TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR v NEWCASTLE UNITED

Date : -  Monday 24th September 1951

Kick off : -  7:00 p.m.

Venue : -  White Hart Lane.

Crowd : -   27,760

Weather : -  Dry, warm.

Referee : -  . ?? (-)

Score : -

Goalscorers : -           

Tottenham Hotspur : -  Ted Ditchburn, Charlie Withers, Arthur Willis, Bill Nicholson, Harry Clarke, Ron Burgess, Sonny Walters, Les Bennett, Len Duquemin, Peter Murphy, Les Medley.

Newcastle United : -  Ronnie Simpson, John Duncan, Alf McMichael, Joe Harvey, Frank Brennan, Ted Robledo, Tommy Walker, George Robledo, Jackie Milburn, George Hannah, Bobby Mitchell.

The Push and Run side that Spurs had won the First Division championship with in the 1950-51 season got to host the FA Charity Shield match with FA Cup winner Newcastle United their opponents. 

The game kicked off in the early evening, with Spurs taking to the field with Charlie Withers taking the place of Alf Ramsey, who was injured in Tottenham's 2-0 win over Manchester United at the weekend.  Len Duquemin had come into the team in place of Sid McClellan and Tommy Harmer had been replaced by Peter Murphy, while Newcastle turned up with the team beaten 0-3 by Charlton Athletic at the Valley. 

With the game starting with Spurs dominating the early stages, it was a surprise that Newcastle failed to show much attacking intent.  Their goalkeeper, Ronnie Simpson, was the one who was under pressure, but Tottenham failed to test his shot-stopping ability when they could have done. 

But United came into the match with Bobby Mitchell playing the ball forward and Jackie Milburn making up ground to beat Harry Clarke to it, then Arthur Willis failed to knock the England striker off the ball, leaving him the opportunity to fire his shot from just inside the box beyond Ted Ditchburn to give the visitors the lead. 

From the kick-off, Spurs sought to rectify the score-line and two minutes later, Bill Nicholson used his head to divert a George Robertson effort fortuitously to Les Bennett, who quickly assessed the options and played his pass through to Peter Murphy.  The striker was onto it like lightning and beat Frank Brennan to it and lifted the ball over a prone Simpson to level the scores. 

Spurs then tried everything to score, but could not beat the keeper again, so turned around all square.  However, while Newcastle showed little adventure, Milburn was running Clarke ragged in the Tottenham defence.  His threat was noticed by manager Rowe and he deployed Clarke to mark Milburn tighter and with the rest of the team closing down the Newcastle players when they were on the ball, it limited the amount of the ball that the legendary forward saw. 

Ten minutes into the second half, Spurs scored what proved to be the winning goal.  An in-swinging Les Medley corner was placed in the six yard box and rising highest, Les Bennett headed the ball into the net to make it 2-1.  He went off shortly afterwards, with a thigh muscle injury that caused him to leave the field, but he did return later, although only as a passenger wide on the wing. 

This did not help Tottenham and Newcastle looked the more likely to score next, but despite further injuries to Willis, Murphy and Withers, the League champions held out to claim their latest piece of silverware, with Nicholson, Medley and Duquemin all almost scoring as the game neared the final whistle.

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