Spurs on this day no 37 in an occasional series

By Dave P
February 26 2005

26th February and a home tie against Fulham. This has only happened once in our past and that was back in 1938 in the old Second Division of the Football League.

26th February and a home tie against Fulham. This has only happened once in our past and that was back in 1938 in the old Second Division of the Football League.

Interesting comparisons between that season and this. In 1938 we won a third round home FA Cup game against a team starting with the letter B by one goal. In 1938 it was Blackburn and the score was 3-2 (as opposed to a 2-1 victory over Brighton) with Fred Sargent and Albert Henry 'Jack' Gibbons twice scoring.

Albert Henry ('Jack') Gibbons was born in Fulham on 10th April 1914 and was never referred to as Albert or Henry, he was always known as Jack to avoid confusion with four other sporting colleagues, all called Gibbons (Bert, Bertie, Albert and Herbert) who were all members of the same local gymnasium club as Jack.
He was an England amateur international who played for Uxbridge, Kingstonian, Brentford, two spells at Spurs (July 1937 - July 1938 and again during the war) and Bradford Park Avenue before returning to Brentford in 1947. Incidentally he also guested for Fulham during the war. Whilst at Spurs he scored 109 goals in 148 first team appearances, the majority of which came during thewar when he also represented the RAF, the FA and England against Wales in 1942.

The FA Cup fourth Round tie in 1938 was a closely contested away draw, 0-0 away to New Brighton, a game I have previously covered in this column, before winning the replay at White Hart Lane. The replay in 1938 was a convincing 5-2 win, Jack Gibbons and Johnny Morrison getting two each and Colin Lyman scoring the fifth.

The FA Cup fifth round also went to a replay but in 1938 the first game was away and the opponents were Chesterfield (Not all that far from Nottingham). The first game ended in a 2-2 draw and the goals were provided by Jack Gibbons (again) and Leslie Miller. The replay at White Hart Lane was a 2-1 victory for Spurs with Fred Sargent and Johnny Morrison scoring the goals.


The sixth round of the FA cup paired us against a team from the North East only this time it was Sunderland and the game was at White Hart Lane and not an away fixture. Unfortunately our FA Cup run ended there as we went down 1-0 but the match was notable in that it was White Hart Lanes record attendance as 75,038 crowded into the ground.

Earlier in the 1938 season we had played Manchester United at home and lost 1-0 and then won the away game 1-0. OK, I know the records will show that this season it was 0-0 up there but we all know it was really 1-0. The scorer in 1938 at Old Trafford was Fred Sargent.

Now to Fulham in the league and in the 1937/38 season the away game at Craven Cottage was in October (much like this season) and saw Fulham score 3 Goals (much like this season) as they won 3-1, our goal on that occasion coming from Fred Sargent.

And so to the home game played on 26th February 1938. This game was played in front of a crowd of 34,097 and I suspect todays attendance won't be much different to that (a couple of thousand maybe). The score in 1938 was a 1-1 draw (Johnny Morrison scoring) so I hope thats a bit different this time round.

And what of our final league position in that 1938 division 2 table ? Well, we finished 5th and a certain Manchester United were runners up.