(Barry is pictured third across, on the left of the extreme right, of the above photograph.)

Barry Roffman was a lively inside-forward during his days at Spurs as a youth and A team player, but the Luton born footballer could also play up front as a centre-forward, as he did so on occasions. With the help of Barry’s former Spurs teammate David Sunshine, this commemorative piece will be focusing on the late Barry Roffman’s time at Spurs, as well as focusing on some statistics and matches from his time at the club. Barry joined Spurs as an amateur (he signed professional forms later on) in the summer of 1959, after leaving school. The inside-forward would have most likely started off by playing with the old Spurs Under 18 side in the South East Counties League, and during one season with that side he impressively scored 15 goals from 25 appearances. During a time of such competition for places in the three main sides that Spurs had (not including the Under 18 side) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Spurs A team, reserves and first team were very difficult to break into. With internationals even playing in the reserve side, the A team contained quality players who could easily have got into some Second Division sides, such was the quality of the players in that side. As well as playing in the South East Counties League during his early days at Spurs, Barry would have also played in competitions such as the London Midweek League, the London Minor Cup, the FA Youth Cup and later on the Eastern Counties League, with the A team. A skilful player with good close control and distribution, Barry Roffman was a regular scorer for the Spurs youth team, and he even scored four goals in a preliminary round FA Youth Cup win over Terrington Lads, on one occasion.

Barry’s consistently good performances for the Spurs youth team were rewarded during the famous double winning season of 1960/61, when Barry made his first two competitive appearances for the Spurs A team in the Eastern Counties League. Of his two appearances that season he scored a hat-trick for the A team in a 9-0 league win over Biggleswade Town. During the following 1961/62 season Barry had a breakthrough season for the Spurs A team. He made 23 appearances for them in the Eastern Counties League, scoring eight goals, and he also scored an additional goal for the A team in an Eastern Counties Football League Challenge Cup game against Stowmarket. Scoring for the A team in games against the likes of Ely City and Southend United respectively, this would have been a memorable season for Barry. Although the Luton born footballer never played a competitive game for the reserves (he may have played for them in a non-competitive game), it was incredibly difficult to make that step up into the reserve side in those days. Especially when you had players like double winner Frank Saul getting games for the reserves, in the days when there were no substitutes for first team games. Back when Barry was a Spurs player the youth policy at the club was very different to what it is today. Often Barry would have turned up to play youth games for Spurs not knowing, nor having played with some of the players that would be playing in the same Spurs Under 18 side as him, or possibly (no records exist to my knowledge) even for the second youth side in the Wood Green & Metropolitan League. That was because Spurs used to often field trialists in those games, trialists who more likely than not would never play for the club on more than one occasion.

Barry did play in the same youth and A side as players who would go on to play for the Spurs first team. The most notable former player is Spurs legend Phil Beal, but other players that Barry played with who played for the Spurs team, included Derek Possee, Roy Low and Ron Piper. As his old teammate David Sunshine recalls, Barry was a popular and well liked member of the Spurs youth and A team, and David also remembers that Barry had a good sense of humour. Although it is unknown whether or not Barry continued to play football at any level after leaving Spurs, he did go into the fashion industry and set up a business called Pret A Porter, before later moving to Spain (Barry sadly passed away in 2014). To have been at Spurs during those three and a bit years must have been a wonderful time for Barry, as it was for all of the players who were at the club during that period. And to have been at Spurs for the length of time that he was, like with all of the players who were at Spurs during that period in the 20th century, it speaks volumes of just how talented they were as footballers.