When Arsenal first played Tottenham at Wembley – and hammered them 4-0

Arsenal thumped Spurs on 13 August 1988 and then returned to Wembley the very next day to see off Bayern Munich 3-0

By Steven Pye for That 1980s Sports Blog of the Sport Network

If you ask a football fan to name the first time Arsenal played Tottenham at Wembley, they might say the 1991 FA Cup semi-final. Alas, they would be incorrect. The two teams met in the inaugural Wembley International Tournament three years earlier. It was only a friendly but for Arsenal fans it proved the perfect appetiser for the 1988-89 season.

The match almost didn’t see the light of day. Indeed, the whole tournament was under threat despite event organisers announcing it to the world in June 1988. The FA threw a spanner in the works immediately, fearful that a tournament involving Arsenal, Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Milan would be a green light for hooligans to drag English football through the gutter once more.

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