Although we haven't competitively played Tottenham Hotspur for 28 seasons (and for a further three seasons in the League), there always seem to be a host of connections knocking about between the two clubs.
Currently, we have a chairman in Paul Duffen who is a boyhood Spurs fan (but holds no candle to the Lilywhites this weekend, of course) plus three ex-Tottenham players, two of whom graduated from their Academy to become first team starters. Nick Barmby started his career there, playing in that amazingly daring (and disastrous) front five system which Osvaldo Ardiles used to commit entertaining defensive suicide. Barmby's odd move to Middlesbrough seemed to be entirely for family reasons and despite a good spell at Everton and numerous trophies at Liverpool, it seems his best football goes back to his teenage years at the Lane.
Dean Marney, meanwhile, was similarly a star graduate of the Academy but didn't get the football he needed upon acquiring a squad number. He'll forever be associated with an outlandish New Year's Day 2005 performance against Everton but otherwise required loan spells and, ultimately, a big move to Hull to get the pitch time a player of his quality required. When he joined City, everyone immediately lurched to YouTube to find his goal versus Everton and loud, appreciative dribbling noises could be heard round the Hull and East Riding boundaries.
Anthony Gardner was a boy on the up when he joined Tottenham from Port Vale, and even secured an England cap during his long period at White Hart Lane. However, he found himself in the stiffs frequently thanks to the likes of Ledley King, Michael Dawson and Jonathan Woodgate (and, early on, Sol Campbell) all being ahead of him, and Spurs fans always said his initial potential was never quite realised. Our record signing, he would have been mad keen for this weekend but his thigh trouble, plus the form of Kamil Zayatte, means that he is almost certain to be absent from the teamsheet.
Beyond those three, our finest defender Michael Turner was a boyhood Tottenham fan and so playing at the club he spent his childhood pocket money on will be a big deal to him. Then there's Andy Dawson, who could very easily come up against his lil' brother Michael, thereby splitting the family loyalty but also representing an astonishingly proud day for the town of Northallerton, their place of upbringing.
Connections with Spurs have been crucial in Hull City's recent progress too. Our other great manager of later years, Peter Taylor, played his highest level of football (if not his best) at Spurs in the late 1970s; indeed, he played in the two League games of 1977-78 against the Tigers which represent the previous time the two clubs were in the same division. Playing connections existed under Taylor too, with right back Alton Thelwell being an exciting free transfer from Spurs but whose injury issues were among the most chronic ever seen in a Hull City player's period at the club. Slightly more recently, Mark Yeates was a reserve winger signed on loan from Spurs, whose acute lack of application made him one of the least successful loan signings any club has ever made.
Two testimonial games of great City vintage - indeed, the last two I think we've had - both came against Tottenham Hotspur. Our long-serving physiotherapist Jeff Radcliffe had a testimonial match in the summer of 1988 against the Tottenham team of the day - Mabbutt, Waddle, Metgod - and Radcliffe himself played the first couple of minutes. As a teenager, I recall getting Paul Allen's autograph and spying the Tottenham team coach afterwards, representing a sort of luxury you'd never get from Plaxtons or Connor & Graham, or even those nicer coaches you'd get on for a foreign holiday courtesy of Siesta.
Three years later, Tottenham came back to play against a Hull City Select XI for Garreth Roberts' testimonial match. Roberts had been forced to quit due to knee trouble after 12 years in the first team and we got a mish-mash game of ex-Tigers (though still active pros) like Steve McClaren and Billy Askew playing against a disappointingly youthful Spurs side lacking in its main stars, though coincidentally a 17 year old Barmby did play. Don't ask me to recall the result of either of these benefit matches as I have no idea at all. My abiding memory of the Roberts match was the on-pitch ovation he got from the supporters afterwards.
We played Spurs in the 1981 FA Cup third round, at the Lane, and were beaten without disgrace. City were relegated to the bottom division that season and Spurs went on to win the FA Cup. That was the last time the two teams met for real - until this Sunday, when, to add to the Barmby/Marney/Gardner stuff (although only Marney will start) we may come up against a certain Fraizer Campbell. What a tangled old web we weave.
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