February 4 – City Stun Spurs | On This Football Day

February 4 – City Stun Spurs

WITH Tottenham’s transfer policy this January bring about more comebacks than last time we went down to that dodgy curry-house down the road, we thought we’d bring you the story of the greatest FA Cup fightback in recent seasons.

Today in 2004 Spurs were throwing away a three goal lead against 10-man Manchester City in a Fourth Round replay at White Hart Lane.

After the two teams had played out a 1-1 draw at Eastlands they knew that the winner of the replay was a mouth-watering clash against Manchester United. Spurs used the opportunity to parade their new signing Jermaine Defoe to the crowd prior to kick off (and we thought Groundhog Day fell on February 2nd).

It was Spurs that were first out of the blocks, as Ledley King opened the scoring after two minutes.
The Londoners’ lead was soon doubled when Robbie Keane (remember him Spurs fans?) slotted home and Christian Ziege’s superb free-kick made it 3-0 just before half time.

City had already seen Nicolas Anelka limp off in the first half and their task was made nigh on impossible when Joey Barton did what he does best and was sent off for descent as the two sides left the pitch after the half-time whistle.

Lord knows what City boss Kevin Keegan came out with in the dressing room, but it was no doubt a speech that even Barack Obama’s people would be proud of.

Sylvain Distin gave City a lifeline after only three second-half minutes and when Paul Bosvelt’s deflect shot pulled the score back to 3-2 the bookies that had offered 500-1 on a City win at half-time were beginning to sweat.

Shaun Wright-Phillips gave his adopted father something to shout about with a superb equaliser with 10 minutes to go and Anelka’s replacement Jon Makin headed in the winner at the death to secure a famous win for the Citizens.

“They’ll talk about this game long after we’ve all gone”, opined Keegan after the game in his usual restrained manner. Somewhat predictably City would be unable to beat the odds in the next round as they went down 4-2 to their cross-city rivals as United would go on to lift the famous trophy in Cardiff at the end of the season.

We’ll be back tomorrow for some more stories from days gone by, but if you can’t wait that long, see what we were banging on about this time last year here.