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Was reading this the other day http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2013/02/21/the-day-the-bluebirds-died/
Not sure if it's been posted here before but it's a really good read. The author is a passionate Cardiff fan who describes the way in which the vast majority of Cardiff fans accepted the changes to their identity, and ultimately even embraced those changes. The minority of fans who wanted to protest was relatively small, so that any protest movement did not really make an impact.
I was thinking how glad I was that, despite the problems with our support (mostly our home support), we at least wouldn't let something like this happen.
Then I remembered this day
The protest against Stratford. Great protest, but there must have been maximum 200 of us there, out of a possible 33,000 or so who were attending the game. A shocking turnout. This gave me the terrifying thought- would we let a Cardiff situation happen to us too?

I know it may seem like ancient history now...but why do you think so few of us turned out for the Stratford protest? Is it that fans didn't know about it? Or they thought Levy was bluffing? Is it because We are N17 were unhelpful (though well meaning) being the self-appointed leaders of the resistance but then shunning actual protests? Or is it because on the whole, we- like Cardiff and other modern football clubs- basically lack bottle and, despite a large number of us feeling strongly against Stratford, were apathetic when it came to actually fighting it? What do you think?
This may seem unimportant now, but I would say it's more important than ever. The way in which football clubs are run is basically dreadful. As well as Cardiff, and Levy with Stratford, we have the Hull owner trying to change their name, and many clubs who are run by dodgy owners prepared to gamble with the very future of the club in the attempt to make a profit. I don't think it's time to protest against Levy/ENIC, not now, but I think more likely than not- with the way football is being run at the moment- the need will come for us to protest at some point in the next 20-30 years. It could be against ENIC, it could be (more likely) against someone else who is even worse. Are we going to let them walk all over us again? Or are we going to be organised this time?
As far as I recall 1882/TFC wasn't around back in the days of the Stratford protest. I would like to think that if the Stratford situation was happening now, 1882/TFC would be very much part of the protest movement, and the numbers would be accordingly much higher.
 
Honestly I just don't think people thought the Stratford situation was real at the time. If it had genuinely gone ahead then you would have seen a bigger mobilisation of fans, which of course would probably have been too late.
These days I guess it has to be pretty significant and in your face to get you out of your armchair.
 
Honestly I just don't think people thought the Stratford situation was real at the time. If it had genuinely gone ahead then you would have seen a bigger mobilisation of fans, which of course would probably have been too late.
These days I guess it has to be pretty significant and in your face to get you out of your armchair.
Thanks for the reply. I agree, the numbers would have probably been x10 if it was going ahead. But like you say then it would have been too late.
I guess people just like to pretend everything's okay so they can be lazy, until it's 100% not okay and then it's too late. If we were a similarly sized team in Italy, Greece, Serbia, etc though, I'm sure the original protest would have been 2,000+ people, rather than 200.
Whatever you think of HF at Palace, I think they would be able to mobilise big support against this sort of thing. At Spurs we have the old school who organised this protest. But we also need 1882 to keep growing so they can mobilise younger fans when the time is needed.
 
The Stratford thing was very much in the plauseability stage for us, at least I'm sure most saw it that way as is was a long way from being confirmed, but it's a fair point to suggest our next owners could quite conceivably be from Asia and decide that Red being a lucky colour, is what our shirts should be, and we would have our very own Cardiff style crisis of identity.

Would we actually have enough in our number to effectively protest, or would the new chairman stick to his guns and be proved right by watching Spurs fans part with their hard earned to buy the new Red and Blue kit?
 
ENIC/Levy will sell its soul if it, makes profit.
The Stafford bid was always going to fail , as our arrogant , pompous and
immoral move was covered in controversy, dirt and destined to collapse .
Bit like the team.
 
The Stratford thing was very much in the plauseability stage for us, at least I'm sure most saw it that way as is was a long way from being confirmed, but it's a fair point to suggest our next owners could quite conceivably be from Asia and decide that Red being a lucky colour, is what our shirts should be, and we would have our very own Cardiff style crisis of identity.

Would we actually have enough in our number to effectively protest, or would the new chairman stick to his guns and be proved right by watching Spurs fans part with their hard earned to buy the new Red and Blue kit?
I think a majority of modern football fans are prepared to sacrifice identity if they think that it may give them a chance of success. Success is their equivalent of the money the businessmen are after; it makes them do desperate things. (I'm not even saying they're all 'bad' fans, some pro-Stratford fans genuinely loved the club...their vision of what it means was different from mine though).
However, there is a large minority who feel differently. I think at Spurs this group of people is large enough to have influence; the question is being able to be organised. We need to learn the lesson of complacency from Stratford. Because if we had been chosen as preferred bidder, I think it would have been too late to do anything about it.
 
I was there that day. A small turnout but pretty effective nontheless. However, i agree, if our fans thought something/anything would give us CL football, the majority of them would roll over & have their tummy tickled.

The fella with the flare got a hefty ban.
 
Was reading this the other day http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2013/02/21/the-day-the-bluebirds-died/
Not sure if it's been posted here before but it's a really good read. The author is a passionate Cardiff fan who describes the way in which the vast majority of Cardiff fans accepted the changes to their identity, and ultimately even embraced those changes. The minority of fans who wanted to protest was relatively small, so that any protest movement did not really make an impact.
I was thinking how glad I was that, despite the problems with our support (mostly our home support), we at least wouldn't let something like this happen.
Then I remembered this day
The protest against Stratford. Great protest, but there must have been maximum 200 of us there, out of a possible 33,000 or so who were attending the game. A shocking turnout. This gave me the terrifying thought- would we let a Cardiff situation happen to us too?

I know it may seem like ancient history now...but why do you think so few of us turned out for the Stratford protest? Is it that fans didn't know about it? Or they thought Levy was bluffing? Is it because We are N17 were unhelpful (though well meaning) being the self-appointed leaders of the resistance but then shunning actual protests? Or is it because on the whole, we- like Cardiff and other modern football clubs- basically lack bottle and, despite a large number of us feeling strongly against Stratford, were apathetic when it came to actually fighting it? What do you think?
This may seem unimportant now, but I would say it's more important than ever. The way in which football clubs are run is basically dreadful. As well as Cardiff, and Levy with Stratford, we have the Hull owner trying to change their name, and many clubs who are run by dodgy owners prepared to gamble with the very future of the club in the attempt to make a profit. I don't think it's time to protest against Levy/ENIC, not now, but I think more likely than not- with the way football is being run at the moment- the need will come for us to protest at some point in the next 20-30 years. It could be against ENIC, it could be (more likely) against someone else who is even worse. Are we going to let them walk all over us again? Or are we going to be organised this time?
As far as I recall 1882/TFC wasn't around back in the days of the Stratford protest. I would like to think that if the Stratford situation was happening now, 1882/TFC would be very much part of the protest movement, and the numbers would be accordingly much higher.


The supporters fight against our move to Stratford was pathetic. I spent a lot of money buying balloons and handing them out, and yet hardly anyone could be bothered to blow them up. At least the Cardiff supporters won't buy the red shirts. I don't condone violence or vandalism, but if that tosser who owns the engineering company at the bottom of our ground was a geordie in Newcastle, it would have been torched by now. It's about time we started to sing that we want Levy out, like we did with Sugar, even though Sugar actually rescued the club.
 
Was reading this the other day http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2013/02/21/the-day-the-bluebirds-died/
Not sure if it's been posted here before but it's a really good read. The author is a passionate Cardiff fan who describes the way in which the vast majority of Cardiff fans accepted the changes to their identity, and ultimately even embraced those changes. The minority of fans who wanted to protest was relatively small, so that any protest movement did not really make an impact.
I was thinking how glad I was that, despite the problems with our support (mostly our home support), we at least wouldn't let something like this happen.
Then I remembered this day
The protest against Stratford. Great protest, but there must have been maximum 200 of us there, out of a possible 33,000 or so who were attending the game. A shocking turnout. This gave me the terrifying thought- would we let a Cardiff situation happen to us too?

I know it may seem like ancient history now...but why do you think so few of us turned out for the Stratford protest? Is it that fans didn't know about it? Or they thought Levy was bluffing? Is it because We are N17 were unhelpful (though well meaning) being the self-appointed leaders of the resistance but then shunning actual protests? Or is it because on the whole, we- like Cardiff and other modern football clubs- basically lack bottle and, despite a large number of us feeling strongly against Stratford, were apathetic when it came to actually fighting it? What do you think?
This may seem unimportant now, but I would say it's more important than ever. The way in which football clubs are run is basically dreadful. As well as Cardiff, and Levy with Stratford, we have the Hull owner trying to change their name, and many clubs who are run by dodgy owners prepared to gamble with the very future of the club in the attempt to make a profit. I don't think it's time to protest against Levy/ENIC, not now, but I think more likely than not- with the way football is being run at the moment- the need will come for us to protest at some point in the next 20-30 years. It could be against ENIC, it could be (more likely) against someone else who is even worse. Are we going to let them walk all over us again? Or are we going to be organised this time?
As far as I recall 1882/TFC wasn't around back in the days of the Stratford protest. I would like to think that if the Stratford situation was happening now, 1882/TFC would be very much part of the protest movement, and the numbers would be accordingly much higher.


A red flair?! Really?!!!
 
Levy out for who? The alternatives to the current regime are pretty terrifying.

Gillette & Hicks style "investors" loading us with debt? Developing world "businessmen" who'd remake the club in their image?

The fans aren't unified on anything, so crying "ENIC Out" just rakes from the pot to the fire.

If you have an institution you want to protect, you need control. That means ultimately fan ownership, of some ilk. But that also demands an end to the squabbling about the club. We'd have to decide who Spurs are, on and off the pitch, and what our goals are. That requires hard work and grown-up attitudes; things the fan base lacks.
 
I never really saw Stratford as that bigger deal - we needed and still clearly need alternatives to redeveloping WHL as even 4 years down the line the Council / Government still haven't helped us reach a point where we can definitively say the NLDP is going ahead.

100% my preference would be to stay in Tottenham and on the same site, but protesting about the owners looking at alternatives when we now know the time and money its taken to even get to the point where an appeal by Archway could scupper the whole thing seems slightly counter-productive.

We should have been protesting against Haringey and the Government to fast track our planning, extend the Victoria Line and drop their s.106 demands.
 
SKY sports have totally raped the game and this in turn has contributed to our downfall and identity.
It's such a change from the days of hopping on the train with my paper round money and going to see spurs play and we are only going back 20 odd years ago and spent all my money watching spurs when I was a kid.
I had a gap of a few years going and am quite horrified with what is going on at spurs but we are not the only team as mentioned Cardiff and Hull have issues as well.
Where do I stand on Enic and levy well as has been said be careful what you wish for but my grandad who was a regular at the lane in the 50s and 60s would turn in his grave.
Some sort of constructive demonstration is needed to regain our identity and stop the rot.
Not sure what maybe everyone in the ground turn our backs or the whole ground make a humming noise.
Maybe just sit in our seats and play a game like pass the parcel.
 
Levy out for who? The alternatives to the current regime are pretty terrifying.

Gillette & Hicks style "investors" loading us with debt? Developing world "businessmen" who'd remake the club in their image?

The fans aren't unified on anything, so crying "ENIC Out" just rakes from the pot to the fire.

If you have an institution you want to protect, you need control. That means ultimately fan ownership, of some ilk. But that also demands an end to the squabbling about the club. We'd have to decide who Spurs are, on and off the pitch, and what our goals are. That requires hard work and grown-up attitudes; things the fan base lacks.
Agree that there are many worse chairmen than Levy, as we discussed before.
Also agree about fan ownership. But if we can't organise a simple protest I don't think we'll be able to organise that. More chance of it coming about through legislation (which is pretty unlikely, I think Labour have 25% fan ownership in their manifesto but probably wouldn't follow through with it, even if they did win the election) than us lot all clubbing together £700m+ or whatever it would take.
 
Mate of mine, its indefinite I believe.

Poor turn out that day, I wasn't really aware of it until I came along the high road but hung around when I saw what was going on.
Heard about his ban. That's the club trying to clamp down on any dissent, in the manner of any true dictator. No need to ban him for that, it wasn't even a criminal act as not in the stadium. An indefinite ban is well out of order. Makes me hate the current ownership even more.
Incidentally, I wonder how such a ban (not a police ban) works. Would every turnstile operator have a picture of his face? Obviously he can never have a membership in his name, but I hope he still manages to get in to watch us.
 
I never really saw Stratford as that bigger deal - we needed and still clearly need alternatives to redeveloping WHL as even 4 years down the line the Council / Government still haven't helped us reach a point where we can definitively say the NLDP is going ahead.

100% my preference would be to stay in Tottenham and on the same site, but protesting about the owners looking at alternatives when we now know the time and money its taken to even get to the point where an appeal by Archway could scupper the whole thing seems slightly counter-productive.

We should have been protesting against Haringey and the Government to fast track our planning, extend the Victoria Line and drop their s.106 demands.
Not my intention to go into the actual Stratford debate, but IMO anywhere in East London (even if only a few miles away etc) should never have been considered as an alternative...and IMO the fact that Levy was about to move us there, very much necessitated mass demonstrations. You can't measure our identity as a North London club in terms of money or on the pitch success- it is priceless.

I think ENIC want to sell which may be causing them to drag their feet over the new ground.
 
Not my intention to go into the actual Stratford debate, but IMO anywhere in East London (even if only a few miles away etc) should never have been considered as an alternative...and IMO the fact that Levy was about to move us there, very much necessitated mass demonstrations. You can't measure our identity as a North London club in terms of money or on the pitch success- it is priceless.

I think ENIC want to sell which may be causing them to drag their feet over the new ground.

I agree moving to Stratford or anywhere outside of Tottenham would be shit, and at the time loads agreed.......nearly everyone seems to be upset that we aren't competing on the pitch now though - I wonder how many if given the ability to see the future as it is now versus a future at the Olympic stadium with Bale having stuck around at the prospect of playing there and an extra £400m in the club's bank account saved in costs would happily sacrifice the club's history/identity.
 
What Tan did to Cardiff was a fucking disgrace and I feel for them.

Alright he pumped money in to help win them promotion, but to change their identity? Im all for moving forward and expanding your audience, but you do that by playing good football that will help get you to the top.
 
I thought that moving to Stratford was a good idea BUT of course not when it transpired we were being played for mugs by the OS committee. To me, IF we were going to move into a brand new football stadium next season at the Olympic site, it would be far preferable to the expensive fiasco we've been landed with instead.

IF the people of Totenham wanted us so badly to stay, where's the clamour against the hold ups and extra costs we've suffered. Most Spurs fans travel tens of miles to get to the Lane, for many Stratford with its excellent transport connections would be an easier journey, plus it would have stopped West Ham in their tracks. (kinda pun, kinda meant) Now instead West Ham have a realistic chance to overtake us in the next twenty years after over 100 years in our shadow, the thought of us becoming London's fourth club is horrendous to me.
 
I agree moving to Stratford or anywhere outside of Tottenham would be shit, and at the time loads agreed.......nearly everyone seems to be upset that we aren't competing on the pitch now though - I wonder how many if given the ability to see the future as it is now versus a future at the Olympic stadium with Bale having stuck around at the prospect of playing there and an extra £400m in the club's bank account saved in costs would happily sacrifice the club's history/identity.
I think probably 60% of the fanbase back then would have accepted Stratford. Of those who were against, I'd like to think many would still be against given your hypothetical choice. I'd rather us be playing in the Conference than see us at Stratford and in the CL.
 
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