Spurs to visit Auckland

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34087, 26 February 1976, Page 28

Spurs to visit Auckland

f.V.Z, Press Association)

AUCKLAND

Two top English club sides, Tottenham Hotspurs and Sunderland, will be the main touring attractions during the 1976 soccer season in New Zealand.

The London club, Spurs, will play in Auckland on Thursday, May 6, under floodlights at Newmarket Park, and Sunderland will perform one week later on May 13. The local opposition for at least one of the games will almost certainly be the full New Zealand side building up for the Oceania Cup tournament in Fiji later in the year.

• The director of the tours, Mr Charles Dempsey, confirmed the Spurs and Sunderland visits yesterday, subject to final financial negotiations.

“These clubs are now asking the earth to play tour games,” he said. They are

talking sums that we in New Zealand are finding difficult to contemplate. Like everything else, football teams are subject to inflation and rising costs. But the dates are booked and I’m sure we will reach an agreement on terms.”

One of the great clubs in British football, Sours is involved in a rebuilding programme and is lying fourteenth in the English first division.

Sunderland is another legendary English club side, now running first in the English second division and chasing promotion. New Zealanders will remember this club best for its shock 1-0 F.A. Cup final win over Leeds United in 1973.

The Spurs and Sunderland visits will be one-match affairs.

But Mr Dempsey is also negotiating for a British club to make a four or five-match tour.

Leading candidates are the English sides. Bristol Rovers and Notts Forest, or the Scottish team, Hearts.