F.A. Cup 3rd Round Replay
Tuesday 14th January 2020
Kick Off 20.05. On Time !
Tottenham Hotspur 2 Middlesbrough 1, attendance 49,202
2’ 1-0 Lo Celso
15’ 2-0 Lamela
83’ 2-1 Saville
@ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Bill Nicholson Way
748 High Road
London
N17 0AP
£20 Admission + £3.50 (Non Members) booking fee, Print at Home Ticket
£3.50 Programme available, didn’t bother buying.
Tottenham moved into their new 62,062 capacity stadium towards the end of last season, playing their final five home league matches there, having played at Wembley Stadium in the interim since leaving their old ‘White Hart Lane’ stadium in May 2017. There is a definite overlap of the stadium footprints at the South end (of the new ground), although I am not too sure whether the actual playing area has any overlap.
It feels like years ago, which of course it is, since I went to the old White Hart Lane ground. In fact, it was 22nd March 1987, when I saw Tottenham beat Liverpool 1-0 in a Division 1 (now Premier League) match in front of 32,760 spectators. It was very early on in my ground hopping days and was done purely to watch the game. Thoughts of ticking off ‘The 92’ had never entered my head at that stage, but that is no longer the case.
The attraction of visiting the ground tonight (apart from recompleting ‘The 92’) was that the tickets had gone on general sale (this was the lowest crowd they have had here for a first team fixture so far), so it was easy to book online, although you were still ripped off £3.50 to print off your own ticket at home! It helped though that all tickets at the North and South ends of the stadium were only £20, which is about as cheap as it gets to watch a match at a Premier League ground these days.
Jose Mourinho played a reasonably strong team, although Harry Kane is missing through injury and Dele Alli and Son Heung-Min were both on the bench, but did play during the last half hour, replacing Eric Dier and Lucas Moura respectively. According to the screens at the ground, Spurs have not lost a home game to lower division opposition in the F.A. Cup for 41 matches, going back to a defeat by Nottingham Forest in 1975! That run looked like it would soon be added to, when a mistake by the Middlesbrough ‘keeper gifted Spurs the opening goal in under two minutes and when the second goal came after a quarter of an hour, it looked like this could be a real thrashing. On balance of play, it could have easily been five or six nil at the break. Spurs played some really good football, and as a neutral, it made the game very easy to watch.
The second half tailed off a bit, but a late goal for Boro meant a very nervy last 10 minutes (including stoppage time) for the hosts. At least it gave the 3,700 fans in the away section of the ground some hope, although Boro never really did enough over all to take the match on into extra time. If it wasn’t for the away fans, the atmosphere would have been pretty dead, as the home support were only heard with an occasional chant here and there.
Due to the late kick off time and the possibility of extra time and penalties, I was forced to drive to the match (if I wanted to guarantee getting home). I drove to Southbury railway station (a couple of miles inside the M25, just off the A10 heading into London), using free street parking in Crown Road, no more than 200 yards away, and got the train 3 stops south to White Hart Lane station, which is only a few minutes walk from the ground. The first train back after the match was at 22.07, so rather than rush, (or leave the game early) I decided to make do with the 22.37 (one of the reasons I don’t use public transport in this country as it is so infrequent and unreliable). I was sitting in the South end of the stadium, up in Row 69, and despite taking forever to get down the blocked exit routes (they stood and applauded the team off the pitch, which was not helped with them attacking the far end in the second half) I easily made the train and was home before midnight.
It has to be said, that of all the new grounds that have been built for Premier League/Football League clubs during the last 30 odd years, (Scunthorpe United kicked it all off when they moved to Glanford Park in 1988) this is, in my opinion, the best of the lot and would rank well against any ground, not just in Europe, but the World.
So, ‘The 92’ is complete once more, for this season at least. Brentford are due to start next season playing at their long awaited new stadium. If things continue to go well for them on the pitch (they are currently third in the Championship) they could start life at their new home as a Premier League club!
