When the Year Ends in One: How Winning the 1991 Fa Cup Saved Tottenham Hotspur and Transformed English Football

The inside story of Tottenham Hotspur’s tumultuous 1991 FA Cup campaign, as told by the players, staff, fans and broadcasters who lived it. Essential reading for every Spurs fan!

From Ewan Flynn, author of the critically acclaimed Amazon best-seller We Are Sunday League.

For manager Terry Venables, and his talented, eclectic and sometimes wayward squad, hazards abounded on that year’s fabled road to Wembley. Tottenham Hotspur plc was out of step with Tottenham Hotspur FC; fans were organising in protest; the Midland Bank was getting ready to call in Spurs’ astronomical debt. Everything seemed to depend on Paul Gascoigne - poised to become the world’s greatest player - and the price tag on his head. Could he avoid the dual perils of injury and his spiralling white-hot fame?

This exhaustively researched and irreverently written book:

• Features exclusive interviews with players, club staff, fans and broadcasters who lived the trauma and triumph of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1991 FA Cup campaign
• Takes the reader inside Spurs during the most tumultuous season in the club’s history
• Gets to the bottom of what really happened with Gazza and that tackle in the cup final
• Reveals how the struggle for Spurs facilitated the Premier League breakaway and ensured the survival of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV

Spurs fans inside Wembley Stadium didn’t know it, but the big beasts encircling their wounded club would - for better or worse - determine Tottenham’s future and irrevocably transform the whole of English football.

Ewan Flynn is a freelance football writer focusing on the game’s rich history. His work has featured in The Independent, The Blizzard, When Saturday Comes, FourFourTwo and on BBC Radio. His first book, We Are Sunday League, is a bitter-sweet real-life story from football’s grassroots. Born in Edmonton, north London, Ewan is a lifelong Spurs fan and attended his first game at White Hart Lane in 1989.