CorkSpurs

Usually when you get to meet one of your hero's it's a quick autograph or photo after a game or at an airport or some such place. If you're lucky you may even get to exchange a few words with them. Last week myself and a few other members of the Cork Spurs Supporters Club got to spend over 2 hours in the company of a Spurs legend and one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. The only and only Pat Jennings.

Pat had opened a local supermarket and then presented medals to a local schoolboys football team. About 10 of us headed up there to meet and welcome the big man. After getting a few photographs and autographs we headed off to a nearby pub for a drink. Imagine our surprise when a few minutes later Pat Jennings walked into the bar, thanked us for coming to met him and offered to buy us a drink! "Pat, what's the story with Carr?" started the ball rolling and this led us onto Graham, Campbell, Arsenal, World Cups, Greaves, Best, Blondel, Rebrov and even Acimovic!!!!!!!!!

Pat reckons that Carr will leave his contract run down and opt for a bosman unless we do much better next season. He said it's hard to blame a player because for so long the clubs have had the upper hand and football is after all a short career. On the plus side for Spurs Pat reckoned that we would benefit by bringing in players on bosmans. Naturally this talk of bosmans lead us on to our former captain who went down the road to N5. Pat said that Graham had been onto Campbell for many months saying "You're not being honest with the supporters. You have no intention of signing a new contract "etc. Levy could see what was happening and when Graham mouthed off to the media about his small transfer budget this gave Levy the opportunity to sack Graham and make a last ditch attempt to hold on to Campbell. He brought Hoddle in as manager knowing he was acceptable to Campbell and then in  a final throw of the dice made a huge financial offer to Campbell to stay. All this was to no avail and the rest as they say is history.

Pat then spoke of his own move to the arse in August 1977. Spurs were preparing for a pre-season tour of Sweden when Keith Burkinshaw called Pat to one side to tell him that Spurs were letting him go and that he wouldn't be neededon the tour as he would prove an embarrassment to the other goalkeeper Barry Daines who would now be number 1 at the Lane. Burkinshaw told Jennings that Bobby Robson's Ipswich were interested in taking him to Portman Road. (Pat later found out that Alan Hunter the Ipswich centre half and a colleague of Pat's on Northern Ireland team had been pushing Bobby Robson to sign Pat). However the move never materialised as the Ipswich centre forward Trevor Wymark broke his leg in a pre-season game in Holland and Robson's priority changed from signing a goalkeeper to signing a new centre forward. Pat also had a few offers from up north but with his kids in school locally he didn't want to move from the North London area. Terry Neill rang Pat and offered him a chance at Arsenal and after thinking it over Pat accepted the move. He had given Spurs 14 years and Spurs made money when he was sold as the amount received from Arsenal was greater than the amount paid to Watford in 1963.  On the day of his medical at Highbury Pat was accompanied by the Spurs club secretary. Before he signed for Arsenal the secretary told Pat that he going to ring Keith Burkinshaw and the Spurs Chairman (Wale?) at their hotel in Sweden to tell them that Pat was going to sign for Arsenal and was this what they really wanted? The secretary was told that if he wants to sign for them let him go ahead and do it. With that phone call a man who had made almost 600 first team appearances was left walk out of the club and sign for our greatest rivals! As we all know Pat played on for several more seasons with great success at Highbury and at the World Cup with his country. However Pat was not finished at the Lane! In September 1985 Peter Shreeves called Pat and asked if he'd return to White Hart Lane as goal keeping cover. Pat agreed and a couple of days later made his second Spurs debut in a reserves fixture against Chelsea drawing a crowd of several thousand!

Pat rated Greaves as the best forward, Mackay as the best midfielder and Mike England as the best defender during his playing days at Spurs. He also said that Bill Brown was the best Spurs goalkeeper but we told him he was wrong on that one! On a general note Pat said he was impressed with what he'd seen of Blondel and feels that although he is a little bit light he might be worth a try in midfield. Bunjy and Acimovic are apparently great in training but lack the strength and maybe the desire to succeed in the rough and tumble of the premiership. Rebrov also impressed in training but Graham was never sure of him and Hoddle didn't rate him at all. Once Teddy Sheringham came back from Man united the writing was on the wall for Sergei!

Sharing the goalkeeping coaching with Hans Seegers Pat is up at Spurs Lodge twice a week. He said that sometimes you hear things about signings at the club. But other times things happen that no one hears about until the deal is done. This was the case with Helder Postiga. Interestingly Pat said he doubted if the amount paid for Postiga was anything near the quoted figure of 6.25m  Regarding the atmosphere in the dressing room and the comments made in the press by various players Pat quoted the old one about a manager getting on well with 5 players and hoping that the other 6 don't hate him too much!

They say times flies when you're having fun and before we knew it , it was time to say goodbye to Pat. Going home in the car we all agreed that as well as being a great goalkeeper and a Spurs legend Pat Jenning is a great guy and a real gentleman.

PS: Pat told us that a few years after he'd left Spurs he met Keith Burkinshaw who told him that he now realised that  he'd made a big mistake in letting Pat go to Arsenal. The funny thing is that most Spurs supporters could have told him that in August 1977.