John Pratt (born 26 June 1948) is an English former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He spent much of his career at

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...

Tottenham Hotspur career

Pratt was born in Hackney, London. He signed for the club as a junior in November, 1965. He made his debut in April 1969 against Arsenal. Making 415 appearances and scoring 49 goals in all competitions in 11 seasons at the club. He always gave 100% in his midfield duties but was often made the scapegoat when Spurs performed poorly, and never quite winning over certain sections of the

White Hart Lane White Hart Lane was a football stadium in Tottenham, North London and the home of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1899 to 2017. Its capacity varied over the years; when changed to all-seater it had a capacity of 36,284 before demolition. ...

crowd. In his career at Spurs he played in every outfield position. He played as a substitute in the first leg as Tottenham won the

1972 UEFA Cup Final The 1972 UEFA Cup Final was the final of the first UEFA Cup football tournament. It was a two-legged contest played on 3 May and 17 May 1972 between two English clubs, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur. This was the first UEFA club com ...

, and also started the 1973 League Cup Final. However, in the latter game he got injured and was substituted off for

Ralph Coates Ralph Coates (26 April 1946 – 17 December 2010) was an English footballer who played at both professional and international levels as a winger. Coates played for Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur and Orient, making 480 appearances in the Football Le ...

who went on to score the winning goal.

Bill Nicholson quote

Later career

He joined Portland Timbers in the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1980 and stayed for three seasons in the USA. After returning to Spurs he went on to coach the youth and junior sides before being promoted assistant manager to Peter Shreeves till 1986.

Today

He runs a window cleaning company and has gone into partnership with ex–Spur Mark Falco in an asbestos clearing concern. Pratt was a regular for the clubs Old Boys XI. Since a knee and ankle injury his duties at the club are restricted to working in hospitality and as an unofficial team coach.''Where are they now?''
Retrieved 19 August 2008

Honours

Tottenham Hotspur *

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

; runner-up 1974 * Football League Cup:

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...

References

External links

John Pratt shrine

Fact- file and photos of John

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratt, John Living people 1948 births English footballers Footballers from the London Borough of Hackney Association football midfielders UEFA Cup winning players English Football League players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) indoor players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players Portland Timbers (1975–1982) players English expatriate footballers English expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate soccer players in the United States