Doherty at the double! Birthday boy remembers Sunderland brace...

Seeing us head to Sunderland brings back happy memories for former player Gary Doherty.

The Republic of Ireland international, who famously played at both centre-half and centre-forward during his four years at White Hart Lane, scored two second half goals against the Black Cats in April, 2001, as we came back from 2-0 down to snatch a 3-2 victory at the Stadium of Light.

Celebrating his 37th birthday today (Tuesday, January 31), the former Norwich City man recalls the game fondly for one reason in particular.

“I played the full 90 up front, I got a nice left-foot finish and a six-yard box finish which I was quite proud of, but I remember it because it was the only time in the Premier League where I scored a brace!” he smiled.

“I remember we were 2-0 down and Ledley King came off with a nasty head injury. He was happy to find out afterwards that we’d turned it around.

“To be fair, Sunderland were a fantastic team at the time, they had Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips up front so it was a good win for us. The Stadium of Light is a great venue and it was a fantastic game as well – to win 3-2 away from home was brilliant and I still remember the feeling.”

Stephen Clemence was also on target after Kevin Kilbane and Quinn had put the hosts in control, but what does Gary predict for us during tonight’s return to the north-east?

“I like watching Tottenham away,” he said. “They seem to play with a lot of energy, they’re very good on the counter-attack and obviously fantastic defensively so they’re pretty much made up as the perfect away team. I would imagine it will be hard for Sunderland to be honest but you never know – we’ll see how it goes.”