Our Thursday programme series last week went back 56 years, to the first ever floodlight
match at Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart lane. Today, we hop across North London to Highbury, and
Arsenal's first major floodlit fixture against Hapoel Tel Aviv.
Programme cover courtesy of the highly-recommended Footysphere.
Hull City vs. Tampa Bay Rowdies, Anglo-American Cup, April 8th 1984
This week's classic programme is. . . a classic. A match-up between Hull City and Tampa Bay
Rowdies in an obscure 1984 tournament, the most far out part of the whole fixture was the forward
to the programme by Hull City chairman Don Robinson, whose excitement has clearly gotten the better
of him.
In the latest in our Thursday classic programmes series, we go back to March 1981 and two teams
recently in the news taking on each other in something like their glory years. Watford would be
promoted the next season to the top flight for the first time as they rose from the fourth division
to the first in just five years, while in the NASL's summer 1981 season, the Whitecaps would win
their division and reach the playoff semi-finals just a couple of years after their only Soccer
Bowl triumph.
Our new Thursday series looks at classic football programmes, that perfect accompaniment for
a trip down memory lane. This week: we go back 56 years, to the first ever floodlight match at
Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart lane, with the programme's cover promising Spurs were in for "very
attractive visitors" and "very sporting opponents" with the visit of Racing Club de Paris.
Wolves' infamous game with Honved of Hungary was one of the classics of the twentieth century,
and one of the first intra-European games played under floodlights. See inside the full programme
at Footysphere, with an awesome interactive feature.
Related posts:
- Classic Programmes: #1, Birmingham City vs.
Sheffield Football Club vs. Queen's Park, Centenary Celebration
This match, the world's first ever club centenary celebration, marked 100 years from the day of
the founding of Sheffield Football Club, generally recognised as the world's oldest club who still
play today.
Programme cover courtesy of the excellent Footysphere.
This seems like a week that Portsmouth fans need cheering up, so here's a reminder of olden
days: a beautiful programme from 1956, featuring what Portsmouth is best known for, its naval
heritage: H.M.S. Victory was Lord Nelson's ship in the Battle of Trafalgar, and is now docked in
Portsmouth as a wonderful museum ship.
In the latest installment of our classic programmes series, we look at the cover from a marathon
FA Cup tie in 1960, the second replay of first division Arsenal against second division Rotherham
in the third round.
Having each played one game at home, two neutral venues (one nearer to each club) were selected,
and a coin toss held to see whether the game would be played closer to Rotherham at Hillsborough,
Sheffield, or at White Hart Lane in north London.
