“People would adapt to the situation and come through”

The worldwide outbreak of Coronavirus has caused the biggest dislocation of the footballing calendar in peacetime, but for the Spurs players and supporters who’ve lived through the most severe of situations in the past, one collective memory abides: “Everyone made their own entertainment.”

Apart from the big freeze of 1962/63, where plummeting temperatures and prolonged spells of snow and ice caused widespread postponements and left some clubs without a game for up to 70 days – we managed to squeeze in two matches in a four-day mid-January window, both at White Hart Lane, between Boxing Day and 23 February – the current predicament hasn’t been seen since World War II.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany in September, 1939, and the Football League was abandoned with clubs only having played three games of that season – we’d managed 1-1 draws with Birmingham City and Newport County, plus a 4-3 defeat away to West Bromwich Albion.

Soon enough, the beautiful game would restart, albeit in the form of the Wartime League and subsequent regional incarnations of the Football League – the divisional structure as we knew it wouldn’t return until 1946 – but, football or not, people coped with the disruption to the life they’d been accustomed to. And for those future Spurs players and fans who were around at the time, the key was to stay active – something that would help them greatly in the long-run.

“Games were cancelled but I can’t say I was watching much football then, I was just all-consumed by playing it myself,” admitted future Double-winner Cliff Jones, just 10 years old in Swansea at the cessation of hostilities. “During the war we’d go over to the beach, we had Swansea Bay, it’d be 20-a-side and in many ways, that’s where I learned to dribble because in 20-a-side, if you pass the ball, you’re not going to see it for another 10 minutes, so I held onto it for as long as I could! There were one or two other useful lads in those games and of course our former player Terry Medwin was involved, he’s a Swansea boy as well and we’re of a similar age.

“You’d look along that big stretch of bay and there’d be games going in every area, all the different boys, they were all playing on their own patch. That was something to behold on a Sunday morning. And if you owned a football, blimey, you were a top man! You had to play – everybody wanted to have a game. They were special times. The games would go on for hours and it was our only form of entertainment. We played with a tennis ball in the streets as well because there was no traffic about, so you could do that. In many ways, that’s where lots of the players of that era learned how to control a football because when you’ve got a tennis ball, you’d play it up against the wall and get the rebound – that in its own way was developing your skills, which at that particular time we didn’t realise.”

Where’s 85-year-old Cliff now as the nation gets to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic? Following government guidelines and staying at home... while out in his garden perfecting his golf swing. Of course he is! Not to mention appearing in his very own incredible keep-fit video that’s been doing the rounds on social media.

Staying home , staying safe , keeping fit. If we all work together we can beat this. #Coronavid19 pic.twitter.com/bOND5U0PnI

— Cliff Jones (@Cliff_Jones11) March 24, 2020

“I’m sure it’s the same now – people would adapt to the situation and, all being well, come through,” added Martin Plaskow, a dedicated Spurs fan for 78 years who first came to White Hart Lane during the war in 1942. “You had a great time of making your own entertainment back then. In the summer months we were always over the local recreation ground playing cricket or football. You played football in the street, you made your own entertainment. You didn’t have phones and computers. You played amongst yourselves. There were no televisions then so you’d listen to the radio or do other things.

“Now of course we’re stuck indoors – what can you do? But then you could get out. No football? Okay, it wasn’t the end of the world. People weren’t relying on phones or televisions to make their entertainment, you had to do something yourself. If you were old enough, you’d play cards – it was everything where your brain was working. There wasn’t anything like the seriousness of the disease that we’ve got at the moment that stopped football – you had fogs of course, thick fogs, pea-soupers, yellow fogs which were dangerous for a lot of people and obviously matches would be stopped or abandoned because of those conditions, but other than that, once they got things organised with the war leagues, the football was played regularly. Even if a match was postponed (because of the hostilities) it would be played on another day – they kept the leagues going right through until the end of the war.”

Having begun the doomed 1939/40 campaign in the Second Division, we won the Wartime League's Regional League South 'C' in 1940. Subsequently we contested the Football League South, at one stage also taking part in the London War League, which was independently put together by clubs in the capital’s region struggling with the travel schedules owing to the conflict. We became Football League South champions in 1944, retaining the title the following year.

“They postponed the league at the start of the war but there were still divisions, tables, different players who would come down from places like Manchester to play for Spurs and Arsenal as ‘guest players’. Arsenal played at White Hart Lane during that period as well (Highbury having been requisitioned for the war effort). It was an incredible time really, but I just remember more about the bombs dropping,” said Eddie Clayton, our former inside forward, now 82, who was born in Bethnal Green and was a young child during the conflict.

“I didn’t go to those wartime games – mum and dad didn’t have a lot of money, things were scarce and to get money to go on a bus or a train and go into a ground… no, I didn’t start going to football until after the war really. But it’s their life, football, for the supporters. If they lose, they’re down and disappointed. They loved it – it helped lots of people get through the war. My dad was a big supporter and he used to go to games when he could.”

One of our oldest surviving former players, 87-year-old Tony Marchi was born in Edmonton and remembers being around the local area during the war years: “I played for my school team, Raynham, on Raynham Road,” he told us a few days ago from his home in Essex. “Senior football was split into sections in the south and the north and they had separate leagues. The actual Football League was stopped in 1939 because footballers had to go in the Army, but you found most clubs had guest players, so if you were a footballer and you were stationed up north, you’d probably be playing for Newcastle. You had a load of guest players going out to every club. Sometimes you had a club with all guest players – not even one of theirs.”

Naturally, football and all recreational activities remained secondary at the time because of mankind’s higher priorities. Even when the Football League returned in its national guise for the first time following the conclusion of the war in 1946/47, the government banned midweek matches in an attempt to help the economy right itself – a combination of that restriction and a particularly harsh winter gave rise to the only Football League match we’ve ever played in the month of June as we rounded off the elongated campaign with a 1-1 home draw with Barnsley on 7 June, 1947. You wonder if that record will still stand come this summer.

“The main concern was the war and we had to win – that was the biggest thing that was on people’s minds. Football didn’t come into it,” underlined Martin, who also spoke to us at length about his memories of supporting the Club earlier this season, including the time he and the rest of White Hart Lane went to ground during a wartime match against West Ham when a Doodlebug’s engine stopped overhead. The stadium breathed a collective sigh of relief but some locals weren’t as fortunate as it came down just up the High Road at the Angel Edmonton.

“I can’t remember football ever being disbanded like it is today,” he continued. “At the beginning of the war, yes, because they were unsure of what the situation was going to be, but they soon got themselves organised. At the beginning of the war, 1939, I was six, but once we were into the 1940s, the matches seemed to go on, sometimes with guest players. The programme printers didn’t know who was going to turn up in the teams so they used to put in ‘AN Other’ and when they announced the names on the day of the game, you’d write the names in. I didn’t understand that at the time and I saw one match where I hadn’t changed the player’s name and at the next game I said to my friend, “that AN Other’s not on the programme, he was terrific last week!” – not realising that it was a nom de plume because they didn’t know who it was! That’s the way things were. It was the atmosphere, you accepted it, life had to go on, very much like life has to go on now. Let’s hope we get back to watching football again soon.”