Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa

Villa had already claimed six league titles before Spurs even set foot in the Football League.

Tottenham Hotspur were elected to the Football League Second Division in 1908, having previously competed in the Southern League. Promotion to the First Division followed swiftly, and with it came regular fixtures against the established powers of English football, Aston Villa chief among them. Villa were already six-time league champions by this point, a dominant force of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Rowe's push-and-run philosophy won Spurs their only top-flight title; a crown they have never reclaimed.

Under Arthur Rowe, Spurs claimed the First Division championship in 1950-51, playing a fluid style known as "push and run" that redefined how English football could look. It remains their sole top-flight league title. Villa, by contrast, were in a period of relative decline, and the fixture that season carried a different weight: the champions against a club searching for its former self.

Eleven straight wins to open the season; the impossible Double suddenly looked like the only logical outcome.

Bill Nicholson's side became the first club in the twentieth century to win the League and FA Cup Double in 1960-61. Spurs beat Villa twice in the league that season, part of a relentless campaign that saw them win their opening eleven matches. The Double had been considered near-impossible in the modern game. Nicholson's team made it look inevitable.

Chivers scored twice as Spurs lifted the League Cup; Villa arrived at Wembley from the Third Division.

The two clubs met in the 1971 League Cup final at Wembley, the most significant head-to-head in the fixture's history. Martin Chivers scored both goals as Spurs won 2-0, claiming the first of their four League Cup triumphs. For Villa, then a Third Division club, reaching the final had been a remarkable achievement in itself. The result underlined the gap between the sides at that moment, but Villa's journey to Wembley hinted at the revival to come.

Villa ended a title drought stretching back to 1910, while Spurs lifted the FA Cup the same season. Silverware all round.

The 1980-81 season saw both clubs enjoy major success. Aston Villa, under Ron Saunders, won the First Division championship for the first time since 1910, a title that would be followed by the European Cup the next year. Spurs, meanwhile, won the FA Cup in a replayed final against Manchester City. It was a rare season in which both sides could claim silverware, and their league meetings that year carried genuine edge between two clubs at the peak of their powers.

Villa came agonisingly close to winning the very first Premier League title in 1992-93; Spurs, meanwhile, settled for the view from mid-table.

Tottenham and Aston Villa were among the twenty-two founding members of the FA Premier League in 1992. Both clubs were established top-flight sides at the time, and the fixture became a regular feature of the new competition's calendar. Villa finished runners-up in the inaugural 1992-93 season under Ron Atkinson, while Spurs settled into a pattern of mid-table finishes that would persist through much of the decade.

A 62,850-seat arena and a freshly promoted Villa side; the fixture had never arrived with quite so much fanfare.

The 2019-20 season marked a new chapter for both clubs. Spurs moved into their spectacular 62,850-capacity Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, a ground that immediately set new standards for matchday experience in English football. Villa, having won promotion through the Championship play-offs, returned to the Premier League after a three-year absence. The fixture resumed in its new setting, with the soaring single-tier South Stand providing a wall of noise that visiting sides find deeply uncomfortable.

Few foresaw Emery turning Villa into Champions League qualifiers within two years of his arrival.

Under Unai Emery, Aston Villa finished fourth in the 2023-24 Premier League season, qualifying for the Champions League for the first time since the competition adopted its current format. It was a transformation that few had predicted when Emery arrived in October 2022. Meetings between Spurs and Villa now carry the weight of two clubs competing for European places, a dynamic that has sharpened the fixture considerably. Both sides enter each encounter knowing the points matter for more than pride.