On 3 February 1960, Tottenham Hotspur secured their record win, a 13-2 victory over Crewe Alexandra in a Fourth Round FA Cup replay. It is also Crewe's record loss.The fact that the tie had gone to a replay was surprising, since, at the time of the original match, Crewe were sitting 16th in Division Four--83 places below Spurs, who were at the top of the First Division. But Crewe managed to hold the league leaders to a 2-2 draw on 30 January, forcing a replay at White Hart Lane.
There, the hosts wasted no time in establishing their dominance. By the 30th minute, Spurs had a 6-1 lead which they extended to 10-1 by the break en route to the final score of 13-2. Inside forward Les Allen had the day's highest tally with 5, followed by center forward Bobby Smith (4), winger Cliff Jones (3), and inside forward Tommy Harmer (1).
Unfortunately, Spurs were not as prolific in the next round where they lost to Blackburn, 1-3. They got their reward the following season, however, winning a league and FA Cup double (including another Fourth Round victory over Crewe in the FA Cup by the relatively modest score of 5-1).
That 12 goal differential between the 13 goals scored against Crewe and the 1 scored against Blackburn would be pretty close to the biggest difference by the same team in consecutive FA Cup matches.
ReplyDeleteI took a quick look through some early FA Cup matches (which saw some crazy scorelines) and found that Royal Engineers beat High Wyombe 15-0 in the first round, then lost 1-3 to Swifts in the third round. (They had a walkover against Panthers in the second round, so the first and third count as consecutive matches). That's the largest consecutive-match margin I've seen so far.
DeleteThose scores are from the 1875-76 FA Cup.
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