Monday
Jan172011
'North London is ours'
Monday, January 17, 2011 at 10:51AM
Three protests yesterday. One outside the gates, 'We are N17' with petitions outside the Bell and Hare pub and at half-time, a lady by the name of Helen inspiring one or two to sing a song. A girl after my own heart.
Didn't make the tv (that last one) but point made. She was ejected, expected, but not banned - which would not have made good PR had the club gone down that particular route.
If anyone has any more vids or photos, please share.
Reader Comments (78)
I think protests should be directed at Harringay Council and the English Heritage Foundation, rather than at Spurs. If we'd had less obstruction over the rebuilding plan we may never have bid for the Olympic Stadium.
Is it possible for earlier (cheaper but rejected) WHL plans to be approved?
Before we say that the number of protesters is too small, lets wait and see how many Pro-Stratford protests there are.
Oh and ParkLane68, you must have felt like you were sitting in the away end cheering on the home team when everyone else was singing "North London is ours"
I was wondering if 68 was your age or year of birth, then it hit me, it's your IQ.
Guys, drop the name calling. Agree to disagree and argue your point, but no need for the rude word dramatics.
I think the crux remains a massive difference in philosophy of both sets of groups in terms of the move. I keep asking, and hopefully we'll find out, what if the OS is given to WH? Then what does the club do? Doubtful they would just give up on moving. It's bullshit to suggest Levy and ENIC would. And I appreciate Haringey are doing their utmost to fuck it all up with their deranged agenda - but the club must have a plan to push onwards.
So I ask - why not just push on with that plan now?
I would rather stay at WHL no doubts, but can see the attraction of the Olympic stadium move. Lets be honest, we have all enjoyed the Champions League and mixing at the business end of european football, but if we really are going to make it the rule rather than the exception we need to get a bigger stadium AND not cripple ourselves in the process.
It may well come down to whether you treasure the past more than you treasure the future on where you stand on this. I think we will make the right decision either way, and will live with it.
I never saw the double winning side and was to young to remember the European trophies, I wouldnt mind seeing us lift some serious silverwear.
when Arsenal were still at Highbury they won the double twice in the PL era, reached a CL final and went a whole season unbeaten. They attracted many of the game's best names. Now they've moved to a bigger stadium and have won f*ck all since. Moving to Stratford does not guarantee success. SPending 450 mill on the NDP pretty much guarantees years of failure till we've paid for it.
Having a good manager who can spot a good player and a squad of talented winners does guarantee it
. I would rather spend 100 mill on some world class players this Summer and stay at the lane for 5 or 6 more years than spend 250-450mill trying to build a new stadium.
Then if we've won the league and some trophies and have the money in the bag we should consider a move. We shouldn't be moving anywhere in PURSUIT or POTENTIAL gain. We should concentrate on cementing that top 4, title-contending position while still at WHL.
If Levy is playing a game of brinkmanship to source funding by claiming the OS is a viable option, then I for one would never play poker against the guy.
It would be the biggest bluff of all time.
Great thought fox Mulder
This article talks about why Levy wants Stratford.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-sport/article-23914726-leaving-the-lane-would-betray-values-on-which-spurs-were-built.do
The annoying thing is I really loved DL before all this and will do if he is playing everyone off - I just cant see it now with AEG involved.
If the board thinks a global superpower football club is what we want they can think again.
The youtube clip has a more than 500 singing say no to stratford.
Well done to the lady protester. North London is ours.
Give it a few years and that lady will be singing songs in Stratford along with all of the rest of the people who say they'll stop supporting the club if it moves.
As supporters surely we want to see the club achieve success?
Now I'm a big fan of history, be it sporting or any other kind, and it is sometimes sad to move on, but that's the price of progress.
Haringey wont let us do it at the Lane, so we must go elsewhere. Otherwise you'll all go to your graves remembering the glory season where we finished 4th in the league. That's as good as it will ever get.
Spooks - you're desperate for a bit of company because you haven't been with anyone for a while.
There's these two girls you know. One the tall fantastic looking one, with a great iQ. Ticks ALL the boxes, but she's playing hard to get. She's tantalisingly close and the promise is there plus she won't cost you the earth either - plan A. Or there's her mate. You know the one, not great looking but it's there on a plate for you. It'll cost you a few babychams for sure, but there will be some instant gratification and that's plan B.
What to do?
Looking up the comments it seems the Stratford move makes so much sense now to more and more people suddenly. Slightly surprising how quick and easy in fact it took to give up original idea of the Northumberland Development Project. And I’m not speaking about the board’s present action and possible decision. I still hope they are just playing their smart game in order to gain somewhat better conditions for the development in North London. Let me be so naive here for some time. All this based on distinctive assumption that Daniel Levy’s enthusiasm for NDP was genuine. Financial pressure that has been put on a private business in this and many other cases is unfair and disgraceful.
So what interests me is an attitude of the very fans. Kind of explanation of alleged increasing support for relocation among the commentators might be a supposition that the intelligent fans just joined board’s brinkmanship. If this is the case we’d better shut up and let all comments be turned off in order not to spoil this masterminded action. Or is it only comfort of travelling again? No, we are speaking about noble reasons not base motives, aren’t we? Regardless whether naive or just ironic am I here one thing can’t be helped. Hope as usually dies last.
Link below from Tottenham supporters trust.
I feel this paragraph sums up how I feel, especialy the last sentence.
“That may be an emotional argument rather than a practical one, but football is a sport that is underpinned by emotion and allegiances. It is about history and tradition every bit as much as it is about the future. As a club and a business Tottenham Hotspur has exploited that, now they expect us to overlook it
http://www.muswellhilljournal24.co.uk/news/spurs_stadium_don_t_favour_economics_over_emotion_says_supporters_trust_1_776487
"It may well come down to whether you treasure the past more than you treasure the future"
Jan 17, 2011 at 1:08 PM | ouji
Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift that's why we call it the present.
Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift that's why we call it the present.
The Emirates received NO public funding.
The Emirates' planning permission took 5 years.
The NDP took 2.
Haringey has NO money.
English Heritage is NOT Haringey Council.
Open your eyes. You are being played by individual business men and AEG for their own financial gain.
This is NOT a bluff.
The future of THFC is on the line.
SAY NO TO STRATFORD!
More footage on protests. You can feel this is going to snowball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eABsSvetKts
Say no to Stratford
Interesting that most of the 'pro-Stratford' lot aren't leaving their names on here; 'D' and 'RBS'...It's like they know I'm noting them down and they will be the first to get it 'come the revolution'.
Seriously I don't see how anyone can favour it. So it'll be easier to get to for some people? Are some 'fans' that fickle? If I thought that I'd be an Oxford supporter now? Their stadium is just down the road.
If the stadium ends up there then it will end up as a Corporate plaything. We can claim it's all Levy's game of bluff and counter-bluff but worst case scenario he's trying to move us to a 'fashionable' part of London, closer to the Financial District, with a view to selling it. It'll end up a sterile 'Mini-Wembley' with empty corporate sections at half-time, tickets that won't be available for true fans who go to watch the actual match! The same fans who don't really want to move.
We can build it here. Planning is approved. Apparantly the section 106 agreement is £15-16 million to help upgrade the local area? It's a lot but is THAT the sticking point? We spent that on David Bentley! Newham Council aren't gonna try and screw a similar amount out of us once we committ to moving there are they?
If it costs a lot then so be it. If it impacts the transfer kitty for the next 4-5 years then so be it. We have a young squad? A GOOD squad! The best in years. With 1 or 2 more aquisitions we wouldn't need to buy anyone. And it's not like we don't have promising youngsters in Caulker, Walker, Townsend and Mason. Obika? Harry Kane? I'd be happy to see us blood them and look to them as our future. I'm sure we could cope and still be competetive.
Even if Stratford does turn out to be cheaper, are we going to see the estimated £100 million saving spent on players? I doubt it. People are acting like we'll be Real Madrid all of a sudden but I don't see it happening.
AEG will buy out Levy and co and turn Stratford Spurs into an American owned franchise with no connection to Tottenham.
I won't go, and neither will many others. True fans will be replaced by tourists and glory hunters, the atmosphere will die. Is this what people want? Levy can't be trusted any more, he's gone for the money over THFC.
People are being mislead by the promise of glory. Don't be fooled, say no.
http://football-talk.co.uk/13400/stadium-move-latest-letters-facts-and-figures%E2%80%A6/
A must read, I really hope this has a big sway on any decision.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9367733.stm
The head of world athletics says London will have told a "big lie" to get the 2012 Olympics if the Olympic stadium is converted into a football ground.
West Ham and Tottenham both want to move to the venue after 2012 but under Tottenham's plans, the track will go.
"They'll have made a big lie during their presentation," International Athletics Association Federation chief Lamine Diack told BBC Sport.
"There will be no credibility... of a great country like Britain."
@Yidal
So aside from the whether Spurs should move to Stratford you think:
Athletics is important and needs a big stadium in London?
Britain's credibility to stage world events will suffer and that matters? (our credibility really helped our "one vote'" 2018 World Cup campaign)
I have a friend on the Olympic Legacy Team who says that their is no promise of a legacy for athletics at the stadium only that provision be made in London. The Velodrome and aquatics centre will remain there (Ledley will be making full use of the aquatics centre if we move!)
Well the key people in Athletics think they have been duped so time will tell if that will effect future bids for Athletics events should spurs bid be accepted. Football events is a mute point in this.
The track should remain 100% as its an Olympic Village able to host all the other events. What they shoukd be doing is raising the profile with the olympics and keep that Athletics hysteria going once its gone. The sport needs this to progress.
Good news : )
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11675_6681161,00.html
Of the last 5 Olympics how many stadia have kept the track for athletics? 2?
Athletics hysteria? - I think the Olympics is now much bigger than athletics - there will be as much hysteria around cycling, gymnastics and swimming. Clearly the those with an interest in athletics are going to fight its corner.
If the athletics track has to stay then West Ham are welcome to it.
Spurs need a big world class football stadium soon (and a world class striker now!)
Spurs need a big world class football stadium soon (and a world class striker now!)
I just dont agree with that at all. Its what we get told all our lives, that we always need bigger & better. Im enjoying WHL watching some of the best football around.
Then again Im the sort of person who would rather live in an old cottage than something new & modern.
http://soccerlens.com/afc-wimbledon-quest-for-league-football-grows-ever-closer/27299/
Absorbing read: AFC Wimbledon quest for league football grows ever closer
By Gary Andrews on April 21st, 2009. As AFC Wimbledon fans took in a post-match pint on Saturday, it’s unlikely the hands raising the pint glass had many fingernails left. But Dons fans can now relax somewhat. Bar their promotion rivals Hampton and Richmond Borough going goal crazy on the final day of the season, the fan-owned club is set for a second successive promotion, taking them just one step away from league football.
For fans on non-league, Hampton’s Beveree Stadium was the place to be at the weekend as first traveled to second in the penultimate game of the Blue Square South season. Nothing less than a win would have done for Hampton and for half an hour, after Francis Quarm put the Beavers ahead on 52 minutes, it seemed that the title would go down to the wire.
But with just eight minutes remaining, 33-goal striker Jon Main did what he’s been doing all this season for Wimbledon, and popped up to grab a vital late equaliser to send the traveling support into raptures and, as likely, adding another piece of silverware to the already impressive history of AFC Wimbledon, a club formed out of protest.
Unloved, unwanted and homeless
By now, the story of how Wimbledon were uprooted wholesale to Milton Keynes is written into football folklore and still ranks as one of the most spineless moments in the FA’s history, yet to tell it explains a great deal behind the drive and passion at AFC Wimbledon.
Wimbledon had been homeless since 1991 when then-chairman Sam Hammam moved them out of their old Plough Lane ground and into Selhurst Park as tenants of Crystal Palace. Hammam claimed that this was because the Taylor Report would have reduced Plough Lane’s capacity to 6,000. In reality, the Football League had given them five years to get the ground up to scratch.
Nonetheless, the Dons were now homeless. Hammam again claimed he’d done everything possible to keep the club in Merton but there was nowhere for them to go and the council weren’t willing to help. Needless to say, the Merton Borough Council dispute this version of events.
In 1997, Hammam sold 80% of his stake in Wimbledon to two rich Norwegians, Kjell Inge Rokke and Bjorn Gjelsten. A year later, Hammam sold Plough Lane to supermarket chain Safeway. The exact figure is uncertain, but estimates stand at around £8m, meaning the ex-chairman made a significant profit on the club.
Meanwhile, the Norwegians were coming unstuck. Their original plan had been to tap into the Irish enthusiasm for the Premier League by uprooting the club to Dublin. Fans were up in arms, as were the Irish FA, who blocked the move. The English FA supported their Irish counterparts and the club was left in limbo. A return to Plough Lane was out of the question and there wasn’t enough cash to build a new stadium.
The MK move
Enter, stage left, Pete Winkleman. The music producer had noted that Milton Keynes – a new town born in 1967 – was one of the largest towns in Europe without a professional football club, and had unsuccessfully approached several teams trying to convince them to move to the concrete conurbation (never minding that residents of Milton Keynes had hitherto been uninterested in making a fist of establishing a team in the town).
But for Wimbledon and their new chairman Charles Koppel (appointed by the Norwegians) this presented them with a perfect solution. They had already tried to hawk Wimbledon around as a franchise, so Winkleman’s move made sense.
It took some time for the move to be approved. Fans protested and the Football league initially said no. Koppel appealed and the issue went to an arbitration panel, who handed the problem back to the League, who asked the FA to set up an independent panel to assess the proposed move.
Despite hearing from Merton Borough Council that there was enough space to build a 20,000 seater stadium, the panel voted 2-1 to allow the move, noting that, in their view, it was the only solution to saving Wimbledon. With the deal to move to Milton Keynes done, the club was swiftly dubbed Franchise FC.
Sidenote: As a quick note, Wimbledon weren’t the first club to uproot and move from their community because a chairman scented money. Back in 1913, struggling Woolwich Arsenal were moved from South East London up to Highbury and renamed Arsenal as chairman Henry Norris looked to exploit an the fanbase north of the river.
While preparations were made to move, crowds at Slehurst Park fell drastically for the Wimbledon games, with fans of both Wimbledon and away sides boycotting the games. In 2002 just 849 turned up to watch the Dons play Rotherham.
A year later, the club were playing at the National Hockey Stadium at Milton Keynes and renamed the MK Dons. Wimbledon FC, as a club, was dead.
Rising from the ashes
In South London, meanwhile, the hardcore 4,000 fans had faced up to the prospect of not having a team to support by simply creating their own side: AFC Wimbledon.
Led by Wimbledon Independent Supporters’ Association chair Kris Stewart, the newly formed Wimbledon joined the pyramid at the Combined Counties League level in 2002. Two years after joining, they were promoted to the Isthmian League 1st Division after going the season unbeaten. A year later they were in the Isthmian Premier after a second successive promotion.
The next two seasons saw them push hard for promotion to the Conference South, losing out twice in succession in the playoff semis. Finally, last season, they finished third and finally made it to step two, beating Staines Town in the final.
The difference in quality between the Step Three league and the Conference South isn’t much and AFC Wimbledon, along with big-spending Chelmsford City, who ran away with the Ryman Premier, were expected to push for the playoffs at the very least.
But the two sides went better than the playoffs. Halfway through the season, it seemed it was a two-horse race between the two, but after the Dons defeated Chelmsford in a first vs second clash at Kingsmeadow at the end of January, the Essex side dropped off badly, beset by internal fights. The title, it seemed, was Wimbledon’s to throw away.
Womble wobbles
And throw it away they nearly did (although their wobble has been nowhere near as bad as Burton Albion in the league above). A goalless draw against struggling Havant and Waterlooville set a slight stutter in motion that saw the Dons take just three wins in ten games.
Meanwhile, last season’s defeated playoff finalists Hampton and Richmond Borough hit form at just the right time. Try as they could, Wimbledon just couldn’t make the finish line.
As the season counted down, Hampton moved within three points of AFC, setting the title up for a grandstand finish – the teams were set to play each other in last weekend’s penultimate game of the season.
Wimbledon’s match before that Hampton game – away at Bromley on Easter Monday – came complete with one of those controversial moments that have the potential to win or lose titles.
Leading 2-1 in a tightly fought game, AFC put the ball out of play to treat an injury. From the throw-in, Bromley’s Ryan Hall volleyed the ball back. It was almost certainly unintended but rather than going out for a goal kick, the ball flew into the back of the net. Hall celebrated like he’d socred the goal of his career and the Bromley bench refused to let Wimbledon walk the ball into the back of the net, resulting in angry scenes at the final whistle a few minutes later.
The title decider
The pressure was still on as AFC travelled to Hampton, who were three points behind. The Beavers needed a win to take the title down to the final day, while Wimbledon, who a superior goal difference, needed just a point to be 99% sure of wrapping matters up.
What followed was one of those games full of drama that proves you don’t need the Premier League to get excited about football. Francis Quarm put the home side ahead on 52 minutes and as the minutes ticked by it seemed as if the title could be lost.
And then, with seven minutes left on the clock, another moment of controversy. Two Hampton players collided, one of them, John Scarborough, suffering a serious leg injury in the process.
But the referee waved play on, and Wimbledon threw the ball in close to the stricken Scarborough, the ball’s fizzed across the box and the prolific Jon Main nets the equaliser. Ten minutes later, at full time, AFC fans invaded the pitch in the knowledge that their club had all but sealed promotion to the Conference.
Assuming all goes to plan this weekend, AFC Wimbledon will be one step away from league football, a remarkable achievement in such a short space of time, and ever closer to meeting the MK Dons in a competitive match, although ‘Franchise FC’ could well gain promotion to the Championship this season.
But it’s AFC who have greater claim to the history and connections to the departed original Wimbledon. However, AFC Wimbledon are very much a new club and are already creating their own memories and history. Come 5pm on Saturday, they’ll probably have added another.
Read more: http://soccerlens.com/afc-wimbledon-quest-for-league-football-grows-ever-closer/27299/#ixzz1Bybxoerq
Levy saying 99% of Spurs fans want move - clueless greedy pig.
The move will be the end of the club and the start of Stratford Spurs, who the hell wants that? All of us that have been going for years will lose what we have grown up with and we will be replaced by the modern fan.
Levy cannot be allowed to do this, I enjoy WHL and the special atmosphere we have. I've supported Tottenham since a small boy through mostly lows but quite a few highs - I wouldn't have it any other way. I would rather battle on as we are or even watch us in the next league down than move to Stratford.
Not a lack of ambition but that's what so many of us go for at Spurs the club and the day out, not the latest chairman or £80k per week 'star'
I was overjoyed we beat Arsenal two: one, but found the atmosphere unpleasantly intense this time. Have written about the contrast between the Arsenal game and the Shamrock Rovers game on the Thursday before. COYS. http://chroniclesofchloegreene.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-be-true-football-fan.html