On this day in 1983, White Hart Lane welcomed one of the all time footballing greats – Johan Cruyff as his Feyenoord team were drawn to play Spurs in the UEFA Cup 2nd Round. The Feyenoord team also featured a young, less well known Ruud Gullit – wonder whatever happened to him!
Billed as Hoddle vs Cruyff, it was Glenn that stole the show, no doubt inspired by playing against one of his boyhood heroes, having a hand in all four first half goals that saw Spurs lead 4-0 at the break. Although Feyenoord would have felt they had got themselves back into the tie by scoring 2 away goals in the second half – they would see themselves beaten again at home, 2-0 as Spurs won 6-2 on aggregate and marched on to UEFA Cup glory that season.
Interviewed some years later, Glenn stated “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.” In the interview, he dispelled the long held rumour that Cruyff had gone into the Spurs dressing room to congratulate Hoddle and gave him his shirt “He didn’t come in to the dressing room, we swapped shirts on the pitch.”