It began with a dream, the dream of the football romantic concealed behind the dour facade of manager Bill Nicholson. A team that played with a brilliance and a beauty never before seen. And a feat most believed was impossible. The Double – the League Championship and FA Cup. The omens were all there. Spurs won the cup every 20 years. They’d won it in 1901. And in 1921. Not in 1941 – there was no competition because of the war. The league title was won in 1951. Now 1961 was coming up. It had to be Spurs’s year.

‘We can do the Double,’ captain Danny Blanchflower had said to Dave Mackay and Bill Brown. He mentioned it to Nicholson, who looked at him cautiously and said, ‘I think it can be done too.’ One man’s dream had met another man’s belief that it could be brought to fruition. The glory years were under way.

They won the championship that season using only 17 players, a league record at the time. And, after a dour (‘we were bloody awful,’ said Nicholson) 2-0 FA Cup final win over Leicester City, the second hurdle had been surmounted. People still argue about how many of the Double-winning side were truly great – Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, Cliff Jones and John White usually make the final cut – but the Double could not have been won without Nicholson’s clever and insightful team-building. Along with Blanchfl ower’s inspired, vocal, life-breathing captaincy, White’s magical ubiquity, Jones’s speed and bravery, Mackay’s huge physicality, his almost terrifying commitment and courage and energy, were the contributions of relatively unsung but still by most standards great players.

Two years later, after narrowly missing out on the double Double in 1961-62 – they retained the FA Cup and finished third in the League – they were aiming for another big prize: the European Cup Winners’ Cup. In the semi-final against OFK Belgrade, Spurs survived a slight glitch in the Red Army stadium when Jimmy Greaves, signed from AC Milan at the start of the season, became the first Spurs player to be sent off for nearly 40 years. They still won 2-1, however, and followed that up with a 3-1 win at White Hart Lane. The final in Rotterdam beckoned.

They went as league runners-up, having finished behind Everton. Atletico Madrid, their opponents, were the cup holders. With Dave Mackay failing a late fitness test, few in the press contingent gave much for Spurs’ chances. Characteristically, in the dressing room before kick-off, Nicholson gave a detailed run-down of Atletico’s strengths. It was so thorough that some of the players were close to panic. It took a famous rallying speech by Blanchflower to make them believe in themselves again, though as Tony Marchi said later: ‘I don’t think any of us were unduly worried by what Bill had said. We were used to him. In all honesty, I reckon Bill was more nervous than we were.’

Nervous or not, Terry Dyson went on to have the game of his life. Spurs were two goals up through Greaves and White when Atletico pulled one back through a penalty conceded by Ron Henry. ‘Their centre-forward had gone through, Bill Brown came out of goal and the centre-forward went round him,’ says Henry. ‘So I went the other way and stood on the line. When he shot I stuck my arm out and punched it over the bar. It was instinctive. If I hadn’t done it, Bill would have wanted to know why.’

For the next 10 minutes, Spurs battled to stay in front. Then came the defining moment, when the ball broke free to Feliciano Rivilla. ‘I wondered what Dave Mackay would do,’ said Dyson. ‘I remembered that he got so many injuries by lunging in, just throwing himself at people. So I tried the same. I launched myself in just as the player shot. The ball hit me on the knees and it really hurt, but it was worth it. In that moment the match changed. If the ball had gone in to make it 2-2, who knows what might have happened?’

Instead Dyson found himself up the other end, curling in a cross. The wind seemed to catch it and the keeper flapped it into net. ‘I remember the goalkeeper crying when the ball went in,’ said Dyson. It knocked the stuffing out of Atletico. Soon afterwards, Greaves scored Spurs’ fourth before Dyson finished off the night by hammering home a 25-yarder. ‘It was the fi rst time I can remember when Bill had no criticism after a game,’ said Dyson. ‘It was almost as if that was the peak performance, the one that he had been working towards… Bill was ecstatic.’

After the Double and the 1962 FA Cup win, Spurs had become the first British side to win a European competition. Not only that, but the manner of their 5-1 victory over a top Spanish side was unforgettable. It’s still regarded as one of the greatest performances by an English team in Europe.