Exclusive: 'Always got to beat Spurs' – Noble on importance of West Ham's 'big rivalry'

West Ham legend Mark Noble has shared his standout memories while representing the club against their rivals Tottenham, in an exclusive interview with TNT Sports ahead of The Hammers’ much-anticipated clash with Spurs.

West Ham host Ange Postecoglou’s side on Tuesday, April 2, as part of a huge week of Premier League action live on TNT Sports and discovery+ in a game that has much at stake for both teams.

David Moyes’ charges are just outside of the top six, while Tottenham have their focus firmly on a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League.

It is a fixture that both sets of supporters eagerly await each season, and for West Ham icon Noble – who retired from football in 2022 having made 550 appearances for his boyhood club – it was always the biggest game of the campaign.

“I don’t think Arsenal were a massive rival, they were winning titles and all that. There was just something with Spurs that made it such a big rivalry,” Noble, who is now working as the club’s sporting director, told former Tottenham player Jermaine Jenas. “I loved the rivalry, I loved playing in those games.

“I remember saying to the boys many times, ‘listen, you don’t need a team talk for these games. It is what it is, we’ve got to try and win’.

“I was brought up as a West Ham fan and being around loads of West Ham fans myself, they always ingrained in me that ‘we’ve always got to beat Spurs’.”

Looking back on West Ham’s 1-0 victory in April 2019, when Michail Antonio scored the winner to inflict a first defeat on Spurs in their new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Noble recalls a disagreement in the visitors’ changing room.

“I’ve come in and done the press, and the players wanted to take a photo together and I’m like ‘not a chance are we having a photo here’, because I believed that we should expect to beat Spurs,” Noble said.

“It was probably a little bit of ego because I didn’t want a photo to come out of us just because we beat Spurs 1-0. For me that wasn’t good enough, I needed to go on and be better as a club than that.”

Casting his mind back further, Noble reminded Jenas of West Ham’s 3-0 win at White Hart Lane in 2013 when Ravel Morrison’s spectacular solo goal helped light up a game full of drama.

Noble continued: “I met a really good friend of mine, a big Spurs fan, on holiday, and I remember playing against Spurs and we were 3-0 up, and I knew exactly where my friend sat in the crowd.

“I was looking for him but I couldn’t see him. The next goal I set it up, and I see him and I didn’t realise that obviously all the Tottenham fans don’t realise what’s going on, and I just got hammered for the rest of the game.”

But it wasn’t all happy memories for the former midfielder. A missed penalty at Upton Park in August 2014 was compounded when Eric Dier struck a stoppage-time winner on his debut for Mauricio Pochettino’s side.

Noble explained: “That was the worst at the time but it was the best thing to happen to me. I ran up, I’d looked up and saw Lloris [Hugo] move and because it was Spurs, I was already celebrating. I’ll never forget it, I was like ‘oh my god, he’s gone too early, this is easy’.

“Eye off the ball, dragged it wide, didn’t even hit the target – it was horrendous. I was lying in bed that night thinking, ‘this is the sloppiest thing you’ve ever done as a player’.”

TNT Sports is available across all major TV platforms, offering a line-up of up to four TV channels (TNT Sports 1, TNT Sports 2, TNT Sports 3, TNT Sports 4), and up to six digital or red-button channels (TNT Sports 5 to 10), and TNT Sports Ultimate plus TNT Sports Box Office HD.

West Ham United v Tottenham Hotspur will be live on TNT Sports 1 with coverage from 19:30 on Tuesday, April 2 ahead of kick-off at 20:15.