With supporters flocking in from all over the region, our fixture with Everton on 7 May was the real centre-piece of our visit to Vienna. We really were breaking new ground, the first time two English sides had ever met on the continent.
In fact, ourselves and Everton had only played three previous times - a friendly at Tottenham in 1897, another friendly on New Year’s Day 1902 at Goodison Park and one competitive match, an FA Cup tie on Merseyside in February 1904 which we won 2-1, Vivian Woodward among our goals.
The highly-regarded Woodward had missed our first game in Vienna but had travelled over with player-manager John Cameron for the remainder of the tour and naturally, both went straight into the team for this prestigious game with Everton.
Newspaper coverage previewing the match was extensive, running to pages and pages across a number of publications. ‘Tomorrow, England will be on both sides of the Hohe Warte and one will be able to indulge completely in the pleasure of seeing two first-class English teams in the game. Which Viennese football fan would not have long since wanted to see one of those splendid English football games,’ wrote Die Zeit.
The attendance figure was somewhere between 7-10,000 depending on a which source you believe – but either way, it was an impressive crowd and one which broke all previous records in Austria. Unfortunately though, we couldn’t add to our FA Cup triumph over the Toffees as they ran out winners in a game in which, once more, style of football and technical ability of the players was more the focus of the supporters attending rather than the result itself.
Everton were the better team and our own Jack Eggett was the busier of the two goalkeepers but he could do nothing to prevent the Goodison side from taking the lead in the 41st minute when Harold Hardman set up Jimmy Settle for the opening goal. Victory was wrapped up in the 76th minute after Alex Young – who played five times for us in 1911 – doubled Everton’s advantage.
After the match, a banquet took place in a Vienna casino for the directors and players of both ourselves and Everton, as well as board members of First Vienna FC and their players. During the event, Everton were presented with the aforementioned NWT Cup, while a final line in a newspaper report of the evening said: ‘The banquet took a very animated course,’ which suggested a good night was had by all!
7 May Spurs 0 Everton 2 (Settle, Young)
Hohe Warte Stadium, Vienna
Everton: Scott, Balmer, Crelley, Boothe, Taylor, Abbott, Rankin, MacLaughlin, Young, Settle, Hardmann. Spurs: Eggett, Tait, Watson, Brearley, Bull, McNaught, Murray, Glen, Woodward, Cameron, Walton.
