David Pleat: 'The joy of beating a great team – that was a great happiness'

09/12/2024 02:00 PM

The former Luton and Tottenham manager on spotting players, the limitations of data and his greatest game

'"No. I'm afraid it's an addiction or an obsession – whatever you want to call it," smiles David Pleat. We're sitting in a hotel just off the M1 motorway where the 79-year-old recalled that he sold the defender Matt Jackson to the Everton manager Howard Kendall back in 1991 for £600,000. "He'd only played nine games for us … that was one of my best bits of business."

Pleat, whose long association with Tottenham came to an end only a few weeks ago when he left his role as consultant scout, has just been asked whether he has any other interests outside football. It later emerges that the former Luton, Spurs, Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday manager has already attended an astonishing 14 games this season despite it only starting a month ago, including a National League fixture at Wealdstone and an academy match at Watford.