Tottenham till I die
Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 11:57AM #2
A question was posed on a forum asking why you support who you support. Not highly original, I know, but it's always interesting to delve into the responses to see how other peoples allegiances were birthed.
Your answer ought to be geographically influenced, but commonly it's down to immediate family and on occasions, if you are devoid of having a dad (or mum) or siblings who are interested in the beautiful game you just pick whomever is top of the league. Which is why when I was a young lad everyone in London seemed to support Liverpool*.
*Two minutes silence for their current plight please people. Two minutes.
Of course, not everyone glory-hunts. And many live abroad and simply fall in love with the history or traditions of a club in another country, based on a game they've witnessed or a book they've read or the majesty of a shirt. I appreciate that not everyone is pre-selected.
I had the privilege (curse) of having a family of Spurs supporters around me. I was also born in Tottenham. Well actually, no I wasn't. A hospital on Tottenham Court Road. Well, actually the hospital was just a brisk walk from Tottenham Court Road. Nowhere near N17, but that's just a technicality. Tottenham Court Road, right? COYS.
My grandfather (God rest his soul) was a keen follower and frequenter of White Hart Lane during the 50's and 60's and my uncle, a fanatic during the 70's hardly missed a game. The latter, the one who influenced me and guided me into the light that is Lilywhite.
No rebellious I want to support someone else or I like their badge so I'm going to choose this lot instead - which wasn't uncommon, again, with people who had no given affiliations to a club when they were old enough to understand and make their selection. A successful team, usually defeating the local team as the winning option if they wished to fast-track themselves to the top tier. But plenty followed their hearts instead.
How some families managed to be split down the middle between two clubs always fascinated me. It's fragmentation that can never be resolved. My dad supports Spurs. My brother. My sister. My uncle's kids. We have no split. I did celebrate Trevor Brookings goal in the 1980 Cup final by running outside into the garden and attempting to head the ball into an imaginary net but that isn't confliction, it's a natural reaction. An acceptable lapse. A Newcastle supporting father and a Sunderland supporting son a story I remember hearing about. They hardly spoke, always fought. Football before family, always.
Reminds me of a bloke who stood in front of me in one of the East stand turnstiles back in the very early 90's. 1991 season I reckon, home to the scum. 0-0. Gooners waving their wallets at us from the Park Lane. Gazza almost scoring an own goal as I stood in the corner of the Shelf side in those cracking days of terraces. So this bloke in the queue had a Spurs and Arsenal badge on his jumper. A ridiculous paradox.
"I support both", he stated proudly.
The steward looked at me and I just blankly stared back. If you support two clubs, two rival clubs, then you've not quite grasped the concept, have you? It's like people who ask the question: Who's you favourite team? There is no place for favourite team in football. If you do it properly, you don't have a favourite team. You just have the one. A relationship for life. No break-up. Plenty of heartaches and headaches, and the two of you are together until your very last breath.
'Yeah, so, I really love Man U but I dig Real Madrid in their all white kit and also adore Wolves because they got a cool name. So Utd are my best, Madrid my second bestest and Wolves my third bestestest. If any of them play each other, I'd like a draw'
If you ever met someone who stated a resemblance of the above, I wouldn't look down on you if you smothered and buried him in a shallow grave in Epping forest. Favourite? There's no room for favouritism. Following the results of your local side, if you perhaps don't actually support your local side isn't betrayal. There are no affairs and no two-timing. 100% unequivocal commitment. You love your team, but you can have a soft spot for your local side. Bit like some Spurs fans I know who watch Barnet or Orient. They don't 'love' Barnet. They would practically (heavily metaphorically) die for Spurs.
However, every now and again we do get some Sol Campbells amongst us. Ooh.
My brother-in-law knew someone who, after a depressing Saturday at the Lane in a depressing season (I guess the mid-90's), and partly thanks to some peer-pressure from outside his group of friends, 'quit' supporting Spurs and not long after ended up an Arsenal fan. Quitting because your team lost? Spare a thought for supporters of clubs who never climb out of the lower tier divisions. The spirit of Benedict Arnold lives on with some.
I knew someone a few years back, a Hammers fan, who revealed he was a Spurs fan when he was a teenager but ended up following the Irons because his group of mates got involved with the ICF and he was more interested in the friendships and fighting than the football. It was, to him, more about being part of a group. A hooligan rather than standing on his own every Saturday at 3pm. Each to their own I guess.
My personal favourite (I'm using that word here because it's in context) has to be the story about these two blokes (in Leyton at the time), one of whom was completely disinterested in football and the other a West Ham fan. They both lusted after this one girl who was an Arsenal supporter. And both of them became gooners as a consequence to win her over. They both actually dated her, one after the other (she went out with one, dumped him then went out with the other one). The two blokes even had a punch up at one point outside the local pub. Heated stuff. The bloke who supported West Ham and defected for the sake of having her thighs wrapped round his back, paraded himself in a JVC shirt often without shame.
It's a bit like shitting yourself in public whilst wearing white trousers. You will never live it down. Nobody will forget the humiliation. The white trousers are bad enough, but the diarrhoea? It will define you forever. How could anyone look you in the eyes and take you seriously after something like that? You would automatically lose all credibility. For life. A few years later I spotted him back in a West Ham shirt. Pathetic.
You simply cannot disdain the fabric of football and the lack of its complexities relating to allegiances. It's quite simple. You choose your team and are bound to them for life. No get out clause. That's it.
As for me, I have an almost five month old baby daughter (I've managed to part name her after our beloved club - work it out yourselves) so getting her to follow the Spurs might be a difficult task if her mother pampers her with shopping trips, Jimmy Choos and Gucci handbags when she's old enough to succumb to the frivolous vanity driven past-times of womanhood. However, there is hope. When she was just two months old, she projectile vomited when Cesc Fabregas appeared on the tv during a Sky Sports News report. There's hope for my THFC family bloodline yet.
TTID.
You've been reading the second part of Spooky's International Break diary journals.
Part one can be read here.
Reader Comments (140)
isn't it Jep?? My first ever man crush.....! I see they are talking today about Maclaren coming back, why not God? I'd take him over mac any day.
Stateside fan here. I was always vaguely aware of soccer, but didn't follow any teams, but was growing disenchanted with college basketball--too many one-and-done players to really care about a particular team. So I decided to learn about soccer by picking a team and following it. A Premiership team made sense, so I could understand the commentary (such as this blog), and I didn't want a Big Four team because a) frontrunning is really quite tedious, and b) you don't really learn much about a team game by following a club that can just buy the best players available; it's much better to watch a club with more limited resources work to make various pieces fit together.
I winnowed the clubs, and Spurs seemed most appealing: a storied history (I am a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan, so history is important); a deep commitment to flowing, attractive play; a lack of thuggishness among its fans, coupled with the embrace of "Yids" as a term of pride; a willingness to innovate; and a connection to Shakespeare.
The May 2006 lasagna incident sealed it for me. I figured that a team undone by such bad luck had to have better things in store. And sure enough, despite a flirtation with the relegation zone, and 2 points in 8 games, it's been a thrilling ride up. It's sometimes lonely at the Richmond Arms pub--for the Twente game, I was stuck in a side dining room while 25 Man U supporters got to watch on the big screen, but there are two or three Tottenham fans that regularly show up. I haven't yet seen a game live, though I hope to make it to WHL this spring.
True story: I was with my wife, daughters, and mother-in-law for a family outing at George Ranch, an historic ranch on the outskirts of Houston, nervously checking my Blackberry for updates on last April's Chelsea game. Only one other couple was there; i noticed he was spending a lot of time on his iPhone as we toured the sights. Whie we were listening to a docent tell us about late nineteenth century ranch life (quite interesting, really) he shouts "Terry's sent off!" and high fives his wife. Turns out they used to live 2 blocks from the Lane, and later i took them to the aforementioned Richmond Arms so we could watch the replay properly, with a pint or two.
I think I began following Spurs as we used to live near Tottenham Court Road. Noone in my family was interested in football at the time. It became an obssession but I was lucky enough in that my first seasons as a Spurs fan saw us win 2 League Cups and the UEFA cup. An older friend of mine (whose dad almost married my grandma, but that's another story) was a big Spurs fan and I learnt all about Spurs from him. I can still remember him telling me after my first season which was the disappointing 1969-70 season not to worry as Spurs would win the league soon. His logic was that every team gets a chance and in those days it was true. We won stuff, but not the league.
I left England in 1979 and came to live in Israel. Today I am part of a proud band called the South Jerusalem THFC Fan Club which gets together to watch games on the telly. We've also become dab hands at finding games on the web if they are not televised. We are all fans with 40-50 years of ecstacy/suffering behind us. Crouchie's goal against Citeh was worth the past few years of frustration that we had spent together.
I come from a Spurs supporting family and my dad says I had my first beer during the '81 cup final - I was 3! Used to go to games with him and his mate in the mid to late eighties and fell in love with the club.
Got the Hummel kit one Christmas and it has to rate as the best Christmas ever! Hoping to continue the Spurs family tradition - my daughter's first word was Hoddle!
Whilst on the subject of Hummel kits and Hoddle, for me this goal is why I could never support anyone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS3FvKdYsv0
Great topic.
One side of the family were Shepherds Bush originally and my Grandad was a QPR fan, I can remember him trying to palm me off with ropey shirts with Hoops from an early age. Quarter Pound of Rubbish - so close....
Other side of my family is South American and Ardiles, Villa and a certain Mr Hoddle were my catalyst into becoming Tottenham.
I think I must have spent too many hours trying to emulate Hoddle's goal against Watford. Sheer class. And I don't think anyone on my school team ever got a chance to take a free kick either!
And first time at the Lane, wooden seats in Paxton Road watching Archibald and Crooks ripping some defence to shreds. The first of plenty of good times and memories. Gazza taking us to Wembley and the Semi will always stick in my mind.
And even managed to name my little one after a future hero - 5yrs ahead of his time! It's almost worth all the people who asked if I supported Liverpool or like tennis!!
My dad had no interest in football having come through Rugby uni but my Grandmother always talked about the Spurs team if the 50's and 60's with fondness and sure enough on my 4th birthday a spurs kit appeared.
I got invited to the fa cup replay against forest in about 93 and saw us lose on pens from the back of the shelf and never wanted to follow another club.
I'm yet to meet a real twat of a Tottenham fan too, well nothing compared to Chelsea or Arsenal - maybe its in our DNA!
Texas Spur
I am also a yank and lasagna was critical to my decision!
I have been a lifelong football fan and for many years followed EPL, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga dispassionately with no real team affiliation or special connection to any club. I casually followed many teams in hippie-like fashion hoping for good football and little else. I found it hard to establish a lasting emotional connection with any team.
Though I had admired Tottenham for years from afar (dating back to the 80s) and followed them through good and bad times. I didn't really jump in and decide to become a full-fledged fan until the lasagna incident sealed it for me. It was in the aftermath of crushing defeat that I realized that only one club could truly satisfy my need for star-crossed twists of fate, dramatic moodswings and brilliant free-flowing football combined with occasional dysfunction.
I simply can't imagine following another club. I wasn't born into it so it was almost like the club chose me. And it has rewarded me with more than I could ever ask for.
No team in any sport has gives me a lump in my throat like Tottenham. No team makes me want to shout at the top of my lungs in happiness or pain.
Though I'm relatively new to Spurs I know with all my heart that I am TTID.
Yiddogray says ' I'm yet to meet a real twat of a Tottenham fan too'
Wisky Tom says ' are you in solitary confinement ' ?
I can't say I totally loved it armstrongs-nose-mole! I remember it was cold and we lost! But I did get to see a rare Rebrov goal and marvelled at Taricco's mad hair.
It's been tough supporting this team during one of it's worst periods and teams (Thatcher, Rasiak, Booth, Doherty, Richards, Perry, Postiga etc) but it makes the victories (especially now) that so much better!
Yiddogray says ' I'm yet to meet a real twat of a Tottenham fan too'
Good thing you haven't met me then :)
Hey Texas Spur - I just moved from SanAnto to Houston! Please do you know of a good spot to go watch Premier League/CL games here? In San Antonio, we had a pub called 'Lion $ Rose' that was a soccer den but here..I dont know.
I started following the Prem about 10 years ago, and after a year or two of watching and just trying to absorb the overall landscape and culture, I decided it was high time to find a club that really meant something to me.
Back then, my beloved local baseball franchise was once again going through the wringer. Disappointing seasons tacked onto our already growing 80+ year championship drought, and then a crushing playoff defeat to our most bitter rivals in fall of 2003 in one of the most gut-wrenchingly possible ways.
That year, the Arse went undefeated. It was the only games they kept showing on pay-per-view (before FSC and ESPN's love for football existed in the States). I hated watching them. I hated everything about Henry and how every single time he scored he looked smug about it. I hated that it's the only thing they talked about. Not be be a complete nutter, going undefeated is pretty impressive, but the plucky underdog in me still hated them all the same.
One of the last games I saw that year was the 2-2 draw at the Lane. What stood out for me was the sheer loudness of the crowd. Here's a team struggling to stay afloat, and they came out in droves.
I started reading more about the club. Everything thing I read about them paralleled my Boston Red Sox. Billy Nic reminded me of how we revered Ted Williams. White Hart Lane even resembled Fenway in some weird way. And most of all, the team much like the Yankees(Arsenal) at the time was their biggest rival. it had to be done.
The season ended, and 5 months later, the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918. I knew I made the right choice.
The last trip to London my wife and I made in 2009 included our first trip to the Lane for a tour. Everything that I thought the club was, and what it meant to me rang true when we got to step out onto the pitch and feel the history.
So, it's only been a short 8 years for me, but I couldn't imagine it any other way. COYS
Spurs fan from the middle of America here, and I grew up with no exposure to football whatsoever, except for the World Cup. Didn't know a corner kick from a free kick until I was in high school, and after that, the only thing I knew was that United and Chelsea were twats.
Didn't start seriously following football until I lived in the UK for a year; studied in Edinburgh, decided I was going to start watching football (after realizing during my first year of university that American pro. football was boring as hell) and that I wasn't going to get involved in the SPL bullshit.
Had a friend in Scotland that recommended Spurs to me---I was unsure at first, but started watching Berbatov and Keane work their magic (this was 2006-2007) and I was hooked. It helped that some very close family friends in London were Spurs through and through (one of them threatened to burn the book "Fever Pitch" when they saw me reading it when I first arrived) and took me to the UEFA cup match against Sevilla, which to this day, remains my one and only game at WHL.
It's fun watching Spurs here, you don't feel like such a bandwagon jumper. Even more entertaining is seeing all the plastic scum/chelsea/utd/liverpool fans that you only see down at the bar for CL matches/derbies (I don't consider an American fan a real fan if he's not awake at 9 on a saturday to watch some horrible 0-0 draw against stoke or such).
As far as my pedigree goes, it's rather depressing---dad doesn't know anything about football, both sides of family are cricket mad. Older brother is a gooner, and just found out that a younger cousin likes Chelsea.
As an aside, I do have two teams---sort of. I support the local club, AC St. Louis, which is in its first year of existence. However, if Spurs ever played them in a friendly, I have no doubt I'd be in the Spurs end.
The only difficult part is
Fenway,
I totally disagree with your notion that Spurs parallel the Red Sox. We have a far more glorious history than that. If anything, we parallel the Dodgers. More glory, more great players with great individual achievements. Roots in a working class area with a large number of Jewish supporters. And let's not forget the colors.
A good parallel for the Red Sox could be Man City/Chelsea---overshadowed by their rivals until they started spending like mad.
Nochman--the Richmond Arms, at Richmond & Fountainview, has been the hub for years. Red Lion, on Shepherd, carries a few games. I live in the Heights, so those are the ones convenient to me. I'm sure there are more out west & north.
http://www.richmondarmsonline.com/sports/weeklysports.htm
Maybe the Red Sox didn't start recently winning until the more SABR inclined bosses took over, but their early dominating success, the drought, and the subsequent "here they go again" heroics followed by a letdown is what made it click for me. The big brother complex with the Yankees was also a pretty good parallel as well.
The 1967 and 1975 teams are what helped me reach that comparison. Plus, nothing exemplifies a hard working class area than Boston, especially the part I grew up in that's always been Sox and blue-collar families.
Personally, I think It's pretty easy to draw whatever comparisons that best suit you at the time you "find" your team. This was the team that spoke to me like the Red Sox did. (Like now, I'd never call Arsenal a Yankee comparison)
/And the Dodgers moved to LA. Sellouts! :)
Ugh. I cannot accept the comparison of Spurs to the loathsome Red Sox. Their sense of entitlement and self-righteous bleating about the pristine-ness of their style reminds me of a different North London team.
Another Red Sox-Spurs combo here, sorry nycyid ;-)
Why did I start following Spurs? Those Le Coq Sportif shirts were helluva sexy. Plus that Ricky Villa FA Cup goal has been burned into my memory; I can just close my eyes and see that sublime twisting, weaving and turning all over again.
TTID.
No need to apologize Docomo. I know and respect a lot of Red Sox fans--especially New Englanders who were born into what is a fine baseball tradition. I know and appreciate their longsufferingness but my biggest problem with the Red Sox is that they are really just underachieving pseudo-underdogs. There was a time when the Red Sox were underdogs but really I don't think anyone can make that case for the modern Red Sox. They have--what is it now? The 2nd or 3rd highest warchest of $$$ behind the Yankees and Mets (both of whom I loathe). They aren't underdogs. The Pittsburgh Pirates are underdogs.
Fenway Park as White Hart Lane as someone suggested upstream? Maybe. That's not bad.
I'm a lifelong SF Giants fan who for my money resemble Tottenham a little closer. Though I'm hopeful that this will be a big year and nothing would make me happier than to beat the Braves whom I detest I'm waiting for them to break my heart. Our history and the history of our rivalry with the Dodgers is the oldest in the game even though we both moved out to Cali (Woolwich in reverse?).
I'm not sure it's fair to characterize the Red Sox as the Arse. Maybe Liverpool though ... which would make this whole thing fitting.
While we're talking about footy and baseball, let's just be glad that the Steinbrenners interest in Spurs faded away.
On 6 October, Phil wrote:
"Thank you Geoff, don't feel quite so old reading these now. Was born on saturday 3o'clock on the day in 1953 when we lost 4-0 to the' Woolwich',so i guess i felt sorry for Spurs and been that way ever since!"
I just read that and thought, there's unusual, innit (as they say in these here parts)! So I looked it up to find the date, and fock moi it was same as yours truly - 7th February 1953! Well, I'll be buggered - but I beat yer to it - my dear old grey haired mum tells me I checked in at 06.30 AM o'clock in the morning. Losing 4-0 at the Arse - la plus ça change, la plus le mème chose, as they say also in these parts.
Other than my mum's dad there was no great family footballing history. (Hardly surprising as Dad had washed up here in 1940 courtesy of Herr Hitler, the Polish Army and France’s immediate capitulation to the Hun.) Pop amazed me that he watched Spurs home games at midday on Christmas Day in the thirties. We had no TV so I watched the 1961 final on his box and remember the old boy (then coincidentally the same age as I am now) taking the piss out of Wolstenholme's fatuous comments about Cliff Jones only needing to be tap tackled to upend him because of his lightning speed. And also a few months previously a short piece on Cliff Mitchelmore's "Tonight" programme about Spurs being THE team of the century. The programme’s grainy b/w film clips proved that only the first three Spurs players to congratulate a goal scorer would kiss him, the others making do with a hug or a slap across the back. Tres homo-erotique for an eight year old!
First game at the Lane? 24 April 1965. Greavesie making it 6-2 by back-heeling a last minute penalty past Gordon Banks then preoccupied wiping his ungloved hands on the mudbank that was Paxton goal area. Banks went bonkers but it stood and my brother (a then Fosse fan) and I hopped over the curved top fence in a mini pitch invasion to offer kisses (politely declined) to Mr Jimmy and contenting ourselves with slaps across his back. In a pst post someone mentioned the smell of the players sweat (into which our number 8 had deigned to break) and that of wintergreen embrocation - in which he must have bathed at half time! Bro Eddie and I remarked to each other on the interminable hike down Seven Sisters Road to Manor House that our hero was complected strangely yellow-green - perhaps an early indication of the jaundice (?) that ruined his run up to the 1966 world cup.
Even then the purlieus of WHL were a khazie - Tottenham was a real shit-hole in the mid sixties and it’s gone downhill ever since.
But there was magic inside the ground... the smell of onions on the hot dogs, the cigar smoke from the west stand, McNamara's Band as the team ran out, 1/6d (that's seven and a half pee, foetuses) at the Worcester Avenue turnstiles, thruppence (1.5p) for a crap programme, no pitch-side adverts, but letters for half time scores, the crush as nearly 50,000 squeezed in, the crap light blue gloss paint on anything that didn't move, weeds on the terraces for the season's first game, Dave Mackay with raised fist clutching Bremner's shirt, being there with Jim Duffy and 56,923 others watching an overpowering 3-1 win against United, wondering who in hell inhabited those tiny terraced houses on the Park Lane/Worcester Avenue corner.
Other memories? Taking the old man to see a friendly against a Polish "Select XI" in late 66 and hearing for the first timethe Beatles sing Michelle on the PA before kick off, dropping off at Drayton Park tube to go to the packed programme shop to build a collection from 1960 onwards - wonder where they all went?
So. Forty nine years of memories. Some highs, but many more lows. But at least (mostly) we've tried to stand by our principles: good attacking football, an ability to laugh at ourselves when things go tits up, a number of unforgettable moments to cherish (there's a new thread for you, everyone's top twenty?). Could it be that in my 50th Spurs supporting season, something else could happen. Ooooo nose?
This thread just keeps on delivering.
What a fantastic thread! I'm another long term supporter: grew up in north London, born 1954, no family interest in football, but remember my first game outdoors at nursery school. As it was north London the teachers divided us into Spurs and Ar$€nal; I was put in with the other lot, but right from the start it seemed wrong. My 5 year old team-mates kept diving, pretending to be injured, fouling and arguing with the ref. Few of them seemed to speak English, and one or two were definitely involved in drug and alcohol abuse and other illegal activity. I just knew I could never align with such a misbegotten outfit, and from that day forth declared i was a Spur (whatever that meant).
Strangely, my brother had been put in the Spurs side that day, and as he was as contrary as I was, he decided he was an Ar$€nal supporter that day, but soon left them and picked Chelse in time for the 1967 Cup Final.
Dare I, or dare I not, utter it? Oh... all right then:
NICE ONE, CYRIL!
Nice one yourself czyrko (may I call you cz for short). Among the many great posts in the thread, yours was one that inspired me to add my own. I looked up results for the day I was born as well. We didn't play that day, but 3 days later we won 5-2 away at the mighty Huddersfield!
Happy birthday, Mr Cyril, for 7/4/54. BTW did you ever meet a Co-op milk man, name of Les Thoms, tit-lessly Tottenham and recklessly drove a Velux or Cresta c 1967?
This thread just keeps getting better! hope you young guys can bear with us oldies on this(czyrko i'm thinking of you!) My best memories are of the times spent at the Lane with my dad,sadly no longer with us.They used to drive him crazy being so inconsistent(ring any bells..)but anybody having a pop at his team he was fiercely loyal.Used to scare me as a young 'un...Aston Villa away 1975-6 still brings me out in a sweat!!Days with the fold away wooden stool in the old enclosure behind the dugouts....Derby away 1976,the only time i can remember him walking out before the final whistle,was on the M1 when we heard about their 8th going in....I guess what i'm saying through these moist eyes is enjoy the times,good and mostly bad,cos thats what we at Spurs are about
Sorry to go on a bit,Spooky its all your fault!!
Mid-nineties. Dad took me to my first football game, Spurs vs Leeds at the Lane. Darren Anderton scored the winner in a 1-0 victory. Though that was my first game, I'd been aware of Tottenham for a few years before that. Was given a Spurs duvet set and Teddy Sheringham t-shirt around the time of Euro '96. I wouldn't say my Dad 'forced' me to follow Spurs but there was a firm nudge. Can honestly say that in an era where Man Utd were dominant and the Goons were beginning their Wenger period, the thought of supporting any club other than Tottenham never once came into my mind, despite the fact we were undergoing painful years of transition under Gerry Francis and Christian Gross. I'll be giving the same 'nudge'' to my children as my dad gave me.
I support SATAN
Thanks cz -- good detective work as well! Wish we'd had all this Internet malarkey when we were young 'uns: wouldn't have had to spend all my time out in the street playing footer! Sorry, don't recall the milkman in question.
Well that's all well and good, Howard, but I don't support you. I'm an MUFC-type of person, myself.
Saw my first game some time in 1949 (I think) at age six. My uncle had just come out the Navy and my Dad, who moved to Tottenham in the Twenties when they built the new houses along Lordship Lane, and was dead-sure Spurs, got SEATS for us in the New Stand ...... right at the front, looking over. I remember the opposition wore yellow and black and I think they were Wolves ....... I remember my Dad said to me: 'that's Alf Ramsey there - he plays for England". I don't remember the result. I saw a few games after that, and started going with my Dad more regularly when I was about twelve .... year after that I went on my own, up in the boy's pen, and watched very regularly through till to the 60s. In 60/61 I saw every home game except for Man City. That finished as our first draw in 11, and I was at an evening class at Tottenham Tech. - I could hear the roar of the crowd ....... after that I gave up the evening class. About 63 I began to play Saturday and Sunday football, and saw fewer games ...... In the end I went away to University in Brighton in 69 and returned in 75 to teach in Walthamstow. Since then my watching has been patchy, but the day of the match is ALWAYS centred on how the match is going - however I can find out. I aim to get a season ticket some day, and watch every game. There is NO possibility of a change; I would need to blow my head off to fall out of love with Spurs.
Right. My relationship with Spurs began c1990/91. At the time I was a schoolboy at Bell Lane JMI in Hendon, London. At the time, my dad didn't follow a team (he does now, of course), whilst my older brother never showed an interest in the game, but he's now a Man Utd fan in America (oh, the shame). Well, I liked to have a kick about in the school playground and felt it was only right and proper that I should support a team like my mates. In those halcyon days the contenders were Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs. Thankfully, even at that tender age I had a geographical appreciation that disqualified me from even seriously contemplating Liverpool. Arsenal were an option. Luckilly for me, my nemesis at school was an Arsenal fan. Because I disliked him it made me also dislike Arsenal. I must admit that my best mate (Adam Jones, sadly departed) was a Spurs fan, and he did influence me somewhat. I eventually acquiesced. He then made me undergo an initiation test. I was to recite from memory the full Spurs squad (all 22 or so players). He presented me with a crib sheet that I took home to study. I passed the test. The names (Thordsvet, Ediburgh, Van Den Hauwe, Mabbutt, Sedgley, Samways, Nayim, Gascoigne, Lineker et al) reeled off my tongue. Winning FA Cup later that year was probably the real clincher but Lineker and Gascoigne's performances at Italia '90 will certainly have whetted my appetite!
In the years since I've invested much in my supporting of Spurs and received little in return, apart from a series of near misses and too many false dawns. However, things are certainly looking up and long may it continue!
Lovely read Hendon.
I began following Spurs as a small kid in Dublin in the early 70's.
I remember playing footie in the back garden with the local kids- they all wanted to be George Best, or Pele, even Alan Ball, or later, Chippy Brady,but I was always Pat Jennings.
It was different in those days- watching match of the day, or the big match on a Sunday, through a haze of "snow" on the telly as the reception was so poor.
Chivers, Gilzean, Perryman-then onto the late 70's early 80's with Hoddle, Ardiles and Villa and THAT goal against City in the FA Cup Final replay- magic days.
Why I support Spurs? Do you need to ask?
thought i would jump on the back of this after the re-post as missed it the first time round.
sitting in the paxton with a few family friends we have known for years, nice family. messed up team choices. the father is (for all his sins) a chelski fan, his wife (wonderful person) is the mighty spurs, his daughter the eldest a supporter of the scum, his second (another wonderful person) is a lillywhite too, the third (little toe-rag) is again a goon and his youngest (yet another wonderful person....got the link yet?) is a spurs season ticket holder too..... how, why....i dont know. poor upbringing on two parts, 3 if you include the dad which you probably should.
Me, its all in the blood line - dads home and away season tcket holder for the last 20 years. i watched my first game at 2 months old sat on my mums knee and the five of us (adding my two sister into that, both of which have auder-est-facere scribed on their bodys in different places) held season tickets for 8 years. before it wittled down to only 2 going week in week out.....unfortunately i enjoy playing to much so not me =/
(great blogs spooky, help the days at work go by nicely. keep up the good work)
COYS
great thread. nice to see a lot of fellow "yanks" out here!
i got interested in the game again after college as i had played a good amount of soccer as a kid and wanted to support a club without being a bandwagon jumper. spurs fit the bill perfectly and had an offensive philosophy that was worthy of caring. best decision ever.
also, the logo is amazing and classy and oozes a sexyness about the club. think its a very appropriate all encompassing symbol of what we dare to do.
"Geoff, welcome to the fountain of youth.
In all seriousness, hairs on the back of my neck standing tall, reading your post. What I wouldn't give for a time machine to witness games from the black and white era.
Can you imagine a modern day teen of this decade, in 50 years time looking back and chatting away on a blog about their first game?
"I got to the ground, sat in our £70 seats and left ten minutes before the end to beat the traffic"
spooky, you reckon people will be going to the games in 50 years? the way things are going you will sit at home on the sofa and link into the stadium virtually!? thats what you would pay your £25,000 for a season ticket to hire the holographic chair for a season that serves you drinks and burgers while you watch and plays stadium noise behind you so it feels just like the real thing of yesteryear......wont be missing much though as the players will be at home playing it on the XBOX Kinect version 67........maybe....
Born in North Middlesex Hospital & raised in N9 there was only 1 team for me. I remember the first game in the 70's that i went to - we beat Burnley 4-1 ! I think we got relegated the following year, but that didn't deter me or my mates at the time - Kids could get in for about 50p I recall & once you were inside, you could walk round virtually the whole stadium before picking your place to stand. The 80's & early 90's were happy memories, Wed. evening games were my favourite as the atmosphere was always different for those games somehow. I moved away from London in the mid-90's but still try to go the Lane a couple of times a season at least & always try to watch on TV or via a stream whenever possible. TTID. COYS !
According to my dad, who was a Wolves fan, I became a Tottenham fan in 1967 as a 5 yr old. He told me that I had asked him who was in the cup final and what colours they wore. He replied that Spurs wore white and Chelsea blue and I picked the white shirts to win. They did and I have been a Tottenham fan ever since, despite his many attempts to persuade me otherwise. I will be 50 this year and can boast that my 9 yr old son is also a fanatic of Spurs who wears his white shirt with pride. The rest just don't compare.
Spurs since the turn of the century ! The first game I saw the team play was .. wait for it...The gut-wrenching loss to United 3-5. Not sure if it was the impressive start to the game or just a sympathetic response in the end, by the end of the game I was Spurs for life. I can't recall meeting a fellow spurs fan in my lifetime! Oh well! Its not a geographical thing since I am from India.. Full of plastic United fans(most of them). I do have a younger sibling who supports the gooners. North London Derbies have been relatively kind in the last few years. I magically seem to be around only when we don't lose ! Waiting for spurs to finish above the scums this year. Planning to hold a mock funeral of St. Totteringham's day :D