If Stratford Hotspur happens, it ends there...
Saturday, January 8, 2011 at 7:10PM Guest blog by Jack aka tehTrunk.
Yes hello, you may remember me, I was the bloke what done them little cartoon things with the voices and stuff. I'm here today in a different capacity, to share my thoughts on the eerily quiet new stadium goings on at Stra...Tottenham Hotspur. I say quiet, but thankfully Karen Brady's constant barking does serve some purpose, if only in reminding us of the fact that we could well, genuinely, be leaving not just White Hart Lane but Tottenham itself.
Yeah, this could actually happen. WTF OMG?!!1! (I'm writing on the internet, it's allowed (lol))
Now, I'm not from Tottenham, I don't even live in North London. My allegiance with Spurs is the age old father son connection familiar with many football fans. You know, when dad creeps into your bedroom at night, gagging you with an Arsenal scarf in order to play hide the magic banana? Since those days, anything bearing the cannon of them lot down the road turns my stomach and reminds me of those mornings where I'd have to swagger into school like a cowboy. This then reminds me of cowboys which I also hate (I always preferred Indians). Suffice to say that sitting through Brokeback Mountain was a nightmare.
Alas, I digress.
Where was I?
Oh yes, I support Tottenham but I'm not from Tottenham, there we go.
These recent mutterings that we could be leaving Tottenham to take up residence in the Millennium Dome (er Olympic Stadium mate?!)have created a strange and uncomfortable conflict within my thoughts, much like when I catch a glimpse of Niko Kranjcar. As I've already covered but will tell you again, Tottenham isn't my home, the team Tottenham Hotspur isn't my local team so why should I care where the team plies it's trade? I don't know really, but I do.
History has always been an important part of this club, given that during the years I've supported them there has been little success, but it's been instilled into me that this is a club with heritage, with tradition. I'm sure most clubs think this way, but we support Spurs, we don't care what myths other clubs supporters perpetuate amongst themselves. We're onto a new chapter now, who knows where it goes. I'm enjoying, while it lasts, us grabbing headlines and having a squad filled with world class players, but this isn't why I support Spurs.
We all know about our cup runs, and double heroics and European glory glory nights so I'll save the maudlin mush.
Football is a business (no sheet Sherlock). It's easy to say, but it's hard to grasp what this actually means. Business' exist to make money. The chairmen, the board, they don't care about you, they don't care about me (they should care about me, I'm awesome. Not you though. D*ckhead) Does the CEO of McDonalds care that your burger doesn't look like it does in the picture on the board?
Daniel Levy is a business man. Don't ever forget that. For all his 'Spurs fan' talk, he's a business man. He's not big Dan from down the pub who wears a Spurs shirt on match days and gets asked to leave the pub when he's had a few too many and is getting loud sweary cross and scaring the couple who just popped in for an ale and glass of house white after finishing shopping, whilst he watches Spurs lose to Wolves at home (all in 3D mind). Levy, and the people surrounding him want to make money. This isn't all a bad thing, money has allowed us to assemble the squad we see before us today. Moving to the Olympic Stadium makes perfect business sense.
It's cheaper than building an entirely new stadium. It has a massive capacity. It looks well nice so will entice new fans. Having a massive, well nice stadium increases the club's prestige both at home and abroad. This will see a rise in the attendance, fan base and the type of investors and players we can attract to the club. Maybe it'll even see us become a more attractive option to a super mega rich foreign owner, who'll buy us Messi and we can win everything and be the best team in the world and even make it onto Sky Sports montages and have our players pictured on the front of the packets of football stickers found on the newsagent's counter.
Spurs, nay, football in general is entering into a dangerously vacuous and shallow era. This potential move to Stratford is a perfect example of that. Forget the history, forget about the locals, forget the name, we're going to move. We'll be Stratford Hotspur, it'll be just the same just we'll make more money and maybe win more stuff and then football will be more better, honest. Yeah, worked well for Wimbledon.
You can scream at me until you're blue faced, the endless clichés that 'we have to do it to compete', 'we want to win stuff what with City getting better now', 'Liverpool will bounce back sooner or later'. I don't care. I didn't support Spurs because they competed, because they were amazing, I support Spurs because they're Spurs. Sacrificing what we are in order to get to what we perceive is a higher level is like the bloke who ditches all his ugly best mates because he wants to be more popular with women. He's a lonely, boring, desperate tool and everyone can see it but him.
I know my thoughts don't represent those of all Spurs fans, and I don't look down on anyone for feeling differently (I really do to be honest). I just see this as one of many examples of how appalling our society is now. It's like saying that I think my mum is fat and ugly and I want a new one with less droopy wangers that way it'll reflect better on me and then I'll be happier. I don't think you're fat and ugly by the way Mummy, Trunky wuvs woo.
If Stratford Hotspur happens, it ends there for me. FC Hotspur of Tottenham or whoever else likely pops up it'll be. You can take your Gareth Bales, VDVs and whoever else and shove them. Along with your reality TV, IKEA furniture, tabloid newspapers, celebrities, Thomas Cook holidays and most of all your Sky Sports.
If all of you told Levy where he could stick his plan, it wouldn't happen, fact. But you won't.
Think on.
Be sure to visit We are N17 for your anti-Stratford fix and latest news. You can also find them on Twitter and Facebook.
Previous Stratford/N17 articles by Spooky:
N17: Home is where the heart is
A nail in the coffin of Stratford?
For some, it's a brutal interrogation...
Reader Comments (559)
'would you rather the club gets left behind and history is all you have to cling to?'
Yes, I would. At least there would still be a Tottenham Hotspur in existence. Sky and the CL have been around for less than 20 years and could easily disappear. Tottenham will always be there and so should THFC.
There's no hope for them TMWNN - there hopeless.
The sadest thing about all this is that even if whu win the bid our chairman has taintes his reputation by proposing to kill us for money and dress it up with crap like 'dont you want to be successful'.
Furthermore it has revealed the true faces of parts of our support - i really thought we were the peoples club. seems we are filled with people just like those at the emirates :(
I WILL FOLLOW TOTTENHAM OVER LAND AND SEA, AND STRATFORD
'Furthermore it has revealed the true faces of parts of our support'
This is the sad part of it. Levy's dicking about has divided the fans. A classic case of divide and conquer.
Pro Stratford people? You muggy little cunt! I think you'll find where pro-THFC - do what's best for the fucking club DL.
so chub you'd go to india if that was best for the club?
another name i have never seen before - chub. goonie by any chance?
btw going to stratford is not best for the club
I've been sat on the fence due to many reasons. Over all I have to say I'd be gutted if we left Tottenham. I want to see the NDP plans made real AND keep our recent success alive. The only plus side I can see for the OS is that I'd get a season ticket quicker. Having said that I was 1436 in the queue this year so may get on next couple of seasons! I want NDP and have been in touch with We Are N17 but if we move my support won't dim at all as Spurs are in my blood.
":-)" whilst I agree with most of your opinions and admire your passion, the way you've conducted yourself on here has been dispicable at times. Just chill out and stop dividing people further. You'll win over a lot more fans with a reasoned argument than you will with vile abuse. I visit DML to avoid reading abusive comments like that!!!
Ps :-) I recognise quite a few of the posters you are calling gooners. Try debating and you'll get somewhere with them. You just sound like a child at times. You can tell when that bloke called you out earlier and you mugged yourself off. Just chill and help the pro N17 by using the facts. Not by acting like a child.
This has been a great debate, spoilt only by the thuggish comments by :-) whose abusive threats thankfully are rare in THFC blogs. Our club is proud to be inclusive and respect the views of others, you are a disgrace.
i apologise for the abusive comments maddyspurs however they were in response to me being abused as well.
Thankyou that you agree with my points - the poster fact doesnt agree with our points but i would hope the both of you would equally lambast the posters that abused me and im not sure why i am being highlighted and others not at all - i understand why Fact is keen for me to be highlighted cos he wants spurs to go to stratford and i am the most vocal against it. i am not a disgrace.
I also do not believe i got mugged of by DY by not agreeing to fight him and using wit to show he is the child - the way he responded did not show i was a child.
N17 is a shit hole but it's our shit hole.
:-) all is good. Just hope we get the decision we want. Let's get the big find out for the 2nd half now!
*big guns
half time...
Thought i'd see how my mate was getting on.
I took exception to ur comments:
"I'd love to dismember you, you fucking little prick
FUCK YOU AND DIE CUNT"
Amongst other equally offensive posts, that's why I told u where I'd be so we can discuss your points further.
COYS
1 - 0 to Tottenham
:)
townsend local tottenham boy - soon young players will be known as local stratford boys from the east end :(
anyway COYS
shall i dig out your remarks to me DY!?!?!?!?
christ just go away already
JD is back!!!
we should have appealed his ban!
good stuff - not sure why modders came on a ht, he needs a rest like everyone else. okay wilson maybe got inj but id rather have jenas playing than risk modders or a couple more youngsters should have been on the bench to come on if need be.
then again it was 0-0 when he came on so perhaps his inspiration was key :) and at least he only played one half and most of the others got a rest.
Bring on the mancs!
bad draw - fulham away - we needed another charlton at home so we could rest players
now we will have to play everyone and probably in a replay too :(
my posts on this subject are www.prideoflondon.net. The jist of my view is that the local plonkers who call themselves politicians (local and central government) have done their level best to block the new stadium, The MP having quoted "Even if it is not in the best interest of the club". The result is over £300m on the bill for no reason at all, guaranteed non co-operation in the future, and the worst transport facilities north of the river with no hope whatsoever of improvement. No I say enough is enough. Leave them to stew in their own looney leftie juice , and think long and hard about their consequential unemployed constituents. Tough get off to Stratford and spend the other £300 on the team. As for We are N17 get lost, self appointed, fiscally challenged, knuckle scrapers do not speak for the e majority
Im glad this debate has come out. People should post a link to this on other sites. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I URGE PEOPLE TO RETHINK what it is they love about spurs at the moment. what it is that makes us so respected by other clubs.
I genuinely think that WHL has become the place to watch the best games and is recognised around the globe as one of the best grounds. Our tradition is great football which everyone loves and that is down to the traditionalists, the traditionalists are the ones that want to remain in N17.
Lose them and you loose what makes us so special.
Our ground shouldn't be like the emirates, it should be like a great restaurant that you have to get on the waiting list for because its just sooo good.
I'd rather have 36000 belting out their love for our club than 60.000 west stand fans.
The Northumberland project can wait if it needs to.
Like I said before if you are a bronze member you can easily get tickets if you put in the diary the time they come on sale.
POST THIS DEBATE ON OTHER FORUMS AND GET PEOPLE TALKING.
ALSO LETS NO RESORT TO NAME CALLING OR GETTING ANGRY. JUST DEBATE AND SHOW PASSION.
Much as I love the Lane, I'd accept the move if the Stratford Stadium doesn't come with a running track.
With running track = shit football stadium, WH can have it.
Without running track = potentially an excellent football ground*
*Not as good as a 60k-seater WHL, but I don't want that if it would hang a millstone of debt around the club's neck. And 60k fans every 10 days on the High Road would totally screw the area, which can barely support 34k at the moment.
There is NO chance of getting proper support from either Haringey Council, or central govt for an adequate transport upgrade. Don't fool yourselves - that WILL NOT happen.
I cannot even imagine the thought of seeing the mighty Spurs playing in the Old London Borough of West Ham! The area is in there DNA NOT OURS! You guest it ...the only spurs fan living in Forest Gate. Sorry chaps... its there patch big time, our club name is Tottenham Hotspurs and we live in North London very comfortably.
Posh Paul of the Paxton
I am from Tottenham, but I do not live there now. Don't want Spurs to leave there. Don't want them to go to Stratford. Yes N17 is a bit crumby - but is Stratford any better? Finsbury Park/Holloway Rd is crumby too, but Arsenal still rebuilt their ground there too. The plan is to level to Oly,pic stadium and build a new one, so that is going to cost us either way
Come off the high ground about people's club and all the shallow bravado. I heard that from Liverpool "we don't do things that way". It makes me sick in the stomouch .
If you don't have DL experience, talent and brains in running the club , stop challenging the hands that feed..
JOS - the thing is I would not be surprised if DL is playing a genius hand to get costs down. Ive said that before. He is of course a brilliant businessman.
That said in case he is not, fans that want to remain in Tottenham need to be as vocal as they can. We can't afford to wait and see how this pans out.
I really think that 80% of spurs fans that go week in to WHL want to stay there. The other 20% are west stand fans, oversees fans and then of course a few normal fans.
Have you read VDV's quotes about WHL? That makes me so proud to be a Tottenham Hotspur Fan. Imagine what it must be like when VDV brings his Dutchman to the ground, it must blow them away.
WE are Tottenham Super Tottenham, WE are Tottenham from the LANE. WE are Tottenham Super Tottenham
I have to say that this is the worst ever DML I have ever read, not because I might disagree with Trunk, but basically, it displays all the worst elements of internet communications, with people anonymously threatening violence and giving out abuse because someone has a different opinion from yours.
I don't know whether we will be in E15 or N17 after 2012, but I do know that this year we are in the CL purely on merit, and didn't buy our way into it, like Chelsea and Citeh, and that without the benefits of a sugar daddy with a vanity purchase, we are going to struggle to stay in the CL because the modern game is about money. I have heard many bemoan the salary cap and the way it hamstrings us when we look at so many of the players we might want to sign. Notwithstanding where our next stadium might be, the real acid test is whether it will allow us to increase the salary cap. The current ground will never allow us to do this wisely.
I recall the recent floods in Pakistan and the pronouncement by the Taliban that this was a punishment from god for the victims because they were not true Muslims. In the same way, we have both sides of the argument, saying that they are the only true supporters. Perhaps we should stop behaving like the Taliban, and accept that others have a legitimate right to their opinions.
I recall seeing a sticker once that said, "I'd rather see my sister in a whorehouse than see my brother on a Japanese bike". That seems to be the level of debate we have reached. It's a shame because this is one of the better blogs.
Sadly Dublin, name calling is an internet trait you'll hardly going to avoid.
Yeh dublin mate, think you might have to accept that this is a major major move being considered, its a sensitive subject with a lot of emotion.
Sometimes even the most placid people can get hyped up talking about these things and it comes across not very nice but overall the debate has been pretty clean.
This is a real debate with proper opinions so it is important. Like someone above I am extremely pssd off about tha lack of support from Haringey Council with their never ending ilst of demands. The Tottenham MP Daviid Lamm, I think, has done precisely nothing to assist Spurs in their ambition for thel ocal area , just another parliamentary arse licker.
Who will take the OS if we dont ? Now there is a question I doubt West Ham could afford to run it .
Only in England could a stadium be built to hold 80,000 then to be reduced in size to hold 25,000. It was of course going to be made smaller because athletics does not draw enough live support.What a joke.
For some this will look like a gift horse for me it looks to good to be true.Costs for rebuilding Crystal Palace backhanders included who knows. What will Newham Brough Council want from Spurs, who knows.
Just because the Olympic Committee is run by fools, the old boy network all on the gravy train bleeding us dry, it doesnt mean we have to join them.
Let the govt pay us 100mil a year to run their white elephant. That seems reasonable, in business terms.
Spooky: Sadly you are probably right, but what does it say about these people: On the internet, they talk like they are world champions, but I suspect that many of them are more like uneducated geeks and nerds, and this is the only place they have any real power. It's not so much the name calling that cheeses me off, but the certainty that most of these would be a lot more polite in a face to face debate, because such insults, quite apart from being infantile, usually have consequences.
Yidal: Understand the point you are making, but can't agree that the debate has "been pretty clean", and that applies to both sides from the E15 camp who are saying that their opponents should "fuck off" to the N17 camp who claim that everyone in support of Stratford are really stooges who have been planted. I love reading DML, but for me, the replies to this item have turned an excellent blog into a toilet wall for morons to deface with illiterate graffiti.
Face it. Great Britain is bankrupt . Europe is bankrupt. Levy is correct you can't depend on the government. You brits can't even save a national institution called Liverpool and nearly sold it to a billonaire from Singapore.A country with only 4million people ! .Without foreign money you don't have a thriving league
i would like to reiterate my apologies for some of my comments earlier.
i should also like to point out that i am the only one to have apologised for being abusive despite many others doing so and worse.
Lastly my abuse was fuelled because the club has appointed this pr guru mike lee and one of his briefs in undoubtedly to get on foums like this and turn opinion - he is here posting as spurs fans...that have no doubt.
furthermore as previously pointed out, us moving to stratford would be a dream come true for them - again have no doubt they are here posting as spurs fans.
i wont be abusive again and i apologise - again no one else has made that vow that was abusive. all im saying is real spurs fans be aware that mike lee is here and will be here on other blogs and the same goes for the goonies.
Spot On Jack.
SNTS!! COYS!!! FOBTW!!!
I agree completely with the author of this article. The possibility of Tottenham Hotspur moving to East London is the most dangerous thing ever to happen to this great club (yes even more dangerous than when we went broke and Sugar had to take over and bail us out). Like the author, I don't come from Tottenham (it's a family thing - routes in Edminton and all that) but for me clubs moving away from their origins means that they are no longer the team you support and care about. If we move to the Olympic stadium or anywhere else in London (out of the borough obviously) then my support for the team that takes up a new identify (cause thats what it is) will end.
What really concerns me is how sneaky Levy has been about this. His priority was to build a new stadium in Tottenham and regenerate the area. It then became, "the Olympic stadium is a back-up plan should things not go our way". It's now utter silence with rumours (from reliable sources) saying the Olympic stadium is now the priority,
We the supporters must do something about this. People need to make their feelings known about this. If we leave it much longer, it will be too late and the club I love will be no more.
Well said DUBLIN, I gave up last night when an interesting debate with good points put by both sides was ruined by vile language and personal abuse which was totally unnecessary.
The joke is, none of it was directed at me but I just thought "whats the point" and gave up.
SPOOKY, I really like this blog and have been posting on it for sometime but if you are not careful you will end up with about 4 keyboard warriors posting nothing but abuse and the rest will just give up and find a blog where people think before just spouting off. And that would be a real shame.
Spooky and the Trunk? Dream team.
So many words exchanged about the possibility of moving to Statford when it can be summed up in one:
NO.
Thanks.
Two words then.
Remember....ENIC are here until the big pay off comes. We're here for life. We cannot move to Stratford. We just can't. Otherwise we've lost the Club we love.....and it'll be gone forever.
SNTS!! COYS!!! FOBTW!!!
Exactly. ENIC will sell up some time soon. They will move onto another project having altered the Tottenham Hotspur FC landscape forever, made profit for themselves and sold it onto someone who might have less care about the little remaining soul the club has left.
Levy is a great chairman but he's taking the piss with this.
Some one asked me...
"Thanks gooners/mike lee for your latest contribution. DannyMackay and Dallasspur? wonder what inspired those names. firstly mr lee its davemackay. try again dear boy."
Do you prefer DaveBlanchflower as an amalgam of the two greatest players in English football history? (bar none!)
Maybe I should claim any true Spurs fan would get that and that the questioner thus wears a red shirt?
---
So are all comments that don't utterly oppose a move to the OS only from Arsenal fans? It's just I have a lot of family who I should thus help redirect towards Islington if so. They've accidentally been going to watch Spurs since the 50s (in the case of the oldest among us)
(re-posted because apparently email sigs are important to verify a point)
I'd rather we build the NDP, but if that's not really affordable and the OS is - then I say move because we need a bigger ground.
The tradition for me is my great grandad taking my grandad to the game saturday after saturday - my grandad taking my dad to games saturday after saturday - and my dad taking me to games saturday after saturday.
My family may be from Tottenham, but who cares about that if I can't take my kid to see my team play ever other week?
Do people realise how few season tickets we have come available each season? And doing without one is just too expensive.
:-)
Didn't see yout apology until after responding to your previous comment. Thanks, and accepted.
on the PR chap - I think Mike Lee is probably a bit busy trying to win round a dozen decision makers. He doesn't give a fig what we think yet. Remember, his success has been in PR to select groups (members of the IOC, FIFA and such like) not to the likes of you and me.
And in regards to turning opinopn - there isn't much turning to do. There has been plenty of disagreement on this since before he started. My dad (not a young chap) had a blazing row with some one ouside the Park Lane before the Liverpool game a few weeks ago. The guy was handing out 'no to stratford' leaflets and my dad declined one and said he was fine with Stratford. The guy said something insipid about real fans and I had to seperate them.
Mike Lee wasn't even on the horizon then.
Half you lot make Stratford out to be some sort of fu***ng paradise......any of you c***s been there ? its another shi* hole so lets just get that straight first. Secondly, forget the money for a minute, imagine the scenario, an 80k stadium, with say 45k in it, dispersed throught the shallow embankment, 50ft from the action.......BO******S. The atmosphere will be shocking, it will be AR5ENAL without the c**ts ie no atmosphere at all.
We have struggled to create an atmosphere at the lane in the past, during those desolate periods, think Ronnie Rosenthal et al....but now we are back with a bang. We got a great group of players and dare i say it fans that still seem to have a pair of nuts. We get up for the games, we create a good atmosphere and teams do not like coming to WHL.....i truly fear this will be gone if we move to the olympic stadium. As for transport links, well yeah they are shit and need updating, but i'd rather have the traditional ball ache of getting home from Liverpool St at some ungodly hour than having to uproot and move across London.WE ARE SPURS, WE ARE N17...forget the shit buildings forget the Kebabs....its about us, the fans, the soul of the club....it may take a while but mark my words THFC will never be the same again if we move, we will become a souless vaccum......FUCK THE MONEY, FUCK THE FAKE FANS.
I think that the preference of all Spurs fans would be to stay at WHL, as per the NDP.
That is no doubt the preference of DL and the board too. Little things, like spending millions on buying up the land and getting planning permission over a number of years, should confirm that to even the most blinkered. Was it not three or so years ago that DL announced that they were actively looking into the options of either moving or developing and two years ago the official announced preferred option was to redevelop at WHL? I think that IS the preference, of everyone.
Personally, I think that our current owners have done their level best for the club, for the right reasons and ensuring we remain in a financially healthy state. There is nothing wrong in making that effort financially viable for themselves. Why on earth should they be lambasted for that?
IF it now transpires that the associated debt with the NDP is SO heavy so as to effectively commit us back to mid-table mediocrity, being unable to compete to sign the better/best players with the money going on heavy repayments instead, then it follows as I see it that the alternatives would be 1. to stay as is with 36k at WHL or 2. Stratford
1. might enable us to push for the Europa cup here and there and once in a while come across enough talent to put us fourth for the odd CL campaign. Before that is the core of the team are offered and move to Manure or Citeh for more wedge and CL football. We might win the odd League Cup from time to time.
2. would be in order, I presume, to enable us to afford to sign the best players in order for us to sit comfortably in the top four, challenging for the title and the CL most years.
As I say, preference would be to develop at WHL. But, for me, not for mid table mediocrity at the expense of challenging at the height of the game, where we once were not so long ago, and where the club deserves to be. We expect our players to give all they can for the shirt each week. The sacrifice the fans might need to make for the success we crave is N17, in the knowledge that Tottenham Hotspur is and will always be, Tottenham Hotspur.
So; success or also ran..........?
smiffyid
I'm one of those c***ts that's been there - and it's amazing some of the stuff being developed there. Granted the naff sixty's shopping centre is what it is, but the OS is nearer to the new Stratford City which is amazing. Also the OS will sit in a vast new park between Bow (nice place for a night out) Stratford (massive development underway and a big future) and Hackney Wick (has become a big indie-arts district a bit like East Williamsburg in Brooklyn.)
But that's hardly relevent. Not sure anyone thinks it is. It has good transport links and a potential stadium site going begging. Frankly, that's more important than the Stratford City development.
in reponse to NN...agree with what you have put, but strongly disagree with the choice of success or failure. If money is the stumbling block for developing WHL, then we wait.....and wait....and redevelop 5yrs down the line. If we continue to get in the CL NOW, then players will come. I agree that a bigger stadium is a must, and sooner rather than later, but not moving to some glorified shallow bowl across town.
And to put it mildly it will be OUR stadium, paid for out of my fucking wages, your fucking wages, and a few fucking dole payments to boot......its called pride, and i got bags of it for Spurs, but just find it so souless and tepid that it makes me want to puke. If the Stratford thing happens, i'll walk, because for me personaly it wont be the same club. Next thing we will be talking about London Utd in some future world SOCCER league in 2050.
WHO GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT SHOPPING OR TRENDY BARS WHEN THEY GO TO A FOOTBALL MATCH OR INDIE FUCKING TRENDY CUNT BARS OR CUNT CUNT CUNT...........ARRREGGGGGGGHHHHH YOU HAVE TO BE A GOONER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
'So; success or also ran..........?'
Tottenham Hotspur or Stratford Hotspur?
There doesn't seem much left to debate here; both arguments keep coming full circle, and at the risk of sounding repetitive, saying that N17 is your preferred option but at the same time saying that your not opposed to Stratford will be considered as a vote for Stratford by those in charge and will weaken any chance of staying in Tottenham.
Location! Location! Location!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford,_London
If we win the bid, we could change our name to West Ham Hotspurs based on historical location and force the Spammers to change their name to the Green Street rebels....
Chris, Reading