Like moths to a flame, supporters flocked towards White Hart Lane from mid-afternoon onwards on Monday, May 3, 1971.
The facts were plain and simple. If Arsenal defeated Tottenham Hotspur in the north London derby or drew 0-0, they would be crowned First Division champions for the eighth time. On the other hand, if Bill Nicholson’s team won or snatched a scoring draw (in the era of goal average), then Leeds United would win the league.
The day started calmly enough. After training in the morning, the Gunners players lunched at home, before rendezvousing at the South Herts golf club, their regular pre-match meeting place, at 4.30pm. The distance from there to White Hart Lane was only seven miles, but the volume of traffic astounded even the police.
As our team coach crawled along, skipper Frank McLintock saw his wife Barbara in the throng. “I told the driver to stop. The doors opened and she got on board.” The referee Kevin Howley – officiating his last ever match – dumped his car a mile from the ground and walked the rest of the journey. Remarkably, all the players, as well as the man in black made it to the ground on time.
The gates were locked more than an hour before kick off, with an official crowd of 51,192 inside, with estimates suggesting that double the number were left outside. “The atmosphere was unbelievable. We’d never seen anything like it,” recalled forward Ray Kennedy, “but we had to focus and get the job done.”
It wasn’t an easy job. Tottenham were in third place, and had won the League Cup final at Wembley against Aston Villa. Their side included stars such as goalkeeper Pat Jennings, World Cup winner Martin Peters and forward Martin Chivers. Peters threatened to dominate the midfield, and Scottish forward Alan Gilzean narrowly failed to connect with a cross which would have put Tottenham into the lead.
But gradually Bertie Mee’s men, who’d already won nine league matches 1-0 that season, turned the screw. Three minutes from time, grainy footage shows winger Geordie Armstrong rescuing the ball from the goalline, and chipping it back across goal for Kennedy to give us the lead with a towering header.
The thousands of Gunners fans in the crowd exploded with joy, but Kennedy was immediately concerned that the goal might spark Tottenham into life. “A 1-1 draw would have given Leeds the title. I thought I might have stirred up a hornet's nest,” he told me during our 2001 interview.
But despite a couple of Tottenham forays, we held on to win by a single goal, and bedlam ensued. Arsenal supporters poured onto the pitch, while oddly, McLintock had a Leeds scarf thrust around his neck as he was chaired off, while Mee had his club tie removed by a souvenir hunter.
It took most of the jubilant Gunners 20 minutes to reach the relative calm of the dressing room. Waiting for them was Tottenham boss Bill Nicholson, who generously handed out bottles of champagne. “It was an unbelievably sporting gesture which really cut through the north London rivalry,’ McLintock recalled.
The players partied long into the night in nearby Southgate, before quickly turning their attention to the FA Cup final against Bill Shankly's Liverpool, which took place five days after the victory at White Hart Lane as they targeted our first-ever double.
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