Hoddle - for the younger ones who never saw him play

[worcestersauce]

I remember when he first played for us 75/76 and he did things that took your breath away.
Think about it, all the great players we had through the sixties and seventies and fans that had seen them all turned to each other with stunned expressions, he did all these things with footballs nothing like today and pitches that could be quagmires for half a season.
Terry Venables summed it up, he said "Hoddle has feet like hands".

 

[Pat Rice Spurs fan]

The reason I became a Spurs fan in a town which was all West Ham...

If only he could've learned how to time a pass

He was just a Devonshire wannabe.

 

[spursfan77]

The reason I wore number 10
The reason I untucked my football shirt
The reason I played the way I did.

Quite simply my idol as a footballer growing up. So much skill. But it always amazed me how he could hit a ball and land it at someone's feet. Almost every time. So wasted for England. I will always love Glenn Hoddle.

And just so amazingly two footed. There's not a single player playing in England today that you can say that about. Actually probably not in Europe.

 

[spursfan77]

@nasescoba1985 - Alas, M8, it really is all true.

Like @Arnoldtoo says, they should have been building the team around him, but they were too busy fixating on the idea that they couldn't fit him in the team.

"His critics beyond White Hart Lane called him a Fancy Dan. Brian Clough once said that it took 'moral courage to play the way Hoddle does'. But Tommy Smith, the notorious Liverpool hardman, accused Hoddle of going missing when someone - Smith, for example - got stuck into him."

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/oct/05/newsstory.tottenhamhotspur

Kind of ironic, really, that the best manager England produced in decades but who the FA lacked the courage to appoint, talking about the best player England produced in decades but who the managers the FA did appoint lacked the courage to play.

AS this fella says, part of the problem was that at the Lane we knew what we had and converted Steve Perryman to be his protector/water carrier. England just wouldn't do that in the way that we would.

http://archive.mehstg.com/fact_hoddle.htm

Bobby Moore said:
"Because those directors can't stand losing matches, managers are wary of the ball players who don't work as hard as the team men. They know that if they pick a new Peter Osgood, Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Charlie Goerge or Glenn Hoddle, they are taking a gamble on the result. So they play the percentages and shy away from the players who can entertain the crowd. They feel that the best way to get success is by stopping other people playing and nicking the odd goal.
One or two managers have been trying to change the system more recently. Good. Because it's ludicrous to try to change great individual players into robots. You wouldn't have caught me complaining if Jimmy Greaves did nothing else in my team except score two or three goals a week."

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Cw3BkpXDOWQC&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=they tell me hoddle is a luxury player&source=bl&ots=OuSow2dvv6&sig=g2ECYS1t3nMUAkEtOIvbExeLBk0&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=they tell me hoddle is a luxury player&f=false

Another example, and one that you may just remember, was Matt Le Tissier. I can remember a commentator saying, at the end of a match: "There's Matt Le Tissier. He hasn't done anything all game...except score three goals." How ludicrous is that! And good as Le Tiss was, he wasn't as good as Ghodd...IMHO.

Don't know what MoPo would make of him, though

I can't agree more with Bobby Moore.

 

[Pat Rice Spurs fan]

But Hoddle couldnt score with his hands though...........

But he did go in goal a couple of times when our keeper got injured.
In fact I'm sure he was considered England's 3rd choice keeper at some tournament.

 

[NHAndy]

Saw him go in goal twice in the same season. At Leeds (when they were good) we went 1-0 down, Paul Miller was sent off and Daines got injured leading to Hoddle going in goal. Things looked pretty desperate but a masterful display and we won 2-1. Later the same season in a Cup replay at Old Trafford Aleksic got hurt, Hoddle went in goal and we won 1-0 with a goal from Ossie.

 

[yusrisafri]

He was bloody good. The best Spurs player I have seen and I have seen Blanchflower, White, Mackay, Venables, Gascoigne, Lienkar, Waddle, Klinsmann etc Too long a story to go into here but he was a player of immense skill and intellect in an era when English football coaching thought tactics were hoofing it up to a big center forward supported by a number of midfield players who could chop people down and run around and around a lot. It was an awful era for English football at an international level and yet here was a player in the UK that any other international coach would have given his right arm to build a team around. Hoddle was just too good for the times he played in from an English perspective.

Its always very interesting to hear from those whove actually watched the likes of blanchflower, mackay and greaves (the 3 who are always mentioned in various rankings as the best ever player for spurs).

Having watched all these players @Flashspur you still say Hoddle is the best of all. That just sums it all up on the quality of the player.

 

[SpursSince1980]

The 4231 formation would have been perfect for him. Sitting in the number ten role behind the striker, orchestrating the game. If he was 22 right now, Hodgson would build the England team around him, and he would be mentioned in the same breath as Iniesta, Muller, Ronaldo and Messi.

 

[mattdefoe]

beautiful video. As a fan who is not from this era

How did hoddle end up becoming a chelsea player and eventually manager? The thought of kane ending up there scares me

Why monaco? were they a european powerhouse?

 

[yusrisafri]

He is even named in monaco's greatest ever team despite only 60+ appearanves for them. Now that is a great achievement

 

[Pat Rice Spurs fan]

That game, beating Feyenoord in the second round of the 1983 UEFA Cup 4-2 in the home leg, was one of my best games for Spurs. After the game Cruyff said he had heard a lot about me, but until he played against me he didn’t
realise how good I was. That was lovely to hear!

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/features/glenn-hoddle-one-one#:uSr4M-E ArqxwA

The goal that, in the interview, he says was his best.

 

[Buggsy61]

Like all great players he knew what he was going to do with the ball before he got it (and Kane is starting to show flashes of that). Still think if you put him and Gazza at their best together Gazza had just a little more, but Hoddle performed for a long time when many far lesser players were trying to kick the living crap out of him and have many great memories watching him from the south section of the shelf in the 80's.

 

[Sevens]

The 4231 formation would have been perfect for him. Sitting in the number ten role behind the striker, orchestrating the game. If he was 22 right now, Hodgson would build the England team around him, and he would be mentioned in the same breath as Iniesta, Muller, Ronaldo and Messi.

He was better than Muller and Iniesta. I'll even go as far to say he was better than Ronaldo (both of them!). He wasn't as good as Messi though.

The ironic thing is despite all his brilliance I doubt our current Manager (who may yet win us a title!) would've taken to him and in all likelihood he'd have been sold!

 

[Sevens]

beautiful video. As a fan who is not from this era

How did hoddle end up becoming a chelsea player and eventually manager? The thought of kane ending up there scares me

Why monaco? were they a european powerhouse?

He was desperate to play European football and English clubs were banned from Europe at the time. Monaco were highly rated at the time (and a tax haven!).

Chelsea weren't really massive rivals of Spurs when he took over. They'd had over a decade of being a team like Crystal Palace for example. In Hoddle's youth they were a big club though and I tend to find when a club is big in your youth it always remains big in that person's mind but he knew he could take over with less pressure. IIRC he actually turned down the opportunity to manage Spurs during that period because he felt it was too soon.

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

Watching the video again. It is just wonderful.

For us younger fans, it's like watching a hybrid of Modric, VdV, Carrick and Berbatov rolled into one with the traits of skill, vision, first touch and passing evidenced in that video. But even then there is something more majestic than that combination of players possesses.

 

[Ionman34]

Watching the video again. It is just wonderful.

For us younger fans, it's like watching a hybrid of Modric, VdV, Carrick and Berbatov rolled into one with the traits of skill, vision, first touch and passing evidenced in that video. But even then there is something more majestic than that combination of players possesses.

That is probably the most apt word used to describe Hoddle in this thread, Majestic.

 

[TheBlueRooster]

beautiful video. As a fan who is not from this era

How did hoddle end up becoming a chelsea player and eventually manager? The thought of kane ending up there scares me

Why monaco? were they a european powerhouse?

He didn't go as player then manager he went as player manager from Swindon, Chelsea were the only top club in need of a manager and Hoddle couldn't turn the chance down. He did a great job for them and really turned the club around. Given the backing I think he could have done the same for us.

 

[BuryMeInEngland]

His passes were the most accurate of any player I have ever seen.