William Gallas of Tottenham Hotspur

Gallas - Spurs new signing

Photo: from Daily Mail

Welcome, William Gallas of Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs fans would never have expected to be saying or reading that and for some it is just too much to accept. A former Chelsea and Arsenal player playing for Spurs – what will they do when he is presented to a packed White Hart Lane at the Champions League qualifier on Wednesday evening – boo, cheer, jeer or ignore him?

William Gallas, a former Arsenal captain is a Spurs player – accept it and move on. For too long Spurs fans have been their own worst enemy – hidebound on hating Arsenal and anything to do with that club rather than supporting Spurs and accepting something that could be beneficial for the further development and progress of Tottenham Hotspur.

Gallas isn’t the first player to move from Arsenal to Tottenham but he is certainly the most high profile – a former captain who has also played for Chelsea. How we loathed him when he was a member of those teams as they have got the better of Spurs for much of the past decade, how we detested him as he celebrated scoring vital goals against us, how we jeered him as a member of the Chelsea and Arsenal teams which lost 5-1 in those fantastic League Cup semi-finals at White Hart Lane, how we mocked him when he had his sit-down strop and cried in the pitch at Birmingham a couple of years ago – but that’s all in the past – he’s a Spurs player now. He knows what’s happened in the past, he knows our feelings about him as an Arsenal player and he’s still prepared to sign for Tottenham.

Previous players to move to Tottenham from the near neighbours have brought little to the club – Laurie Brown was a defender who occasionally tried to play as a striker and for some reason Bill Nicholson thought he could play a part in the rebuilding of the ‘Double’ team – a task that was beyond his capabilities. David Jenkins was a reserve who was swopped for Jimmy Robertson and remained a reserve at White Hart Lane. Rohan Ricketts was a young player who didn’t make the grade at Arsenal or Spurs while Jamie O’Hara and David Bentley a former Arsenal player signed from Blackburn Rovers have failed to become big players at either club. Bentley’s goal at the Emirates in the 4-4 draw is possibly the greatest contribution any of those former Arsenal players has contributed to the Tottenham cause. So, from a Tottenham perspective nothing good has ever come out of Highbury or The Emirates and that includes the two former managers, Terry Neill and George Graham. What were the Tottenham directors thinking about when they appointed Neill to replace Bill Nicholson? Even Graham’s Worthington Cup success wasn’t enough to win over the Spurs faithful.

However, over the years the Highbury clientele quickly took to the former Spurs who made the journey south – Jimmy Robertson, Willie Young, Steve Walford, the legendary Pat Jennings and Sol Campbell. The greatest hostility surrounded the defection of Campbell and continues to this day but all had greater success with Arsenal than any of the players who made the opposite move.

When I first read of Harry Redknapp’s interest in signing Gallas who was a free agent having turned down Arsenal’s offer during the summer, I wasn’t impressed and presumed it was just media talk. However, as the rumours persisted and the manager became more determined in his comments about signing the player, it became obvious that this was going to happen especially as the Spurs defence could not rely on a season’s contribution from either Ledley King or Jonathan Woodgate due to their continuing injury problems.

And so it has come to pass and Spurs have signed Gallas. His background, with Arsenal and Chelsea connections, may not be as Spurs supporters would want but the club has signed a player with vast experience in the Premier League, in the Champions League and internationally on the world stage with France. He is a versatile player who can play along the back four and he is a winner who has known success at club and international level. He may be nearing the end of his career but he has shown he is still capable of performing at this level and his experience will be of great benefit to the Spurs defenders. Michael Dawson, Vedron Corluka, Sebastien Bassong and Benoit Assou-Ekotto are all prone to errors when under pressure and they will look to learn from Gallas who has been there, done it and has the t-shirt.

In previous seasons there were rumours of Spurs trying to sign former Arsenal players, namely Emmanuel Petit and more recently Patrick Vieira. Neither of them did I want at Tottenham. I e-mailed the club to tell them of my dissatisfaction at the suggestion that they would sign Petit. He had snubbed Tottenham Hotspur previously in a most unsatisfactory way by going straight from a Tottenham interview to sign on at Highbury. To have signed him would have been unacceptable and when Vieira wanted to return to the Premier League, in my opinion, his best days were clearly past him and he would have brought little to the Tottenham cause.

However, with William Gallas, it is different as he can bring something to strengthen the team and assist in the improvement of the players around him. Remember how Ledley King developed and benefited from playing beside the experienced Noureddine Naybet earlier in his career and Spurs infamous ‘soft-centred’ defence has since become a great deal tougher. Gallas has spoken wisely in his first interview about wanting to play for Tottenham and what he hopes to achieve with the club. He deserves the support of the fans for his brave decision to travel up the Seven Sisters Road to Tottenham, especially as he has experienced at first hand the Spurs supporters’ hostility to all things ‘Arsenal’.

All around the football world players have signed for clubs which are the bitterest of rivals and they have been accepted by both sets of supporters. Tottenham fans can step away from their past narrow, parochial view and move forward into a broad new world by accepting William Gallas as a Spur and how appropriate it would be to show that acceptance and support when he is introduced to the crowd at Spurs most important game in decades as they strive to reach the group stages of the Champions League for the first time and make it a true Glory, Glory European night under the lights of White Hart Lane.

Spurs in Switzerland

Tottenham Hotspur face Swiss opponents, Young Boys Berne, as they strive to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League for the first time in their history.  Spurs supporters will of course point out that their club did appear in the European Cup, the fore-runner to today's Champions League, in season 1961-62 when they were unfortunate to lose in the semi-final to Benfica.



This is only the second occasion in all their European ties that Spurs have been drawn against a team from Switzerland.  The previous meeting with a Swiss club was in 1973-74 in the 1st Round of the UEFA Cup when Spurs played Grasshopper Zurich.  The aggregate win was 9-2 in Spurs' favour which suggests a very comfortable passage for the north London team but this could not be further from the truth as Spurs endured a very difficult evening in Zurich for the first leg.  It was the goalkeeping talent of Pat Jennin which kept Spurs in the game as he produced save after save.  Spurs took an early lead from a Martin Chivers' header but then Grasshopper created chance after chance only to be thwarted by Jennings.  On the half-hour Ray Evans added a second for Spurs, very much against the run of play.  Just before the interval the home side finally beat Jennings from the penalty spot to reduce the arrears. 



In the second half Jennings continued to deny the Swiss with a succession of outstanding saves and then Chivers scored his second while Alan Gilzean added two more to add insult to injury and produce a quite extraordinary score line.



Team: Jennings; Evans, Knowles, Coates (Holder), England, Beal; Pratt, Perryman, Chivers, Peters, Neighbour (Gilzean).



The second game was much more comfortable - Mike England, Martin Peters (2) and an own goal ensured a 4-1 victory at White Hart Lane.



Team: Daines; Evans, Knowles; Pratt, England, Beal; Gilzean, Perryman, Chivers, Peters, Coates



Previous visits to Switzerland have included a tour in 1966-67 following Spurs FA Cup success.  The second game of the tour saw then play Young Boys Berne.  Spurs won the three games they played:

FC Zurich - Won 2-0 Robertson (2)

BSC Young Boys - Won 3-2 Greaves (2), Bond

FC Servette - Won 4-1 Greaves (2), Venables, Saul

In season 1957-58 Spurs went to Basel to play a match against the Swiss National XI.  They won the game by 5-4 with Bobby Smith scoring four goals and Dave Dunmore getting the fifth.

In May, 1914 Spurs undertook an end of season tour of Germany, Italy and Switzerland.  Two games were played in Switzerland - a 6-0 win over Zurich and a 3-0 success against St Gallen.

The next tour that the club undertook was eleven years later when they played seven games in Switzerland in May, 1925.  Again they were successful in each match:

v Basel Old Boys Won 3-0

v Zurich Young Fellows Won 2-0

v Wintherthur Won 4-0

v Lausanne Won 6-1

v La Cheux de Fonds Won 8-1

v Berne Won 5-0

v Basel Won 1-0

In March, 1955 Spurs played FC Servette in a friendly at White Hart Lane.  They had a 5-1 victory with goals from Gavin (2), Brooks, Duquemin, McClellan.   

Players from Switzerland:

Spurs have had two players from Switzerland on their books in recent years - Ramon Vega and Reto Ziegler. 

Ramon Vega

Vega made 64 appearances for Spurs and was a member of the Worthington Cup winning team in 1999 which defeated Leicester City 1-0. He scored 7 goals in his four years at White Hart Lane. He went to Celtic on loan and then signed for Watford after being released by Tottenham.

Ziegler was a young player who made 23 League appearances, scoring once, under Martin Jol and is now playing for Sampdoria.  Both players represented their country in full internationals.