The year is 1995 and Tottenham have just finished above Arsenal
Published:
With just 10 games of this year’s Premier League remaining, Tottenham sit second in the table, and while a real chance at this season’s title is plenty for Spurs fans to get excited about, so is the prospect of finishing above old rivals Arsenal, especially with the north London derby this Saturday.
Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs sit three points above the Gunners, and having come close time and time again to ending the campaign higher than their not-so-loved neighbours, this season looks like being Tottenham’s best chance yet.
Any of the White Hart Lane faithful under 25 probably won’t even remember a time when their club finished higher in the table, with Arsenal currently holding a Premier League dominance for 21 years.
A lot has changed in that time, so we’ve hopped into the Ladbrokes News time machine (we all have one, right?) to remind ourselves what life was like in the summer of 1995…
As Blackburn edged Manchester United to the 1994-95 table, Tottenham finished an unremarkable eighth under Gerry Francis despite the huge 21-goal haul from Jurgen Klinsmann, while the Gunners – managed by Bruce Rioch – limped home 12th and infamously lost the Cup Winners’ Cup final to ‘that’ Nayim goal for Real Zaragoza in a team which also featured future Spurs hero Gus Poyet.
Darren Anderton, Teddy Sheringham and Ian Walker didn’t have much time off however, as they were included in the England squad for the Umbro Cup (remember when Umbro were a thing?)
The four-team contest saw Brazil, Japan and Sweden head to our fine shores for a friendly competition.
Anderton scored in England’s opening 2-1 win over Japan, witnessed by just 21,000 fans at the grand old Wembley, before he and Sheringham netted in a thrilling 3-3 draw with Sweden.
Unfortunately Terry Venables’ Three Lions were then given a lesson by Brazil, with Juninho, original Ronaldo and Edmundo netting for the South Americans. Graeme Le Saux scored a fine effort for the hosts, and optimism was high as Brazil obviously wouldn’t be at Euro 1996…
As Spurs enjoyed three months of north London glory, the UK political scene was dominated by then-Prime Minister John Major’s decision to resign as Conversative leader on June 22, before being re-elected two weeks later.
Ten points for any of who you can tell us who was number one in the charts across the summer of ’95…
Nope. Didn’t think so.
Robson Green and Jerome Flynn dominated the scene with Unchained Melody spending a solid seven weeks at the top, until it was finally ousted by Outhere Brothers and Boom Boom Boom.
What a time to be alive.
It was a huge time for fans of a good old click-flick, with what is a now cult classic Clueless being released in July.
Batman Forever – the Val Kilmer one – was also out this summer, while Tom Hanks and Houston had a problem in Apollo 13, and Free Willy (Not the Man City keeper) got a second outing.
And what about the mobile phone world? Obviously everybody had a Nokia 3310…
Sadly not. This harrowing time was still five years before the glorious Finnish unbreakable beast of a phone, with Motorola’s Flare L being one of a handful of modern mobiles available at the time.
All this meant that spectators at Wimbledon actually watched the Tennis rather than take selfies, as Pete Sampras beat Boris Becker in what proved to be the German’s seventh and last final at SW19.
Sampras also beat Tim Henman in round two in what was Tiger Tim’s second Wimbledon appearance while Steffi Graf claimed the 17th of her 22 Grand Slam titles in the Ladies event.
Clearly something was in the air with Spurs being top of the north London pile, with the UK basking in some glorious 30c weather for much of late July and August in one of the greatest heatwaves in recent memory.
But amongst all the wonderful and not so wonderful things that came following Spurs’ most recent table-topping success over Arsenal, was the news in June 95 that the Gunners shelled out £7m for Dennis Bergkamp from Inter Milan…
Change was coming.
All odds and markets correct as of the date of publishing.
