On 2nd May 1998, Spurs travelled to Selhurst Park to play Wimbledon - Wimbledon had secured Premier League survival just a few days before, but Spurs arrived still deep in trouble and the threat of relegation hanging heavily around the clubs neck.It had been a long and unsuccessful season under the management of Christian Gross. Neither fans nor players were happy with his style of management and results had seen us right near the relegation zone.
Previous Lane hero returned on loan from Sampdoria in a hope of revitalising the team - but despite scoring a few goals, after the initial excitement of his return, he struggled to make the major impact we'd all hoped - however, that all changed at Selhurst Road on 2nd May - but not before the team put us through the mill first.
Ferdinand gave us an early lead, but the Dons struck back in a dominant spell which then saw them take the lead plus Ian Walker tip a powerful Wimbledon header over the bar - we could have been 3-1 down and staring the drop down both barrels, but just before half time, Klinsmann turned a Ginola cross into the goal and we went in 2-2.
Spurs started second half well and in 54th minute, Nicola Berti fed Klinsmann who drilled shot past Sullivan and Spurs regained the lead. It was all one way traffic hereafter. A few minutes later, Les Ferdinand strongly held off a defender to win header from long Walker clearance, directing it to Klinsmann, who brilliantly spun the defender, whilst shielding the ball to stroke the ball past the keeper to complete his hat-trick in front of of the visiting Spurs fans and give Spurs a 2 goal cushion.
"We're staying up!" and "Can we play you every week" rang out from the Spurs fans. On 60 minutes, Jurgen scored his 4th (another Ferdinand assist) and Spurs 5th and there weren't too many Dons fans left when Moussa Saib completed the rout.
Although Spurs weren't 100% mathematically safe, the fixtures of their fellow strugglers around them plus goal differences, meant the club were as good as safe.