Djed Spence proudly made his senior England debut on Tuesday night.
The in-form full-back came on for Reece James in the 69th minute of the Three Lions’ thumping 5-0 victory over Serbia in World Cup qualifying.
Thomas Tuchel’s men were 3-0 up at the time of the defender’s introduction following goals from Harry Kane, Noni Madueke and Ezri Konsa – and after some good contributions in his first few minutes on the field, Djed saw Marc Guehi and a Marcus Rashford penalty complete a resounding win in Belgrade.
On the bench for England’s 2-0 home win over Andorra on Saturday, Djed received his first senior international call-up this month after some excellent performances for us over the last year.
He becomes the 80th Spurs player to represent the senior England men’s team – we’ve provided more players for the Three Lions than any other club – and the first since Dominic Solanke in October last year.
The Frank Hartley conundrum solved!
Over the years, there had been some debate as to whether amateur inside-forward Frank Hartley was a Tottenham Hotspur player at the time of his England debut in 1923, but we have unearthed evidence to suggest that wasn’t the case.
Chosen once for England’s end-of-season European tour in 1923, where the Three Lions experimented with several amateurs, Hartley’s selection versus France – a 4-1 win in Paris on 10 May – came just a month after he played for Spurs at Birmingham.
Hartley signed amateur forms with us in November, 1922, but played most of that season for Oxford City. Some internet sites claim Hartley was a Spurs player when he featured for the Three Lions against France but extensive research of newspapers from the era show him as an Oxford City player, where he spent several years playing. Perhaps most significantly, we’ve uncovered an FA pamphlet printed for the England v France game which lists Frank as playing for Oxford City!
Unfortunately Hartley was seriously injured against France and decided not to continue playing at senior level, however, in February 1928, we persuaded him to sign professional and he went on to play six more first team matches in our colours.