Bobby Smith - how our first double-centurion switched SW6 for Spurs

Before Harry Kane, before Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Smith set the goalscoring standard at Spurs. A feared striker in the 1950s and 1960s, the giant Yorkshireman began his career at Chelsea in 1950, joined us in 1955 and became the first player to score 200 goals for the Club. As we build-up to meeting the Blues again on Sunday, we take a look back at one of the biggest decisions of Bobby’s career – swapping SW6 for N17...

Bobby Smith moved from the village of Lingdale, North Yorkshire, to the bright lights of London and Chelsea at the age of 15 in 1948. He was homesick in his early days at the Bridge, and once caught the train back home. Thankfully, his father, Alfred, persuaded him to go back and stick it out.

"Once I got home, my dad said, ‘I'm going to take you back because if you don't go back, you'll realise what a fool you are'. He told me that I might win the First Division or an FA Cup medal and everything he said was right.”

Bobby lived in digs with a couple of team-mates just around the corner from Stamford Bridge – Britannia Road – and impressed as a youngster in his first couple of seasons, but his progress had stalled with Roy Bentley banging in the goals for the Blues when Spurs came calling in 1955.

In one of his last interviews with the Club, back in 2009, Bobby explained how his move came about. “Jimmy Anderson and Bill Nicholson came over to see me. I said I didn't want to go at first, but Roy Bentley told me to go and sign, especially as the manager was against me,” he told us.

“Jimmy was the (Spurs) manager at the time, Bill would take over later. I appreciated them coming over to see me and I never looked back after that. Everything went right for me, and I thank everyone for that.”

Before the ‘glory, glory days’, it's worth noting that Bobby scored the goals to take us away from a relegation scrap in his first season, 1955/56, before scoring 36 league goals in 1957/58, equalling Ted Harper's record set in 1930/31.

After that, the trophies. The championship and FA Cup double in 1961, another FA Cup in 1962 - Bobby scored in both finals, against Leicester and Burnley - and then European glory in the shape of the Cup Winners' Cup in 1963. By then, he'd formed one of the most feared striking partnerships of all-time alongside the great Jimmy Greaves.

He became the first player to score 200 goals for Spurs with a header against, you’ve guessed it, Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on 21 September, 1963. His final tally was 208 in 317 appearances, a mark overtaken by Greavsie in 1968.

"When I moved to Tottenham I was a different player, I learnt a lot of things and working with the lads and Bill Nicholson, I really was on top of the world," he added. "I thought it was the best club in the world when we won the double.”

Bobby passed away on 18 September, 2010, aged 77.

Look out for an extended feature on Bobby in Sunday's official matchday programme...