The good old days
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 3:17PM Happy 130th birthday Tottenham. Old but still sexy.
Inspired to reminisce, I found and dusted off some old issues of classic fanzines, The Spur and Cock-a-Doddle-Doo and scanned some of the covers and articles (in the slideshow below). The content is mostly from 1989 to the mid-90s. If you don't remember the fanzines, best way to sum them up is you had written pieces/match reports/creative stuff in their purest form without the bullsh*t hysterics that can drown out and consume the content, which these days you find pillaging its way across social media and blog comments.
Also, looking through them, it really gave me a flashback to some truly troubling days as a Spurs fan, both on and off the pitch, punctured with iconic players and moments. Wish I had the time to scan every single page of these and share them online. Maybe there's someone out there that collected them and has them in decent nick, if so, get in touch. If you fancy doing some hard graft.
There's one particular article in issue 6 of Cock-a-Doodle-doo (1995) written by Ivan Cohen and Jacqui Cawley that cites the internet. I hope both don't mind me sharing it here. Makes fascinating reading when comparing it to the present day and the wealth of information and discussion we have available to us which has gone beyond taking for granted but is actually part of the way we live and support the club. Ignore the link and email addy included in the body of the text, unless you have a time machine.
It's in the Net
Fancy travelling the super highway for more information on Spurs? Ivan Cohen and Jacqui Cawley show you how.
For the uninitiated the Internet remains a mystery, in much the same way as team selection by England managers. There is a view among the ignorant that those who communicate via the Internet and surf its waves of information are a bunch of anorak-wearing couch potatoes with no real life to call their own. Whilte this may be true in some quarters, for the elite there is a Tottenham-style of surfing the 'Net, with flair, adventure and a cavalier attitude. This elite are primarily Spurs supporters whose access to a computer, modem and telephone line enable them to participate in discussions and events pertaining to the Spurs via this new medium of communication.
The core of Spurs fans on the Internet belong to an e-mail service commonly known as the 'Spurs-List'. Started by Bruce Munro in 1993, this enables Spurs fans in the UK and abroad to air their views, engage in debate (and occasionally heated argument) and other snippets of news and gossip. The latter is a particular godsend to overseas Spurs fans, who are deprived of that which we take for granted. Recent 'postings' have led to 'threads' discussing the Barmby 'homesick' situation, the injuries to Teddy and Chris Armstrong, predictions for the coming season and transfer speculation. The Spurs-List offers a chance for 'subscribers' to post their own reports on matches, including the senior teams as well as youth and reserve games. Indeed, match reports by Bruce Lewis have become such a feature that they've taken on almost legendary status and are eagerly awaited by all. The List also offers a means for Spurs fans to get together and arrange transport etc, for various matches, both home and away.
In addition to the List there is a graphic interface to the Internet known as the World Wide Wide (www or web). The Spurs supporters pages are run by Jacqui Cawley. Started in 1994, they are 'visited' several thousand times a month, not only by Spurs fans, and from all over the planet. Some of the web pages are given over to providing a central home for information provided originally on the Spurs-List, such as match reports. The graphical interface means that photos can also be seen.
One result of the List and web site has been to bring together Spurs fans both digitally and in reality. Many of us meet before (and after) home matches for a drink and a discussion, with not an anorak in sight! For the past six months or so we have had monthly 'List dinners', where we meet at a chosen restaurant for food, drink and discussion of those issues not yet resolved via the digital medium. This has offered us the chance to make new friends with whom we have an abiding passion in common - Tottenham Hotspur FC. We have also started up a football team which trains every Sunday. The Internet Hotspurs recently had its first match in Nottingham against the Leeds United List team (Internet Lard FC) and although the result was disappointing the event was a lot of fun, with both teams getting together socially after the match - a truly supporting occasion.
The Internet offers Spurs fans an additional means of communication. Those who participate have two main factors in common - a basic sense of computer literacy and an incredible passion for THFC. There are no other barriers! Join us by sending e-mail to majordomo@garply.com and type 'subscribe spurs-list' in the body of the message, or check out the web site at http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/recreation/sport/thfc/thfc.html
Now that's proper old skool. The birth of the online communities. I think my first online experience of Spurs was using the Usenet (Newsgroups) and alt.sports.spurs back in the days before it imploded with commercialism and copyright. Probably edging towards the late 90s. Although to be fair to history, the real reason I first got connected to the internet was to find pictures of Jenna Jameson. Football was an after thought. Shame that, I could have spent years writing about Spurs before I actually did instead of...well, you know. We're all guilty of it. Probably still are. But let's not get side-tracked. Back on topic...
Here's 32 scans for you to enjoy (the first few are 'fan posters' created during the El Tel v Sugar era as ye olde propaganda for meetings and demonstrations which I attended). I sadly don't have any photos from the days I stood outside the High Court shouting expletives. Probably for the best.
Slideshow
Reader Comments (18)
I remember writing for My Eyes Have Seen the Glory. Still got all the issues I featured in somewhere in the loft.
Football is a worse place without fanzines in my opinion.
FYI the original spurs-list is still running, albeit in a different form, on Google Groups.
Quality retro stuff. One of my memories from a glowing match report from the Spur. "Even Pat Van Den Hauwe's crosses were going just over the bar, instead of just over Potter's Bar".
Cheers spooky for that a nice bit of fun a great seeing some of the old news ,certainly helped keeping my
mind of others things tottenham [the unmentionables ].
Brought back a few memories, I miss the fanzines too and while I appreciate the replacement this blog and the like I can never bloody read them in the ground because the signal is so shit.
Also we are also many miles ahead of where we used to be I appreciate we don't have anyone of the class of Lineker or Gascoigne in the current team the quality of players is far greater. The current isn't too bad and I also proves I have a short memory about Mr Sugar
There is a time machine, kind of:
http://web.archive.org/web/19971211205140/http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/recreation/sport/thfc/thfc.html
"Recent 'postings' have led to 'threads' discussing the Barmby 'homesick' situation, the injuries to Teddy and Christ Armstrong..."
Christ Armstrong? Is it time yet for the Second Coming?!
Nice piece and great pics. I wrote occasional pieces for the Spur and CaDD and also handed out leaflets for TISA, so this was a fun trip down memory lane. The best fanzines allowed more time for reflection and humour, which often gets lost in the instant internet reactions. I usually avoid most of the message boards/blogs after defeats, but the fanzines were unmissable at a time when we were losing much more frequently.
I have pics from the High Court protests - including one of a bloke dressed as a chicken crossing the road outside the court - and will hand them over for a fee, though my agent and some third party owner also want their cut.
Ah the Lillies.
RIP Chris Acland.
Old but still sexy.
Nuff said.
'Christ Armstrong'. lol. Best typo I've made.
But unlike Jesus, Chris couldn't get on the end of crosses.
Plus ca change. This quote from Sugar jumped out. It seems some things never change: "Spurs should be like Wimbledon, buying players cheaply and selling them at a profit." (Wimbledon for Christs sake!) And if you can win one League Cup along the way and one season in the CL all the better. Keeps the chumps coming through the turnstiles happy.
Come back, come back oh glittering and white. (sorry the late Mr Scot Fitzgerald). We must all view the interview with Arthur Rowe and regain our faith.
Spooky really defines all spuddies , like all of them he uses big big words in his blogs but spurs never deliver on the pitch , spurs are just talk and not to be taken seriously just like hill-wood said , MIND THE GAP loosers ..ha ha ha ha..
LOL. 'Not to be taken seriously'. Yeah alright mate, it's 1996 again.
@Patrice une fois une chatte toujours une chatte. Pourquoi êtes-vous tous ces Gooners béat, bâtards snidy?
Gooners have nothing else to do but define their lives by us.
Believe it or not, the garply.com domain was hosted in Alabama where I managed to persuade a friend to host it at a startup ISP, so it's worldwide in many ways.