IF ANGE POTSECOGLOU believes winning the Europa League could allow him to keep his Spurs job – he doesn’t know his Tottenham history.
It was in 1984 that Keith Burkinshaw won his third trophy as chief, with Tony Parks’ shoot-out heroics seeing off Anderlecht to win the Cup.
’s modern-day Spurs are out to win the same trophy in Bilbao on Wednesday.
But like Yorkshireman Burkinshaw, Aussie Ange seems set for the exit door no matter what happens.
Although the current Spurs hierarchy have kept their counsel about Postecoglou, back 41 years ago, Burkinshaw’s imminent departure was known for weeks – much to the frustration of his squad.
Burkinshaw’s relationship with chairman Irving Scholar, always strained, had broken, irretrievably.
The manager believed it was his club, to manage as he saw fit.
Scholar believed otherwise.
The final, decisive breach came in March on the afternoon of the quarter-final second leg tie at Vienna.
Burkinshaw subsequently explained: “About 4pm in the afternoon he came to my bedroom with the assistant chairman.
“They said: ‘You’re not going to be allowed to run the club as you’ve been doing. We are going to bring in the players. We’re going to decide how much they will get as wages.’
“And it went on and on. I said: ‘Don’t you think this is the wrong time to be coming in here, at 4pm when we’ve got a quarter final at quarter to eight....?’
“That started it all off. In the end I knew he’d been looking for another manager. I knew of it. And he’d made a proposal to one of them.”;;
That “another manager”;; was, in fact, , with Scholar under the impression that the then-Aberdeen boss wanted to come down to .
Burkinshaw and Scholar agreed there was only one way to resolve their differences, with his players turning his imminent departure into a cause.
Graham Roberts, who skippered the side for the second leg in the absence of the suspended Steve Perryman, said: “We wanted to win it so much, not just for ourselves but also for Keith, because we all knew it was his last game at the club.
“But it was a Cup Final, in front of our own fans. You don’t get the chance to do that very often in a career, if at all. It meant so much.”;;
Burkinshaw’s departure brought one of the most withering farewell comments in the history of the game.
Collared by waiting reporters as he walked away for the last time, he was ready to vent.
He explained: “I was really sick about it. And the way the club was run was being changed.
“Clubs were becoming Public Limited Companies. So they were being run as businesses rather than clubs. So I said to one of the reporters, ‘This used to be a football club here.’”;;
Man Utd vs Spurs – Europa League final: for Bilbao clash
