WITH less than an hour-and-a-half to go to kick-off on New Year's Day 1983, John Lyall summoned the Collier Row teenager into his wood-panelled office deep in the dungeons of the Boleyn Ground.
"Are you confident? Are you ready? Do you think that you could do a good job for me?" the injury-plagued West Ham United boss asked his youth team scoring sensation, Tony Cottee.
The excited, lifelong Hammers' fan nodded, not needing to be asked twice.
"Just go out there and enjoy yourself," the renowned man-manager, Lyall, urged the 17-year-old as he handed him absent Paul Goddard's No. 8 shirt. "There's no pressure, just go and do your best for me."
Cottee returned to the dressing room to find himself changing with players he had once cheered from the Upton Park terraces.
And as he walked down the tunnel with Hammers legends such as Phil Parkes, Alvin Martin, Ray Stewart and Alan Devonshire, he also looked across at a Spurs' side boasting the likes of Ray Clemence, Glenn Hoddle, Steve Perryman and Ricky Villa.
With just 25 minutes on the clock, TC's surreal day got yet better in front of a frenzied derby crowd of 33,383.
"Pop Robson could not have reacted faster than Cottee when Geoff Pike's free-kick was nodded against the bar by on-loan Joe Gallagher," insisted the veteran scribe Mike Langley in the following morning's Sunday People.
"It seemed that the ball might bounce in without assistance - but born strikers don't think like that. So, Cottee darted through, leaving the Spurs' defence standing, and met the ball with his head a couple of feet from the line. It's a knack that has put Cottee's name against 30 reserve and junior goals already this season. Now he knows that lightning pace and fearlessness work equally well at the top level, too."
Although Hoddle twice went close with trademark 30 yarders, thanks to their new hero, the Hammers were now comfortably in the driving seat, and when Devonshire was upended by Georgio Mazzon with 20 minutes remaining, Ray Stewart typically slammed the consequent penalty beyond Clemence into the bottom right-hand corner.
With a quarter-of-an-hour left, Devonshire was in the thick of things again as he invited stand-in skipper Geoff Pike to skate past the advancing Clemence and secure the 3-0 victory that was destined to leave Keith Burkinshaw's struggling Spurs outfit locked in their dressing room for more than an hour after the final whistle.
"As I watched The Big Match later that evening, it was like re-living a dream as I saw my goal go in from all different angles," revealed Cottee in his autobiography Claret & Blues. "I kept looking at the screen thinking: 'Is that really me scoring?' It took ages for everything to sink in."
Three days later, TC was also on target in a 2-3 defeat against Luton Town and he went on to score 118 league and cup goals in 256 claret and blue outings, before controversially moving to Everton for a club record fee of £2,050,000 in summer 1988.
Cottee - who then scored 99 goals in 240 appearances at Goodison Park - made a welcome return to Upton Park six years later in a deal that saw David Burrows head back to Merseyside.
And he took his Hammers' career record to 146 strikes in 336 outings before heading to Malaysian side Selangor in Autumn 1996.
Spells at Leicester City, Birmingham City, Norwich City, Barnet - where he was player/manager - and Millwall also followed, before he retired to carve out a successful career as a Sky Sports pundit.
Cottee might well have scored 293 goals throughout an illustrious career spanning 712 League and Cup matches, but that first-ever senior appearance against Tottenham will always hold special memories for the seven-times capped England international.
"Debuts can make or break some players but, for me,
everything went like clockwork," concluded TC. "It really
was Roy of the Rovers stuff!"
By Steve Blowers, author of Nearly Reached the Sky:
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