Clive Allen exclusive: The 'dying art' of scoring - and how Terry Venables became his lawyer
Ahead of Thursday's north London derby, the consummate goalscorer reflects on how the role has changed since his salad days at Spurs
... “He said it’s a dying art, isn’t it, goalscoring?”
Scoring records were everything when Allen was playing, the first and last question about any emerging striker. And now?
“It might be that a striker is classified as quick, or good in the air," Allen says. "It’s always something else before goalscoring.”
...
Allen was coaching at Spurs when Harry Kane was scoring, if not necessarily starring, in their youth teams. “He didn't really excel in anything other than scoring. As development manager at that time, asking the youth-team manager how his team had got on, who played well, the ‘who scored?’ question was always answered with: ‘Harry’.
“How did he play? ‘Well, he did okay, but we won 3-2 and he scored two.’ That happened all the way through, but there was nothing cast in stone that he would achieve what he’s achieved.”
Has it now reached the point that Son Heung-min is the better traditional striker? “Yes, I think so, his goalscoring form has shown that. Harry maybe doesn’t get as many chances now but he is as clinical as there is in the Premier League. But, crazy thing to say, Son is probably the bigger threat.”
...
Of the many London derbies Allen played, a defeat to Arsenal with Spurs is “the one that always hurts the most.” It was a unique trilogy in a League Cup semi-final which went to a replay after finishing 2-2 on aggregate. “Six minutes before the end I scored, so over the course of three games we’d never been behind.” Then Ian Allinson and David Rocastle snatched an unlikely win for Arsenal.
“The thing that I'll never forget is walking down the tunnel and a guy from the sponsors said: ‘Congratulations, you've just broken the League Cup goalscoring record.’ I scored 12 goals in the competition that season. I'm standing in the tunnel nearly in tears holding two bottles of champagne.”
This was in Allen’s award-winning and record-breaking 49-goal season in 1986-87, in which Spurs lost the FA Cup final to Coventry and finished third in the league. They looked like contenders for all three domestic trophies. “Like Liverpool now, when you're going for four if you just lose one the whole thing starts to crumble,” he says. “When the momentum is there, and when you have that belief and are in all competitions, it's fantastic. You just want the next game to come. But when one goes wrong, it can have a devastating effect.”
P.S. Disable javascript to get the full story.