March 21 – By George! | On This Football Day

March 21 – By George!

AS PR jobs go, it’s a tricky one. Making Spurs fans fall for one of Arsenal’s most successful ever managers would stump even Max Clifford at his smarmiest.

When George Graham took over at White Hart Lane in 1998 the only way he was going to enamour himself to the Spurs faithful was trophies. Lots of trophies. Unfortunately for him though, the League Cup, which he picked up today in 1999, wasn’t enough.

Graham had been sacked by the Gooners in 1995 when it was discovered he had accepted a dodgy envelope with £425,000 cash in from Norwegian agent Rune Hauge during Arsenal’s purchase of John Jensen in 1992.

He then had to sit out a one-year ban from the FA before returning to management with Leeds United, where he would lead the Yorkshire side to fifth in the table and pave the way for Ridsdale and O’Leary to ‘live the dream’ and go wild buying over-priced goldfish and over-paying Seth Johnson.

In October 1998 Graham was the surprise choice to take over from caretaker David Pleat who had been manning the ship since Tube-enthusiast Christian Gross was sacked.

In first season Graham had led Spurs to the last ever League Cup final at the old Wembley Stadium, where they met Martin O’Neill’s Leicester City.

The 77,892 fans in attendance that day were not really treated to a classic. As the clock reached 90 minutes all the game had to show was a Justin Edinburgh red card and a Ramon Vega last-ditch tackle to prevent Emile Heskey scoring.

Just as everyone got ready for extra time Spurs’ Danish midfielder Allan Nielsen found the net with a last-gas diving header and their eight-year wait for a trophy was over.

Some Spurs fans began to get excited and believe they would become the dominant force in north London football, but a large proportion still couldn’t take Graham to their hearts and when he failed to break the top half of the Premiership he was sacked by Daniel Levy in March 2001.

History repeated itself last season, when Juande Ramos picked up the League Cup in his first season and soon fell though the managerial trap door, so by our logic, it’s a good job for ‘Arry Redknapp that he came home from Wembley with a losers medal last month.

As the ‘99 League Cup final was a far too boring affair for anyone to both uploading footage onto YouTube for we thought we’d show you one of the funnier moments at White Hart Lane from this season instead. Enjoy that, see which other ex-Spurs and Leeds manager was hitting the headlines today here and make sure you’re back tomorrow for more of the same.