing in mind the England strikers currently falling injured like flies (Kane, Rashford, Abraham), Ings, whose one England cap came in October 2015 when he came on as substitute in a Euro qualifier against Lithuania, must be in the reckoning for an International recall. I am sure we will see him tomorrow. Liverpool paid big money for him when he moved from Burnley in 2015, but he was unfortunate with injuries. He was loaned to the "Saints" last season and signed full time for this season during which he has scored 16 goals in all competitions.

I must advise readers of a particularly bad omen regarding tomorrow's meeting. Our last cup meeting against Southampton came on January 4th 2003. Glenn Hoddle was our manager and "Saints" fans never forgave him after he returned to the club he loves. We also played Southampton away on New Year's Day that year and lost 1-0. the cup game was even worse, as we lost 4-0. Another reason for Southampton fans to hate us was that we had taken Dean Richards off them too, although Richards was absent injured for the cup meeting. Goran Bunjevcevic was on the bench for Spurs, and it is so sad to think that two members of a Spurs squad from only 17 years ago are no longer with us.

Southampton reached that season's final but were beaten 1-0 by Arsenal. "Saints" were managed by Gordon Strachan when they beat us. Substitute Kevin Davies got a mention in our Middlesbrough Cup preview because of his former association with Chesterfield and subsequent signing from Southampton for Bolton.

We can only hope the events of 17 years ago are not repeated. I haven't seen team news yet, but I assume it will be no different from that before the Norwich game. No doubt Jose will make one or two changes and I would hope to see Tanguy Ndombele play. With Winks no doubt missing, Dier will probably have the holding role, and Ndombele will have the freedom he needs for his advances on the run. Remember Tanguy set us on the way to a narrow victory in our home league game against Southampton in September.

When these two teams met in the FA cup in 1948 Alf Ramsey and Ted Bates played in Southampton team, whilst the Spurs team included Bill Nicholson and Vic Buckingham. All were future managers, of course, following different paths through history. Spurs went on to the 1948 semi-final when they were beaten by 3-1 Blackpool. That Blackpool side featured Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen. Mortensen scored all three Blackpool goals, as he would in the famous 1953 "Matthews Final".

Spurs also met Southampton in the Screen Sport Super Cup in October and December 1985. Spurs won both games (2-1 at home and 3-1 away) but lost in the semi-final against Everton in 1986. Both Spurs and Southampton would have qualified for the UEFA Cup, but this competition was organised in lieu of European competition from which English clubs had been banned following the events at The Heysel Stadium, Brussels in the European Cup Final of 1985, when Liverpool lost to Juventus. Not a lot of people talk about that these days.

In the 1990 meeting David Howells scored our goal and would end his career on Southampton's books after leaving Spurs. Alan Shearer made a substitute appearance for the "Saints" replacing Paul Rideout. Rideout subsequently played for Everton and appeared in the 1995 FA Cup semi-final against us at Elland Road. Rideout scored Everton's winning goal in the Final that year against Manchester United.

A happy memory for Spurs fans is of course the 1995 replay which we won 6-2, having been two down at half-time. Ronny Rosenthal scored a magical hat-trick, two of which were scored in the second half to take the game into extra time when we scored four more. Ronny got his hat-trick goal, and Teddy Sheringham, Nicky Barmby and Darren Anderton chipped in. Ronny was a substitute and replaced Stuart Nethercott. When interviewed in 2003, Ronny said this:-

"I had more than a few great games in my career and this ranks as one of them," he recalled. "But doing things like that was part of my character. I always believed I could win games on my own, especially when coming off the bench and the opposing defenders were tired.

"I know there are not many players like that around today. I enjoyed my time at Spurs, but that match was something special because it was on TV too. I often watch a video of the game even now.

"I had just come back after being out for about six weeks with a ligament injury and had only played a few reserve games. I was just not fit enough to play 90 minutes.

"Gerry put me on the bench because he knew that one of my strengths was to come on and make things happen. But even I never dreamt I'd score three goals. I don't think Bruce (Grobbelaar) could do anything about any of them really. The third one I caught just at the right time but all of them were scored from outside the area, which was unusual again for me.

"I used to room with Bruce when I was at Liverpool and I briefly spoke to him after the game, but I think all he said, jokingly, was 'b******!'

"At 2-0 down I think most people thought the game was over and I even saw people leaving the stadium just before half-time. I knew I had done something special the next day when there was a queue of reporters and TV crews outside my flat."

Alan Ball was the Southampton manager back in 1995.

Will there be drama tomorrow? There's an extra allocation for Cup games, and I believe some 5,000 Spurs fans will be urging on their team to success. I'm not sure that can be achieved in one hit, and I fancy the game will need a replay which presumably would impinge upon our forthcoming two-week break.

This will be referee Peter Bankes' first game in charge of Spurs. Mr Bankes has taken charge of 6 Premier League games this season, including Southampton's 1-1 draw at Molineux in October.

· "Ten Years After" - Spurs Odyssey reviews the season in which we first qualified for the Champions League. On January 26th 2010, we beat Fulham 2-0 with goals by Peter Crouch and David Bentley. It was the day Gareth Bale broke his 23 match hoodoo of never starting for Spurs in a winning match!

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