Did you know Watford have never beaten Spurs in the Premier League before? Then a stirring football revival sent the Tottenham Nomads back to ….Wembley?....White Hart Lane?....Milton Keynes? with their tails between their legs.

Actually the Hornets have beaten Tottenham a few times over the years but the last victory was at Vicarage Road back in May 1987, watched by 20,034. We did not appreciate the fact at the time but that was to be Graham Taylor’s last match in charge as Elton John brought the curtain down on the manager’s first glorious spell at Vicarage Road, a week or so later.

The BBC pointed out that it is the first victory over Spurs for 31 years, whereas Sky, with their obsession with the Premier League statistics, as if football was only invented in 1992, stressed it was the first-ever victory over the former White Hart Lane club in the Premier League.

Now I am not suggesting we wallow in recollections of such as West Herts taking on the Thornaby Utopians back in April 1898 – one of their last games before changing their name to Watford - but the fact is a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since Watford first beat Spurs in the Southern League in 1900 with some 5,000 spectators ‘round the ropes’ at Cassio Road.

I mean we are forever told that Alan Shearer is the greatest of the modern goalscorers in the Premier League, which arguably may be true. His 260 in 441 outings is an impressive statistic but the fact is Dixie Dean scored 390 in 438 appearances back in the 1920s, and scored a further 18 for England. That puts a historical perspective on things and, if you think 1928 is too far back to trawl, Jimmy Greaves scored 357 in top-flight football in the 1960s.

Yes, I know football is far more sophisticated now, even if the entertainment quotient has nowhere near mirrored that progress but, by cutting off the records established in the Football League for well over 100 years, Sky do the game a disservice. I know it is all part of the rebranding, sexy, modern image but football did not start in 1992 and the teams and players that we watched in 1991 in the Football League top flight, were operating the following year in the inaugural Premier League.

So, until Sunday, Sky trumpeted that Watford had never beaten Tottenham in the Premier League, which prompted me to ruminate on what other somewhat shallow records can be conjured up. Have we ever beaten one of the current top flight clubs in the Rumbelows Cup? The Littlewoods Cup?

The fact is all those brand names have fallen by the wayside and while it is now the Carabao Cup, that too will be forgotten for statistics tell us they are all listed simply as the League Cup, when you look up past records.

Football is a continuing story.

Well, I had a somewhat complicated Sunday afternoon for having invested three days watching the Fourth Test I was reluctant to abandon it as the game reached the denouement. I was also passably interested in whether Lewis Hamilton could win at Monza when we were being told the Ferraris were the clear favourites on home soil. Add the fact it was Celtic v Rangers and that afternoon four players were tying at 19-under on the European Golf circuit in Denmark, and I confess to a lot of surfing on the remote.

However, I covered myself by taping both the cricket and the Hornets, which I then re-ran that evening, finishing around 10.00 pm after a surfeit of sport which saw England, Celtic, Hamilton and Watford win.

I must admit I was impressed with the way Watford played and while I could count myself a fan of Tottenham’s style, they were either limp-wristed or railroaded out by the Hornets.

One side wanted to win that game; the other would have liked to and that is how the respected teams played.

It was good to see Andre Gray getting stuck in and wresting the ball off defenders because that has not always been his forte. And then there is Troy Deeney, whose attributes must be known by now, but the Spurs’ defence did not seem to appreciate where his threat lies.

Mauricio Pochettino mentioned Watford’s long ball but I thought that was almost as simplistic as a previous Spurs boss back in 1982 in those shadowy pre-Sky times, when he dismissed Watford after they had recorded their first top-flight victory at White Hart Lane. I thought there was a lot of good work undertaken in midfield by the Hornets. In fact it was something of a wake-up call for Spurs who were a little flattered by their success at Old Trafford the previous week.

A great afternoon for the Hornets and with 12 points in the bag, there are only 28 to go before we can relax totally and enjoy each game for what it offers.

My mention of previous statistics, many of which were trawled from my own and Trefor Jones’ Watford archives, brings me observing that a new and quite impressive magazine is on sale, called the Watford Treasury, which delves into Watford past.

Naturally I have perused the references to Watford’s past, for Trefor and I invested a lot of time and effort, often in tandem, on unearthing nuggets and facts from the club’s history. Some of the facts in the Treasury were gleaned from our own research but having advised them of the fact, hopefully we will be credited in future.

Certainly it is attractively presented and worth the £5 cover price with profits going to the Watford Museum for purchasing Hornet memorabilia. It can be purchased at Watford Museum or at thewatfordtreasury.co.uk