Tottenfirnmerung
By HANS KELLI The three Easter games provided a concise history of the situation. Of the six goals which Liverpool scored in two games, only one was good—St. John's second at Anfield. This is not a complaint : a goal is a goal, and luck, which accompanies confidence and quick reaction, tends to reside in the better team. But the fact remains that Liverpool's three goals at Tottenham were made possible by defensive slips; that St. John's first at Liverpool surprised him as much as it did the goalkeeper, having been intended as a left-foot cross; and that Arrowsmith's clinching goal was miles offside. But then, why should the gods forget debit accounts? In the Cup Winners' Cup Final last year, at 2—I when Atletico Madrid were pressing hard, Dyson scored the decisive goal with a cross; and in the Cup Final in 1962, Greaves scored his third-minute goal by mishitting the ball.
From what has been written about the Good Friday match at Tottenham, nobody would have gathered that the corner score was 8-2 for Spurs, 4-0 at half-time, with Liverpool gaining their first corner in the fifty-sixth minute. Yet no better objective evidence could be given of the depression which has been paralysing, the team at many a decisive moment.
Before leaving for Craven Cottage on Satur- day, safely installed in my armchair, I expounded to my wife the changes I would make for the match against Fulham. I subsequently found that Bill Nicholson had gone with me a lot of the way, though he had disregarded my most dramatic decision—to play Blanchflower. Might not the master's guiding foot have made a difference in this game, where John White was just beginning to regain confidence, where Greaves, that in-
cvitably changeable geniJs, showed enough fire to race from one end of the field to the other in pursuit of the referee?
It was in this match (which felt like a cup-tie) that Tottenham's psychological insecurity was most palpable, contrasting as it did with the assurance with which Johnny Haynes made play and scored into the bargain. Again and again, there were the fractional hesitations which, on the highest level, make the difference between success and so-called 'bad luck.'
And so to Liverpool itself for the Goiter- danunerung. At Lime Street, helped by the acoustics of the station, the by now tiny band of supporters shouted their last defiant `Tott-en- ham, Tott-en-ham,' the war song 'Glory, glory, hallelujah, and the Spurs go marching on' having lost some of its realism. At the ground, the an- nouncement that Greaves was not going to play was greeted with a howl of delight, .which in its turn was greeted with a smile from Jimmy Greaves in the stand. Without him, and Mullery's volley goal apart, Spbrs had exactly three shots at a goal, one a fine effort by Jimmy Robertson, the new Scottish winger. In the first half he played most like the old Spurs (rather in White's style), of whom only three were now left. Indeed, he and Mullery fitted so well into the side because there was no longer any well-defined side to fit into. Paradoxically, then, one suddenly felt that the new Spurs were in the making. With Mackay back and Greaves and White back on form, and with one or two new players . . but first let's see what happens on Saturday against Ipswich.
'It's nothing but go! go! go! this year.'
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