Lee Bowyer scored a second-half winner to crown a man-of-the-match performance and wreck Tottenham's unbeaten home Premiership record this season on a poignant day for Leeds United's former boss George Graham and his Elland Road successor David O'Leary.

Bowyer cast aside his off-field problems once more to hit his 12th goal of the season after Ian Harte's penalty had wiped out Les Ferdinand's 32nd-minute strike on the stroke of half-time, to end a run of nine unbeaten Tottenham matches.

So Leeds followed up their magnificent midweek performance of clinching a Champions League quarter-final place by beating Belgian aces Anderlecht 4-1 in Brussels and moved closer to qualifying for Europe again next season.

But the defeat for Tottenham, coming on Sir Alan Sugar's last day of a 10-year reign as chairman, poured more pressure back on Graham with new owners ENIC due to take control next week and said to favour ex-England coach Glenn Hoddle as next manager at White Hart Lane.

It was deja vu for Graham as Leeds completed a double this season over Spurs and repeated their come-from-behind win at White Hart Lane of last term.

Spurs' bid to set a new club record of six consecutive clean sheets in the League could have been in tatters in the first five minutes.

Mark Viduka got goal-side of a strangely lethargic Sol Campbell in the opening 60 seconds and the Tottenham skipper appeared to push him from behind. But referee Jeff Winter was unmoved by Leeds appeals for a penalty.

And when Viduka cleverly flicked on Olivier Dacourt's pass to put Robbie Keane in the clear the little Irishman, whom Graham apparently declined to to buy for £6 million at the start of last season, put his low shot just near enough to Neil Sullivan for the keeper to push it round a post at full stretch.

In between times, though Les Ferdinand escaped young cousin Rio, captaining Leeds for the first time since his £15million move from West Ham, with such ease that it should have been a warning to the defender how difficult a first half he was going to have against his more street-smart relation.

Les, in fact, should have comfortably buried the early chance when Rio failed to apply a routine clearing header to Rebrov's flick but was probably too surprised he was even afforded the opportunity and hooked it wide with no Leeds man near enough to challenge.

Similarly, the regularity with which the much-booed Bowyer and the industrious David Batty and Dacourt were stretching the Spurs defence encouraged Leeds to a sustained period of supremacy in which Tottenham had to resist a spate of corners and free-kicks.

And Sullivan had to make another fine save to turn Danny Mills 25-yard strike over the bar.

But with little Sergei Rebrov probing and prompting on the counter. Leeds could never afford to relax their grip on Les Ferdinand. And when they did they were desperately lucky to survive his glancing header after he again eluded Rio to get on the end of Tim Sherwood's long free-kick from the left.

Nigel Martyn could barely believe his good fortune when the ball bounced back off the side of a post straight to him and he dropped it like a hot potato for a corner.

Three minutes later, though, Martyn's luck ran out when Rebrov sent Ferdinand steaming in to round the keeper and coolly tuck away his seventh goal of the season.

And it was inches from becoming eight in the 41st minute when the 34-year old former England striker, now full of himself, decided to try his luck from all of 30 yards. Martyn was again beaten to the wide but saw the ball slip past his left-hand post.

Just when Spurs were ready to celebrate another clean-sheet half, though, the up-to-then impressive striker-turned-defender Gary Doherty clumsily brought down Bowyer with the stoppage-time board only just on display on the touchline.

And Harte emphatically rapped home his fifth goal in nine games from the spot after Sullivan had been booked for his futile protest against the decision.

It got worse for Tottenham 12 minutes after the break even though they survived initially when Viduka held off Campbell to fire a shot which Sullivan parried out to Bowyer's whose follow up effort was somehow chested of the line by the prostrate Stephen Clemence.

There was nobody to rescue Spurs through when Bowyer, seizing onto a loose ball after Harte's long throw caused mayhem, drove his shot at goal and Viduka cleverly spread his legs to let the ball go through and beyond the unsighted Sullivan.

O'Leary had withdrawn Eirik Bakke at half-time to give Harry Kewell his latest chance to get back into action after his long-term injury and together with fellow-Aussie Viduka he gave Leeds a sharper edge to add to Bowyer's tireless promptings.

Seven injured first-team players on the treatment table was a statistic that inevitably began to tell on Spurs and in fairness they have done well to build such a good run of results until this one.

But Leeds looked a class apart once their defenders had tamed Les Ferdinand who was eventually taken off 12 minutes from time to give Steffen Iversen his first run-out in four months after a second operation on a troublesome knee.

Spurs, only four points behind fifth-placed Leeds at the start of play, battled gamely to the last and Doherty miskicked horribly when the ball bounced his way in a crowded goalmouth after Ledley King's header had gone close moments earlier.

But Leeds created the better openings and Harte's free-kick curler was just failed to dip enough for his second goal of the game. And Sullivan ad to make another first-class save to deny Viduka right at the end.

Teams:

Tottenham: Sullivan, Young, Campbell, Sherwood, Davies (Thelwell 45), King, Clemence (Iversen 79), Freund, Doherty, Ferdinand (Etherington 79), Rebrov.

Subs Not Used: Walker, Booth.

Booked: Sullivan, Freund.

Goals: Ferdinand 33.

Leeds: Martyn, Harte, Mills, Ferdinand, Matteo, Batty, Bakke (Kewell 45), Dacourt, Bowyer, Viduka, Keane.

Subs Not Used: Robinson, Wilcox, Burns, Maybury.

Booked: Keane.

Goals: Harte 45 pen, Bowyer 57.

Att: 36,070

Ref: J Winter (Stockton-on-Tees).