Spurs 0 Manchester Utd 2

Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 2, White Hart Lane, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Au­gust 10, 1997. Reign­ing Pre­miership Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted be­at Spurs 2-0 in their open­ing fix­ture of the sea­son. Nicky Butt gave Uni­ted the lead on 82 min­utes be­fore an own goal from Ra­mon Vega one min­ute la­ter made the fi­nal score 2-0 to the vis­it­ing team. 

The Man­chester Uni­ted Fir­st Te­am Squad for the 1997-98 sea­son con­tained Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Rai­mond van der Gouw, Kev­in Pilk­ing­ton, Nick Culkin, John O’Kane, Ga­ry Ne­ville, De­nis Ir­win, Phil Ne­ville, Hen­ning Berg, Da­vid May, Ronny John­sen, Ga­ry Pal­lister, Chris Casper, Ron­nie Wall­work, John Curtis, Mi­chael Clegg, Wes­ley Bro­wn, Dan­ny Hig­gin­botham, Terry Cooke, Da­vid Beck­ham, Nicky Butt, Ry­an Gig­gs, Karel Pobor­sky, Paul Scho­les, Roy Ke­ane, Ben Thorn­ley, Philip Mulryne, Mi­chael Ap­pleton, Mi­chael Twiss, Bri­an Mc­Clair, Jordi Cruy­ff, Al­ex Not­man, Andy Cole, Er­ik Nev­land, Teddy Sher­ing­ham, and Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer. Man­chester Uni­ted had fin­ished the 1996-97 cam­paign as Pre­mier Lea­gue cham­pi­ons for the sec­ond time in a row and began the de­fence of their title by de­feat­ing Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at White Hart Lane; but the meet­ing be­tween the two clubs in North Lon­don was not with­out dra­ma. Teddy Sher­ing­ham, who had joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted from Tot­ten­ham just two months earli­er, was the vic­tim of a hor­rible tack­le from Swiss in­ter­na­tion­al Ra­mon Vega shortly af­ter the fir­st whistle and there were more in­cid­ents to come. As the fir­st ha­lf of the tie wore on, how­ever, Uni­ted gradu­ally began to dom­in­ate pro­ceed­ings and Sher­ing­ham al­most put the vis­it­ors ahead in the 29th min­ute of the clash, on­ly to see his fierce shot saved by Spurs and Three Li­ons goal­keeper Ian Walk­er. The Li­ly­whites also had their mo­ments be­fore the in­ter­val, but they were denied by Pe­ter Schmei­chel on each oc­ca­sion and the score re­mained goal­less as the two te­ams went off the pitch for half-time.

In the sec­ond pe­riod, Man­chester Uni­ted were right­fully awar­ded a pen­alty by mat­ch of­fi­cial Gra­ham Poll af­ter Dutch in­ter­na­tion­al Jordi Cruy­ff had be­en il­leg­ally bro­ught down by Tot­ten­ham de­fender Justin Ed­in­burgh in the eight­een-yard area, and it was no­ne oth­er than Sher­ing­ham who stepped up to take the sub­sequent spot kick, but un­for­tu­nately his ef­fort hit the up­right. As the sea­son open­er pro­gressed in­to the clos­ing sta­ges, Al­ex Ferguson´s Uni­ted troops went in­to the lead any­way when a thro­ugh ball from Sher­ing­ham fou­nd fel­low Eng­land play­er Nicky Butt who ham­mered the ball pa­st Walk­er and in­to the net in the 82nd min­ute of the Sunday en­counter. And just one min­ute la­ter in the ga­me, Man­chester Uni­ted had their sec­ond goal of the af­ter­noon as the in­creas­ingly ex­hausted Vega ma­naged to put a cross ball from Da­vid Beck­ham, the grand son of a life-long Hot­spur sup­port­er, bey­ond a help­less Walk­er and in­to his own net. Des­pite mis­sing a pen­alty kick, Sher­ing­ham still pro­duced a pro­fes­sion­al per­form­ance ag­ainst for­mer club Tot­ten­ham, and even tho­ugh the High­ams Park born marks­man was mer­ci­lessly booed and jeered by the White Hart Lane crowd through­out the ninety min­utes, his Premi­er­sip de­but for The Reds was more than just ac­cept­able. Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur Te­am: Ian Walk­er, Steph­en Carr, Sol Camp­bell, Ra­mon Vega, Justin Ed­in­burgh, Steph­en Clem­ence, Da­vid Ginola, Da­vid How­ells, Al­lan Nielsen, Les Fer­dinand, Stef­fen Iversen. Sub­stitutes: Andy Sin­ton, Co­lin Calder­wood, John Scales, Neale Fenn, Es­pen Baard­sen. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Ronny John­sen, Ga­ry Pal­lister, De­nis Ir­win, Phil Ne­ville, Nicky Butt, Jordi Cruy­ff, Ry­an Gig­gs, Roy Ke­ane, Paul Scho­les, Teddy Sher­ing­ham. Sub­stitutes: Rai­mond van der Gouw, Da­vid Beck­ham Ga­ry Ne­ville, Bri­an Mc­Clair, Karel Poborsky.

Teddy Sheringham Quickfacts

Teddy Sher­ing­ham ac­cu­mu­lated a re­spect­able 31 Pre­mier Lea­gue goals dur­ing 104 ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted be­fore he made his re­turn to Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at the end of the 2000-01 sea­son. The Lon­don­er la­ter played for Ports­mouth, West Ham Uni­ted, Col­chester Uni­ted, and Stevenage.

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