Five... FA Cup third round ties to remember

The FA Cup third round, always one of the great days on the football calendar, has been good to us over the years. Indeed, we've lost just 31 of 140 ties since we first stepped into the third round of football's most famous competition at Stoke all the way back in February, 1899.

As we prepare to start another FA Cup journey on Saturday, this time against Portsmouth at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (12.30pm), we took a look back at five third round ties to remember since that famous Gazza-inspired run - which, coincidentally, including a win against Pompey in the fifth round - back in 1991.

5/1/1991 - Blackpool 0-1 Spurs

Before Gazza’s free-kick and Gary Lineker’s double in that semi-final win against Arsenal, before Paul Stewart dragged us back into the final, before Gary Mabbutt lifted the trophy, there was, arguably, our toughest assignment on the way to glory in 1991 - Blackpool away. Played on a muddy surface at a windswept Bloomfield Road - players have recalled how Erik Thorstvedt’s goal-kicks blew back in the wind to the edge of our penalty area - Stewart scrambled home the winner on 68 minutes after Lineker nodded Gazza’s free-kick back across goal.

7/1/1995 – Spurs 3-0 Altrincham

Hopes were high that Jurgen Klinsmann and Teddy Sheringham could fire us to FA Cup glory in 1995. One of our all-time great strike partnerships accounted for 52 goals in all competitions that season and were at their absolute peak later in this competition when they combined for the two goals to beat Liverpool in the quarter-final at Anfield. Teddy was also on target in this third-round clash against non-league Altrincham of the Conference (now National League), and joined on the scoresheet by Ronny Rosenthal and Stuart Nethercott. Unfortunately, Jurgen’s dreams of Wembley were shattered by Everton in the semi-final.

2/1/2010 - Spurs 4-0 Peterborough United

What looks like a routine win at the Lane provided the catalyst for one of our best-ever players to kick start his Spurs career. Gareth Bale had started three matches in the League Cup and made five substitute appearances in the Premier League in 2009/10 when he got his chance in this third round tie with left-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto injured. Bale ran Posh ragged, set up two of the four goals - Niko Kranjcar (2), Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane on target - and never looked back. He started all remaining 18 Premier League matches as we finished fourth to qualify for the Champions League, and all eight FA Cup ties as we reached the semi-finals, where we were toppled by, you guessed it ahead of Saturday, Portsmouth at Wembley. You could say Gareth did okay from there...

4/1/2019 - Tranmere 0-7 Spurs

With 39 minutes on the clock, this looked every bit the classic FA Cup tie as we’d knocked and knocked, but had been kept out by the League Two side from Birkenhead, Merseyside. Enter Serge Aurier. The full-back hit a ripper from 25 yards on 40 minutes to open the floodgates. Another six goals followed in the next 42 minutes either side of the break as Fernando Llorente helped himself to a hat-trick, Serge scored again, Heung-Min Son and then Harry Kane got in on the act as a late substitute - all adding up to our biggest-ever away win.

10/1/2021 - Marine 0-5 Spurs

The very epitome of a ‘fairytale' in the FA Cup’, we were back on Merseyside in 2021 to take on Marine, from the Northern Premier League Division One North West. The game had to played behind-closed-doors due to the pandemic, but the football community rallied - Marine put ‘virtual’ tickets on sale, and 30,000 were snapped up. Marine gave us a scare, as well, as Neil Kengni struck the bar with the score at 0-0, but we were soon 4-0 up thanks to a hat-trick from Carlos Vinicius. The stories continued as Alfie Devine came off the bench and scored the fifth, to become our youngest-ever player and goalscorer at 16 years, 162 days. And the sight of local residents looking over their garden fences at Gareth Bale warming up in front of them will live long in the memory...