Legendary Spurs manager Bill Nicholson had a mantra — “Winning isn’t enough, it has to be done with a certain style.” If anyone epitomised the realisation of that “certain style” it was Spurs and Wales winger, the lightning-fast Cliff Jones.
I said “winger” advisedly, because Cliff could play on either wing — he was a truly two-footed as well as supremely skilful footballer. And if proof of his two-footedness was required, let’s pause for a moment and remember when Spurs first staged a European Cup match.
It was in 1961, and the London club’s opponents were the Polish champions, Gornik Zabrze. Inside a time frame of just 12 minutes Cliff scored the perfect-hat-trick — a goal with his left foot, a goal with his right foot, and a header!
Between 1958 and 1968 he scored 159 goals for Spurs in 378 appearances. That puts him in fourth place in the club’s list of all-time top scorers, behind Jimmy Greaves (266), Bobby Smith (208), and Martin Chivers (174). And at the height of his football career he was taking home £85 a week!
He was part of the Spurs team that won the League and FA Cup double in the 1960/61 season, and then became the first English side to win a European trophy (the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1963).
I was 16 when I first saw the Swansea-born player. It was 1961, and at White Hart Lane I watched most of Spurs home games. Cliff was a mesmerizing sight — full of skill and trickery, and all carried out as fast as greased lightning. He had it all.
In the ’60-’61 season he scored 19 goals in 37 appearances for Spurs, and as if that wasn’t enough, he also scored 3 goals in four appearances for Wales. Wales, incidentally, capped him a total of 59 times, first doing so when he was nineteen. He always claimed that the winner he scored when Wales beat England at Ninian Park in the 1958 World Cup was his best-ever goal.
Cliff Jones was one of my top idols, and in 1997 he honoured me by coming over to Galway to open my Spurs Showcase for my proposed Football museum. Meeting him and his wife Joan was the start of a valued friendship that is as strong today as it has ever been.
My wife Agnieszka and I have visited the Jones’s home in Cheshunt a number of times. When Cliff learned that Chris Hughton had written a letter supporting my most recent world records for ball control, he immediately endorsed Chris’s letter and certificate of the records.
He’s a down-to-earth, modest and caring man, has never lost the run of himself, and has never turned into a boastful braggart as some who have achieved a measure of fame in sport are inclined to do.
When I told him about a goalkeeper friend of mine being diagnosed with a terminal illness, he immediately invited both of us to his home. There, in the trophy room, he handed my friend a book that clearly meant a lot to Cliff. He obviously thought it might help, as well as interest, someone who was facing the end of life. That was an act of understanding and compassion. Typical of Cliff Jones, sports superstar, super friend, and super human being.
