Spurs stories | Off The Shelf | Clive Allen and the story of Maradona's boots...
Thu 11 July 2024, 17:30|
Tottenham Hotspur
The first series of our official podcast Off The Shelf delivered a library's worth of Spurs stories from legends of our Club. In this summer series, we've returned to those 30 episodes to bring you those stories as those legends told us - their Spurs life in their words.
Legendary former striker Clive Allen joined us for Episode Seven and gave us the wonderful story of how Diego Maradona borrowed a pair of his boots for Ossie Ardiles' Testimonial in 1986 - the boots he now describes as 'my prized piece of memorabilia'.
Clive Allen | Off The Shelf, EP. 07
135 appearances, 84 goals, 1984-1988
Club record 49 goals in 1986/87
"Monday night, White Hart Lane, Ossie Ardiles' testimonial against Inter Milan. The week before, it was rumoured that Diego was going to play, and the lads for a week were saying to Ossie, 'come on Ossie, is Diego guesting on Monday' and Ossie was saying, 'I know nothing...' I reckon it was six o'clock when the dressing room door opened and in walked Ossie with the biggest smile on his face. It's Maradona. The lads' faces... 'Oh my God, it's Maradona'. He came in and was one of the lads, joined in, brilliant...
"Maradona went into the treatment room... he was playing in Italy for Napoli, at the top of his game, he had ankles like footballs, the brutality he'd taken in Serie A. Anyway, he came back into the dressing room, got changed and then said, 'has anyone got any boots? Six and a half, Puma'. Best player in the world and he didn't bring any boots with him! I put my hand up. I had one pair of boots that I'd worn once in training that I was breaking in, and the pair I'd worn all season. Ossie was translating and brought him over. I said, 'Diego, be my guest' and he wasn't silly, he said, 'I'll have the old ones'. They were broken in... I'm looking at Ossie saying, 'no, I want to wear that pair', so in the end we pursuaded him to wear the once-worn boots. I always say, that was the only game that I played in as a professional where I was a spectator, you watched the game and you just wanted Diego and Glenn Hoddle to get on the ball, because they were on another planet. Honestly, it was unbelievable. He made the winning goal for me, an overhead kick from the corner of the penalty box to the back post that I headed in for 2-1. Afterwards, he signed the boots and I've still got them today, my prized piece of memorabilia. The only pair of boots I ever kept."
