UEFA 84, 30 years on - Keith Burkinshaw

[mawspurs]

Keith Burkinshaw on the 35th anniversary of the signing of Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, tells how he helped 'Spurs scoop the world' by snapping up the Argentinian World Cup winners.

Read the full article at Official Site

 

[Spriggan]

Unless I'm blind, there's nothing in there about Ossie or Ricky I remember the Burkinshaw years well, I was 16 when he came to the club. Ahh, the memories, 8 years as our manager, I really hope we see that kind of commitment from the board toward our new head coach, but I won't hold my breath. Anyway, loved Keith and the team during those years

 

[Grey Fox]

He was before his time when he said "there used to be a club over there", IMHO we still haven't got that club back.

 

[yiddopaul]

Sigh. Should've been our Fergie.

 

[Edgarsglasses]

2nd only to Bill Nic,loved Keith's teams in the early 80's

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Great team builder of what today would be considered as average players, but when Keith put them together and they understood what was their individual job on the pitch they worked together as well as any team in the Country at that time.

People talk about Suarez and Sturridge at Liverpool but for pure chemistry A&C were the perfect partnership. That season Keith talks about i saw every single goal those pair netted. Tremendous, almost telepathic understanding between them. Spurs have never really had a partnership like that since.

 

[Matthew Wyatt]

I remember the Burkinshaw years well, I was 16 when he came to the club. Ahh, the memories, 8 years as our manager, I really hope we see that kind of commitment from the board toward our new head coach, but I won't hold my breath. Anyway, loved Keith and the team during those years

Same here, except I was a couple of years younger. How I loved that grim northern bastard.

 

[Ionman34]

Great team builder of what today would be considered as average players, but when Keith put them together and they understood what was their individual job on the pitch they worked together as well as any team in the Country at that time.

People talk about Suarez and Sturridge at Liverpool but for pure chemistry A&C were the perfect partnership. That season Keith talks about i saw every single goal those pair netted. Tremendous, almost telepathic understanding between them. Spurs have never really had a partnership like that since.

They almost did in Sheringham and Klinsmann. Those 2 clicked from the off.

Gutted Klinsmann left.

 

[Edgarsglasses]

They almost did in Sheringham and Klinsmann. Those 2 clicked from the off.

Gutted Klinsmann left.

Thought Keano and Berba were very good also

 

[whitesocks]

Unless I'm blind, there's nothing in there about Ossie or Ricky ...

You get the feeling that perhaps he isn't so proud of bringing the Argentinians over, given what has happen in our premier league since - he'd rather talk of all the British/Irish youth he brought through, rather than about Neil Macnab, say, who he had to let go to make way for them.

It was a pretty gruesome story as I remember. The year before, the player unions traded off jobs for increased members rights (to transfer clubs), and agreed to allow overseas players in our league. I imagine the clubs thought they'd get better players at a much cheaper salary - they were half right. And the players thought very few of the fancy foreigners would cope on our winter mud bath pitches - and they were half right too - the clubs just relaid the pitches and the FA took much of the physical side out of the game.

Terry Neil, bless him, the Sol Campbell of the 70's, was offered the 2 Argentinian players, but did not want arsenal to be the first club to introduce overseas players (!!!). To be fair it was the 70's after all and fans were only just coming to terms with some black players in the league - it could have gone either way.
Anyway, he recommended them to Burkinshaw as we needed some quality players having just been promoted. Maybe because spurs have traditionally played a more progressive european game and maybe because our fans have generally been more ahead of the times I like to think, we jumped at the chance. We really thought we would win the league....

But they turned the club around all the same. Without them, the last 35 years could well have resembled West Ham's - with many trips back to the second division. Instead we had some success.
But on the other hand with the club now on the point of appointing a 100% foreign staff and surely on the brink of fielding a 100% overseas 1st team for the first time (or did AVB already claim that prize?), the club that Burkenshaw used to manage has long long gone.