West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur haved faced each other at the quarter-final stage of the League Cup twice before - and on the first occasion they emerged triumphant thanks to David Cross.
The striker scored the only goal of the game on 2 December 1980 as second division West Ham sprung a surprise on their first division opponents.
Wednesday night will again pit the Hammers against Spurs at the quarter-final stage with a place in the Capital One Cup semi-finals the prize for the winners.
As Sam Allardyce's squad prepare to try and win at White Hart Lane for a second time this season, Cross has been recalling the night that he sent Tottenham crashing out of the League Cup.
He told whufc.com: "I remember it was a very similar time of the year and it was a very cold night in December with some question over whether the game would be played because the temperature was almost down to freezing.
"We were second division, Tottenham were first division and they were probably favourites but we had good players and a good team. It was 0-0 at half-time and we were reasonably happy with that.
"As the game went on I can recall that we put a lot of pressure on them and felt that the pressure might tell and in the end it did. I got the ball on the half-turn and slid a ball through their backline for Trevor Brooking to run onto, he knocked it against the Tottenham goalkeeper and the ball drifted out to the right.
"I chased after it and because there was no one on their goalline as their keeper had come out of his area I just chipped it towards the far post hoping that it might go in or one of our lads might head it in or that one of the Tottenham players coming back might put it in his own goal. Fortunately it did drift into the far corner of the net and that won the game."
The Hammers went onto reach the final of the competition in which they eventually succumbed to Liverpool after a replay.
Cross and his teammates were the underdogs against Spurs and he believes that helped his team to victory.
"The whole derby aspect took over the fact that we were in the division below. It wasn't that big a shock, when you get to a quarter-final like that anything can happen.
"We played well on the night and because we were underdogs there is always that little bit less pressure on you. We didn't think it was that much of a shock and it got us to the semi-finals which we won over two legs against Coventry City, and that got us through to the final."
Cross is expecting Tottenham to produce a stronger performance than their showing in the 5-0 defeat at home to Liverpool on Sunday but believes Sam Allardyce and his team can emerge victorious.
He said: "There might be a bit of a backlash from Tottenham after Sunday's result and obviously they've let the manager go now so the players will feel they have something to prove.
"Tottenham have high quality players and Sam's got to cope with a lot of injuries, he can't call on Carroll or Downing so it's going to be difficult.
"You never know what will happen. Tottenham will go into the game as favourites and that will take the pressure off of us and we could definitely get a result."
Also playing on that night in 1980 was Billy Bonds, and he recalls the cup run with similar fondness.
He explained: "I remember it was a tough tie but a good chance to get through. We then had two semi-final games with Coventry and we lost 3-2 up there, I think I got a goal up there that night, and we won 2-0 at home with Jimmy Neighbour scoring the second goal.
"We got to the final and we were up against the best team in the league back then, Liverpool. It was never going to be easy but we were great against them. We got a 1-1 draw, Ray Stewart got a penalty and we took the lead in the replay. I'm not sure if their first goal was an own-goal, it was knocked down onto my knee and it was an own-goal by me.
"Somebody got up, headed it down, hit my knee, it flew in and we lost the game 2-1.
"That was around a good spell for us, we won the 1975 FA Cup, we won the FA Cup again in 1980 and then that was the 1981 League Cup final. We'd had a European final in 1976 so it was good times and I never expected to play in a final when we lost those games against Stoke in 1972.
"I was 26 and I thought I'm never going to get the chance to go out at Wembley but in the end we got to four finals, had a Second Division championship in there as well which we won by a street. They were good times."
