A player who Spurs signed from the Lilleshall National FA School of Excellence, Hung Dang was a boat person who had come to England from Vietnam and settled in the West Country before Terry Venables brought him to White Hart Lane.

Arriving in England in the mid-1970s from his village of Mo Cai in Vietnam, where his family fled from the Communist regime in power to float around the South China Sea for months.  Once they hit land, they spent a long time in a refugee camp in Hong Kong before the seven year old came to be housed on a Taunton housing estate with his parents, two sisters and a brother.

Hung was a talented sportsman in more than just football.  A useful table tennis player, Dang also excelled at rugby and a County champion at his age for 100m and high jump.

Without being able to speak English, Hung played in goal for Victoria Colts Under-11s and then moved outfield, playing in each area of the team in his first season, showing his talent even as a young boy.  He entered a soccer skills competition run by Bobby Charlton and out of the 10,000 entrants, he won the tournament in front of a packed Old Trafford, which brought him to the attention of a wider audience than just the Somerset league he played in.  On a trip to London for a TV show, Spurs had arranged for a visit to White Hart Lane, as the Vietnamese youngster had said he might like to play for the club one day.  (See more about his early career at http://www.raypoole.co.uk/football.html) 

Shortly after this, he was signed on schoolboy forms for Tottenham and was picked to join the FA's school at Lilleshall, the national football centre.  However, it was a big move for the 15 year old to be away from his family after all he had been through, but he stuck to his studies and his football training and on 8th August 1967 he represented England Under-16s against Denmark at Wembley.  The match was a warm-up for the Football League Centenary match between a Football League select Xi and a Rest of the World XI managed by Terry Venables.  With a host of stars in the main game watching, Hung Dang scored both goals in a 2-0 England win to live up to the meaning of his name - "hero" !!

Dang was a contemporary of Ian Walker, Trevor Sinclair, Ollie Morah and Andy Cole in the England Under-16s and was assimilated into the Spurs youth side, where his strength and passing ability stood out.  He scored seven goal in the 32 games he played from November 1987 to September 1990, when he suffered a stress fracture of his spine that required surgery and that, coupled with homesickness for his family back in the West Country, prevented him playing for Spurs again.

He moved onto Exeter City when he left Tottenham, then Poole Town, Yeovil Town, Chard Town and Salisbury before he finally retired from the senior game after suffering further injuries that ended his career.  He played locally and continued to live in the area.