Strangers in the night

Tottenham put on a show last night but the key experience for me was in Row 23, Block 35 under the banner of 1882 where I felt like a stranger in my own home.

I wasn’t expecting much from the game, in fact I was expecting it to be a bit s**t if I’m honest, but when I finally squeezed into the back of the Park Lane lower I was amazed to see an almost full White Hart Lane.

I say almost full as the usual StubHub absconder patches remain, grumble grumble StubHub *shakes fist* although in fairness I don’t think it sold out.

[linequote]The sound of silence is nothing new at WHL[/linequote]

Anyway, the game was important as we all know, failure would have seen us face with an increased likelihood of more robust opposition in the next round of the Europa League.

Yes, we can beat anyone when Dier and Alli are playing like FIFA bots but at the same time you’d rather avoid the likes of Manchester United, if nothing else to avoid another trip to Manchester.

So, the game gets going and we’re off to a blistering start with our wide grinned, empty eyed Argentinian who puts us ahead with ease from a tap in, queue jubilance in block 35.

Lamela went on to score a somewhat fortunate, and somewhat skilful, hat trick and as the game went on and chorus after chorus billowed down from block 35 onto the pitch I noticed something peculiar I had never before sensed at WHL.

As we celebrated and jumped up and down to ‘yido yido’ once wee Tommy Carroll, of all people, had made it 4-1 I suddenly felt like I was on an away trip.

[fullquote]I wasn’t expecting much from the game, in fact I was expecting it to be a bit s**t if I’m honest[/fullquote]

It was as if we were the unwanted minority of visitors at an opposing team’s ground, putting the game to bed and pi**ing on everyone’s cornflakes.

The songs and exuberance continued after the goal but the rest of the lane was back on backside silently observing.

The sound of silence is nothing new at WHL it has been a creeping, pernicious phenomenon over the last decade or so and the 12 away fans didn’t help the situation, especially when they started arguing amongst themselves.

There now seems to exist a clear divide between two types of people who go to the Lane to watch Spurs: the sit-down-flimsy-clappers and the stand-up-give-yourself-a-migraine-from-singingers.

When I was younger, a kid seems too far away to remember, those two groups of people were around but there was a number of intermediate stages that blended between them so as to make the distinction not quite so stark.

[linequote]I suddenly felt like I was on an away trip[/linequote]

Pricing, performance and the gentrification of London seems to have brought that distinction to a much more definable point and has altered the potential experience for fans at a great number of games.

I stopped buying tickets outside of the Park Lane lower because I found everywhere else (bar shelf lower) to be so utterly boring that I might as well be in the pub where I could at least furnish myself with alcohol constantly.

It’s almost as if we now have three sets of fans at a game: away, home and dull.

This state of affairs is one of the core reasons 1882 is important because without them or groups like them, the dulls will inherit the game.

Long live 1882.