Chelsea vs Spurs | Boot in both camps | Bobby Smith
Wed 01 May 2024, 09:00|
Tottenham Hotspur
Bobby Smith, the famous, fearless striker of our glory, glory years began his career at Chelsea in 1948. But his wonderful career, spearheading Bill Nicholson's all-conquering double team of the early 1960s, might not have been...
As we prepare to face the Blues again on Thursday evening, we take a look back at what he had to say in his last interview with us back in 2009.
Brought up in the Yorkshire village of Lingdale, Bobby initially joined Chelsea on trial 75 years ago. He scored a hat-trick, and his football life looked rosy, but off the pitch, it was tough for this young Yorkshire boy, then only 15, who boarded a train back home.
Thankfully, his father, Alfred, was able to talk his son around...
Bobby explained: "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. He told me to stay down there for another fortnight, he came with me and I enjoyed it very much.
"I was down there in digs. I was 15 when I went into digs. I'll never forget - I got £2.50 for my pocket money and Chelsea paid for my lodgings, about a fiver, so that was about £7.50 a week! I didn't think about the money though, I would have played football for nothing.
"I lived on Britannia Road, right next to the ground. Myself and a couple of lads, Lenny Kell and Andy Bobham, had lodgings together and we mixed really well. We were all away from home and we all got on with it. Of course, I still missed everyone back home but I knuckled down to work. I was on the ground staff and working throughout the day, working at the ground, sweeping the terraces, cleaning the baths out or cleaning boots on a Monday morning after the team had played on the Saturday. That really got me into it."
Bobby scored 30 goals in 86 games for Chelsea when Spurs came calling in 1955...
Before the glory, glory days, it's worth noting that Bobby scored the goals to take us away from a relegation scrap in that 1955/56 season before scoring 36 league goals in 1957/58, equalling Ted Harper's record set in 1930/31.
Bill Nicholson took over in 1958 and the team took off, fired by Bobby's goals.
His first England cap arrived in October, 1960 and he went on to score 13 goals in 15 caps.
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.
Bobby was top scorer in the double season with 33 goals in 43 games - 28 in the league - and went on to score 208 goals in 317 appearances between 1955-1964, placing him third in our all-time goalscoring list behind Harry Kane (280) and Jimmy Greaves (266). He joined Brighton in May, 1964.
"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, and I still think it's the best club in the world."
Bobby passed away on 18 September, 2010, aged 77.
