Thanks to everyone that turned out at the Valley yesterday evening for the Charlton v Spurs FA Youth Cup game as part of the #tottenhamultras project. Disappointing we lost to a last minute goal, but the night was a fantastic celebration in supporting our club. Tottenham fans singing relentlessly for ninety minutes in a boisterous impromptu mess as opposed to the more colourful spectacle of the South Americans and more serious synchronised madness of our continental counterparts. We're never going to quite match that. Although we did have a man in an elephant mask.
Beer. Song. Love for Spurs. No constraints or pressure of expectation. It's that simple. From London Bridge to the Valley and back, its all been recorded so looking forward to sharing the short film when it's edited and available on online.
We had our drum taken off us along with various banners. Apparently you have to inform the club in advance that you're bringing a drum. I struggled to understand this even more so when the stewards told us that it's not permitted due to the home fans not being aware of the drums impending visit and that the noise might offend them. Going with the same logic they should have confiscated our voices at the turnstiles (I'm bringing the comedy). However, all in good banter, the stewards were great hosts and we just go on with it. We had cow bells and a baby drum in reserve. We are minimalistic ultras, size doesn't matter.
Special mention to @Teflon6 and @eperons for their road-trip (driving) from Belgium through to France to Charlton and the 8% bottled beer + Eden Hazard inside knowledge that would make the head spin off the ITK community. Tremendous effort made by both to travel into London for a youth match. Also meet a lot of people yesterday (Twitter folk, forum dwellers, WHL regulars), it's all very blurry looking back on it but honoured to finally shake the hands of @WindyCOYS and @SpursBlogger - both essential for your on-line THFC consumption. Only regret is not having more time to speak to the both of them along with a number of other Spurs folk I had the pleasure of hugging (including @jodmitchell our iphone app developer).
Great feedback from the players themselves via Twitter, all very appreciative of the noise being made and experience given, something that John McDermott (“I’ve got to say I thought the number of Spurs fans was amazing. It was like a little White Hart Lane. To be able to play in at atmosphere like this is a fantastic experience, but it’s just a tough pill to take at the moment”) cited in the official Spurs match report. Charlton even used our Ultras tag in their write-up when mentioning our support. Nice touch. Some quality chanting at the game (Stretch ! Stretch ! Stretch!) all in good humour.
So again, thank you to all that turned up for this. Going forward into next season we're hoping to organise more youth team/friendly away trips to complement the first teams support on the road and offer an escape from the more controlled environment at football matches where we are sometimes made to feel guilty for standing up and singing.
Altogether now..."This isn't our train, this isn't our traaaaaaaaain, let's not get on it, this isn't our train".
Love the shirt.
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