Why am I Spurs?

The walk-out protest by Liverpool fans in the 77th minute of their game against Sunderland and the subsequent climb-down by the board over next season’s ticket prices bought into ever sharper focus the ongoing role football plays in people’s lives.

For a good while now it is no secret that football has become a corporate business, it’s the price supporters have had to pay to get all the modern shiny new things the Premier League era has bought. For the most part that is welcomed – all seater grounds, safer stadiums, world class players, more matches than ever available to watch etc.

But it has also bought with it an inflation busting 700% increase in average ticket prices, an increase so vast that it almost negates comparison to any other sport or entertainment medium.

Now, the argument is that in a free market economy supply and demand will always dictate the cost of goods and commodities and like it or not football falls in to that category.
People far more intelligent than I am can continue to argue that point.

[linequote]The lunch break was our Eden and for 1 hour nothing else in the world mattered – so much so that when there wasn’t a football available we once used a rock[/linequote]

Everyone knows that the reason ticket prices are high is because for most Premier league teams those tickets will sell. No club chairman will ever be so stupid to admit it publicly (although with Mike Ashley there’s always a chance) but none of them care who the 40,000 people are in the stadium on a matchday, just so long as there are 40,000 in the stadium.

With that in mind, the demographic of those who can consistently afford to pay £50 every other week is small. As a result, stadiums are filled with an overabundance of men 40yrs plus. Not to denigrate this group and their support is every bit as valid as anyone else’s but the atmosphere, singing and lifeblood of a club on matchdays does not generate from them.

It wasn’t always thus and therein lies the problem and it is what has driven me to write this piece, about how and why my football team is my football team and what that means regardless if I ever set foot in the stadium again.

Like most kids growing up in the 1980s football was everything. Not for us the raping and pillaging of the country’s industries by Thatcher across the land. The lunch break was our Eden and for 1 hour nothing else in the world mattered – so much so that when there wasn’t a football available we once used a rock. With the obvious consequence of hitting a girl walking past in the face cutting her eye and landing 20 of us an audience with the headmaster.

As this was the 80s any kid yet to pick a football team to support only had one option. Liverpool. They were all conquering and during an age when the passing of time was still a relatively abstract concept, they seemed to win everything, every year, all the bloody time. The league, The FA cup, the League Cup and most likely the Olympics, darts, snooker and tiddlywinks.

Being in north London though, Liverpool were’t the only choice in the playground There was a smattering of QPR and Watford devotees, the odd West Ham follower but by far the largest contingent was Tottenham and Woolwich. From as early as I could remember I knew I was Tottenham. I didn’t have a say in it, that’s just the way it was.

On my mums side, her family had come from near the east end, there was almost a 50/50 split of Woolwich and Spurs fans. But I knew my support didn’t come from there, it came from my dad. The son of a cantor and grandson of a Rabbi. Why was he Tottenham?

Not all of the things that came out of my fathers mouth can be classed as being the truth but that’s probably an article for a very different website.

As a child my father wasn’t into football. That’s not so surprising. His father had fled Poland before the Nazi’s decided that not having a foreskin was tantamount to being the devil and with no older brothers around there was no-one to foster his love of the game.

Following school friends was all well and good but picking a football team to support is a serious matter. Get it wrong and you end up with a life of misery pretending that Karen Brady is good for your club.

[linequote]The throng of people was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my short life to date[/linequote]

Then the world cup of 1966 rolled around. Unlike some of the other countries, England decided to eschew the 5 star luxury London hotels and instead base themselves at the very nice but very modest Hendon Hall Hotel in, well, Hendon. That hotel just so happened to be at the end of my fathers road.

Before SKY invented modern football, footballers were actually human beings who didn’t need to ask their team of PR and agents if they are ok to condone ISIS or what time to go to the toilet. So most days during the tournament players were accessible and to my dad, the player who stopped to sign every autograph and who is a hero of his to this day was Jimmy Greaves. And that was that, Jimmy Greaves played for Spurs so that was the team to support.

Fast forward to the 1986/87 season and there I was, walking up Tottenham High Road as a 6year old going to my first game. The throng of people was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my short life to date. Makeshift stalls selling programmes (I got one), pin badges (I got 2) scarves and bobble hats (yes and yes) and the smell of fried onions so strong that thinking about it actually makes me want to cook a burger whilst I write this.

A left turn on to Paxton Road and there it was. This megalith of concrete and steel, right there in front of my eyes, just like on TV and in magazines. I remember the turnstiles, cold, painted blue but rusted away and the clink as the operator pressed his foot on the magical pedal.

We were in the main concourse and there was a palpable buzz, singing came from different directions, none of it co-ordinated, people pushing past one way or the other, either trying to get to the loo or buy a drink or find friends. The same ritual they had no doubt carried out a thousand times over but one which I was seeing for the very first time.

[linequote]Despite my earlier protestations that I didn’t want to be treated like a baby because I was going to football like the men do, I was very glad my mum made me a packed lunch of cheese sandwiches, a kitkat and an orange juice[/linequote]

We climbed the stairs and that’s when it hit me. The awesome, unforgettable sight of the pitch and the stadium from within. Like being in the inner sanctum of Tutankhamun’s tomb. I was actually here, at the ground, looking at the bright green grass (this was the 80s so more than likely it was a beige sludge, but rose tinted glasses and all that) and the thousands of people all there for the same reason.

We shuffled along to our seats, and despite my earlier protestations that I didn’t want to be treated like a baby because I was going to football like the men do, I was very glad my mum made me a packed lunch of cheese sandwiches, a kitkat and an orange juice. I wolfed it down and got a shock when the voice of White Hart Lane – Willie Miller boomed out the teams over the tannoy.

We were playing West Ham, it was Boxing Day 1986. The players I had only seen on TV were 50 yards away from me. Gary Mabbutt, Chris Waddle, Clive Allen, Glenn Hoddle, Paul Moran, Nico Classen et al.

Once the teams were read out the chorus started, COME. ON. YOU. SPUUUUUUUURS, COME. ON. YOU. SPUUUUUUURS. Slowly and methodically. It sent a shiver through me,

Things are always heightened the first time you experience them – being drunk, trying to convince the girl you have a crush on to let you put your hand under her top for 10 seconds, algebra lessons. Even more so as a kid. But to this day I have never felt so excited. It was visceral, it was loud and it was, for want of a better word, dirty. It was f***inng brilliant.

[linequote]I was hooked. I thought this is what it would always be like. Idiot. But I wouldn’t change it for anything[/linequote]

I haven’t actually checked the stats but from my recollection we won 4-0 with Waddle scoring one of the goals. I was hooked. I thought this is what it would always be like. Idiot. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. Doesn’t matter if I went 10 times a season or once every couple of years, as I did in my early 20s. It’s in you and it never ever leaves.

Ive sat through iconic Wembley semi-finals against Woolwich and dour penalty shootout wins against the mighty Peterborough. I was there when we were 3-0 up at half time against Man U only to f**k it up the best way we know how. With style.

I’ve seen Gazza, Hoddle, Lineker, Klinsmann, King, Van der Vaart, Modric, Ginola, Berbatov, Sheringham and Bale. I’ve also seen Andy Booth, Kevin Scott, Stuart Nethercott, Paolo Tremezzani, Gary Doherty and Rory Allen.

And I’ve loved them all equally (maybe not Kevin Scott, he was a special kind of utterly s**t, not even fit to lace Doherty’s boots)

This is why I am Spurs.