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Alan Gilzean (born is the king of White Hart Lane) RIP

GosfordSpur

Member
Jan 10, 2007
54
43
So very very sad. One of the true Spurs legends. Privileged to have seen him play throughout the glory years. Saw his home debut in the 2-2 draw with Everton. Wonderful one-touch player and a great header of the ball.
RIP Gillie
 

littlewilly

Well-Known Member
May 28, 2013
1,670
5,181
I've been waiting for Norman Giller's piece in Spurs Odyssey and it didn't disappoint:

http://www.spursodyssey.com/1819/giller_234.html

I was just starting to write this blog yesterday in praise of Captain Kane and his crew when Steve Perryman rang to tell me that the great, the unique, the irreplaceable Alan Gilzean had passed on following his recently diagnosed brain tumour.
What a torpedo into my celebratory mood. The G-Men are no more. Greavsie is desperately ill following his stroke, and now Gilly has gone. This old hack is mortified.
‘We’ve not only lost a great footballer and Tottenham legend,’ Skipper Steve told me, ‘but we’ve lost a great man. We all loved Gilly. There was nobody who did not have a soft spot for him as a feller, and we were all in awe of him as a footballer. He could make the ball talk.’
I always described Alan as a Nureyev on grass, because he was so balletic. You could have set his movement on the pitch to music.
He danced many a pas de deux with Greavsie and then with big Martin Chivers as his partner. What music they made together, with Alan providing the subtlety of touch with either foot and glancing headers that were his trademark.
Gilly was an extraordinarily gifted forward who could thread a ball through the eye of a needle. He specialised in flick headers, and was an intelligent positional player who often popped up in unmarked places that caught defenders napping.
Born in Coupar Angus on 22 October 1938, Alan first made a name for himself as a free-scoring forward with Dundee and won the 1961-62 league title with them and helped the club reach the European Cup semi-finals the following season. He is as much idolised at Dens Park as he is at Tottenham.
Alan arrived at the Lane in December 1964 as replacement for the bulldozing Bobby Smith. The contrast was stark, but he was every bit as devastating as the mighty Smith and he majestically earned the title The King of White Hart Lane.
He and Greavsie went together like fish and chips and they were the most dynamic duo in the League for three or four years. Gilly won 22 Scottish caps, and settled to another winning partnership with Martin Chivers when Jimmy moved on in 1970.
He wound down his exciting and often eccentric career in South Africa, and cut his links with football after brief experience as manager of Stevenage. Spurs stats: 343 League games (93 goals), 96 cup matches (40 goals). His son Ian was a Spurs youth player and later scored goals for Dundee, just like his adored Dad.
After 30 years out of the spotlight Alan returned to the celebrity circuit to get the acclaim his talent deserved. It was claimed that he “had gone missing” but Gilly told me: ‘I always knew where I was.’
He had a famously dry and laconic sense of humour. When Bill Nicholson called him into his office to say that a supporter had seen him leaving a nightclub at 2am, Gilly said: “He’s got that wrong, Boss. I was just arriving.”
I interviewed him during the build-up to the 1967 FA Cup final and asked him to name his favourite partners. Quick as a flash he said: ‘Bacardi and Coke.’
There’ll never be another Gilly. RIP.
 

Grey Fox

Well-Known Member
Jul 10, 2008
5,126
31,089
One of my favourite players of all time amd a fantastic down to earth man. I had the pleasure and honour to meet him a few times, once in the Corner pin about an hour after a game!. Loved a drink, but also the banter in a pub athmosphere.
Because of my surname and my love for the man, my mates called me Gilly too.

RIP never forgotten
 

Lighty64

I believe
Aug 24, 2010
10,400
12,476
Minutes applause before the Fulham game.

just hope they do the build up on the tv ap ive just purchased to allow me to watch it and other games when not on sky though if it's a good view that will be disappearing off my bank account each month
 

ShelfWatcher

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2021
3,169
4,814
I saw this on twitter .. I thought I'd share ..
.

Gilly's head must have hurt after games like that, the amount of aerial challenges ?
Was at that game, not a classic but another trophy, so I was delighted.
IIRC it was our 9th final and our 9th victory, incredible to think of that record now. When we had the victory gene in our DNA.
 
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