RYAN MASON’S Tottenham journey includes spells as an academy wonderkid, first team regular, youth coach, assistant boss and caretaker manager.
The 34-year-old played in, managed and coached in three separate finals with .
Ryan Mason took the West Brom manager job earlier this year
Mason helped Spurs win the Europa League as a first team coach earlier this year
After the Lilywhites’ triumph in Bilbao, Mason’s first taste of silverware at the third time of asking, the local lad decided to leave his comfort zone in a bid to be a manager.
He told The Guardian during the summer: “To close that chapter with what we achieved was great; it felt good to end the season that way. I knew after that that my time had come to an end.”
Having worked under the likes of , , and , Mason departed White Hart Lane for a crack at senior management with , following two previous caretaker stints with Spurs.
Could he one day return to his boyhood club as boss? One brilliant omen suggests it might just be a good idea.
To begin to figure out why, we must cast our minds all the way back to 1906, when Arthur Rowe was born in Tottenham.
A defender by trade, local lad Rowe made 201 appearances for Spurs between 1929 and 1939.
During this time he earned a solitary cap in 1933.
Having learned from the pioneering Hungarians just prior to the Second World War, Rowe began to attract attention as Chelmsford boss in the late 1940s.
Mason earned plaudits as a player for his tenacious performances
The homegrown hero managed Tottenham in the 2021 Carabao Cup final
Rowe returned to Tottenham as manager in 1949, and went on to have incredible success.
Using his revolutionary “push and run” style of play, Rowe masterminded Spurs’ run to the Second Division title in 1950.
Remarkably, Tottenham then went on to make it back-to-back successes by winning the First Division title the following year.
Rowe’s incredible success had a huge effect on English .
Not only did he coach future World Cup-winning England boss Alf Ramsey at Spurs, but also Bill Nicholson.
A straight-talking Yorkshireman, Nicholson, like Rowe, also earned one England cap during his playing career – amazingly scoring just 19 seconds into his debut.
But with Wolves legend Billy Wright preferred, and Nicholson choosing to focus on Tottenham, the wing-half did not play for his country again.
But following a distinguished playing career with Spurs, Nicholson took charge as boss in 1958 after assisting England manager Walter Winterbottom at the 1958 World Cup – three years after Rowe’s White Hart Lane departure due to health issues.
Continuing Spurs’ tradition of swashbuckling football, Sir Bill masterminded the club’s incredible league and double in 1961 – the first time that such a feat had been achieved in the 20th century.
Nicholson’s amazing success didn’t end there, as he also lifted a further two FA Cups, two League Cups, a Uefa Cup and a European Cup Winners’ Cup during his sensational tenure.
Arthur Rowe won Tottenham’s first top flight title in 1951
Bill Nicholson is heralded as Tottenham’s greatest ever manager
So how does any of this relate to ?
Well, like the West Brom boss, Rowe and Nicholson both came through Tottenham’s academy.
And like Mason, both of them during their playing careers.
The former midfielder came on in a Three Lions friendly against Italy in 2015, assisting club team-mate Andros Townsend’s equaliser in the 1-1 draw, in a match notably also featuring then-Spurs stars and .
As a boyhood Spurs fan, Mason will have been schooled in the wisdom of Rowe and Nicholson, to date the only two men to ever win top flight titles with the North Londoners.
And while his focus will now fully be on West Brom, who sit seventh in the following a promising start, perhaps Mason harbours ambitions to one day return to White Hart Lane in a bid to match Rowe and Nicholson’s incredible feats.
Throughout history, Spurs have long had success when the year ends in one; winning silverware in 1901, 1921, 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991.
And while Mason’s infamous final defeat to , having replaced sacked Mourinho just days earlier, came in 2021, maybe 2031 could be the year that Spurs get back on top, to the perch only Rowe and Nicholson have ever sat upon.
Mason celebrates scoring his first goal for Tottenham
The former caretaker boss was a passionate figure on the sidelines 
