Questions for our fanbase

[Joe Clash]

ENIC have the right to do what they want with the property they own.

Subject to planning permission

 

[palmers_green_yid]

Not really, but whatever. ENIC have the right to do what they want with the property they own. Customers have the right to not buy tickets or shirts if they think what ENIC does is rubbish.

ENIC have spent over a decade trying to build a new stadium. It's proven to be a very complicated process. Fan claims that all fault lies with the club and other involved groups (in particular, local government) are blameless are factually incorrect.

I just don't see it in that kind of capitalistic way. The club is more than a business which they owners can do what they like with. It's a community, a tribe, something we hold dear. It's not the same as Mac Donalds versus Burger King. If Woolwich's "product" is better than ours, then we're not going to go and watch them instead, are we? For me it's more like a love relationship. Spurs moving to Stratford is the equivalent of my girlfriend getting a sex change. Of course I'd still love her but it would be very difficult if not impossible to carry on with the relationship.

Whoever is in charge of Spurs needs to know they can't fuck us over in that way. And if they try to, we need to be ready to protest, so that they think they will be hit where it hurts (financially).

Levy/ENIC need to treat the fans right because it is the right thing to do. There are certain morals, principles, values which people should live up to. If you just want to make money, you don't give a fuck about the fans or the identities of the clubs involved, stay away from this world. To say they can do what they like is the same as saying "rich corporations shouldn't have to pay tax" or "society has no obligation to help people who are dying and who are too poor to afford treatment" or (to take an extreme example) "if I am stronger than you it is my right to overpower you and take your possessions". No. This may sound over the top but it's true: for many of us THFC is our passion and our lives will be massively affected by the decisions these people make.

Yes, getting a new stadium is a complicated process. Yes, Haringey were difficult. But that does not excuse a permanent move to Stratford. As long as White Hart Lane is standing or there are other options, there is simply no excuse- ever- for trying to do that.

 

[MKYid]

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?

 

[I8AVB]

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.

 

[YidoBuckler]

The fella with the flare got a hefty ban.

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.

 

[Norwegian_Yid]

I still love football due to the fact there are still some fans left (at every/most clubs) who would be opposed to such a thing, even if it is a minority. But I agree fully with the rest of your post.
How many games do you come over for these days? Do you still have a season ticket?

Still got my season ticket in the Shelf. Used to do 12-15 games per season travelling from Norway, but I've cut back on the number of games in recent years. Sometimes less is more, if you know what I mean.

 

[Juicy Sushi]

I think you are too trusting of Levy. I think he cares far more about making a profit for ENIC than he does about the local area. If he wasn't serious, why would he break the law in hiring someone to spy on West Ham's bid?
I like your last sentence. I think there was a serious threat, but a lot of people didn't perceive it as such, which is understandable but misguided (IMO of course).

I think the Stratford move was serious given the demands the local council was making on the club. They were essentially asking THFC to undertake all the development the urban government was supposed to do. At the costs the club was facing, it may have been a choice between staying in Tottenham and being financially crippled, or moving and being able to continue as a club. Not ideal, but we don't know the numbers ourselves.

 

[Tottenham Sean]

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.

This
I was one of the few that took it seriously out of my lot at games.or indeed in my local.

 

[Tottenham Sean]

Were those conditions needed to get planning permission at the time? If so, I can't remember that part as I was focusing on the Say no to Stratford movement at the time. If that was the case though, how come NDP was our preferred option until the very moment Stratford appeared as an option? Levy must have known about those things at the time previous to Stratford being an option.

Also:
1. Haringey were clearing being very unreasonable and surely could have been talked out of this
2. We could have stayed at WHL or tried to find somewhere else in North London.

Of course Stratford was better for corporates etc, that's not what I'm arguing about. What I'm trying to say is that we did have a choice, it wasn't a case of "the club will cease to exist unless we move to East London".

I honestly believe if,in 1964 the border of the London Boroughs of Enfield and Harringey had been created a few hundred yards further south ,we as a club would have been treated so much better.

 

[DeeGee]

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.

Mate of mine was banned indefinitely and still managed to go every week. It's not enforceable. There are many ways around it.
The only way you would get caught is if there was a johnny eagle eye manning the snooping camera with a slow afternoon. The again, there are haircuts, shaves, hats, glasses and moustaches ( 4 nonces and grasses)

 

[Juicy Sushi]

Subject to planning permission

And all the inadvertent satire thereof...

 

[Joe Clash]

Under the law of the land, probably yes. Would it be a very smart idea? No, as you wouldn't make very much money. The value is in the entity as a whole, not its component parts.

Martin Cloake made one interesting point during the pod which was that up until a certain date, English clubs were not allowed to be run for profit, by law. Scholar's listing of Spurs changed that when the FA stop him. He'd apparently asked if he could do that, and the FA didn't reply, so he went ahead and did it.

I would be very interested in knowing if that actual law had existed, or had been subsequently changed. If not, the legal basis for fan ownership gets quite strong.

There was no law of the land - it was an FA rule.

From an article by David Conn: Follow the Money.

In 1892, the FA permitted Preston North End, football’s first great power, to convert itself from a members’ club into a limited company. Preston had, years earlier, been the first to break the rules against professionalism, paying good players from Scotland to come to the club at a time when paying players was still illicit. The club’s application to form a company was partly to raise new money, partly to limit its members’ personal liability for the increased operating expenses. The FA decreed in 1892 that a club could make itself into a company, but that dividends to shareholders must be restricted. Here was the basis for football’s future development: the clubs became businesses, which could pay players, build grounds, charge supporters for entry, and form themselves into companies. But the FA insisted they remain clubs in their culture. The supporter’s gut feeling that the club is a collective endeavour, an organisation he belongs to, not a company seeking profit for shareholders, was embedded in the regulations. Rule 34, requiring football club-companies to be run essentially as non-profit organisations, with their directors serving as ‘custodians’, was in the FA handbook until the late 1990s.


Tottenham Hotspur was the first football club to be floated, in 1983. I asked the FA why it had allowed Spurs to form a holding company. It hadn’t been an issue, I was told. The top clubs’ appetite for money was growing, while the FA, struggling for direction under its old amateur constitution, had lost confidence in its ability to govern the modern game. Manchester United was next to float, in 1991, immediately making £6 million for Martin Edwards, the majority shareholder, who sold a slice of the shares that had originally cost him and his father about £600,000. United were anticipating the windfall to come the following year, when the rights to broadcast Football League matches on television would be up for renewal.

Full article: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n16/david-conn/follow-the-money

 

[Juicy Sushi]

There was no law of the land - it was an FA rule.

From an article by David Conn: Follow the Money.

In 1892, the FA permitted Preston North End, football’s first great power, to convert itself from a members’ club into a limited company. Preston had, years earlier, been the first to break the rules against professionalism, paying good players from Scotland to come to the club at a time when paying players was still illicit. The club’s application to form a company was partly to raise new money, partly to limit its members’ personal liability for the increased operating expenses. The FA decreed in 1892 that a club could make itself into a company, but that dividends to shareholders must be restricted. Here was the basis for football’s future development: the clubs became businesses, which could pay players, build grounds, charge supporters for entry, and form themselves into companies. But the FA insisted they remain clubs in their culture. The supporter’s gut feeling that the club is a collective endeavour, an organisation he belongs to, not a company seeking profit for shareholders, was embedded in the regulations. Rule 34, requiring football club-companies to be run essentially as non-profit organisations, with their directors serving as ‘custodians’, was in the FA handbook until the late 1990s.


Tottenham Hotspur was the first football club to be floated, in 1983. I asked the FA why it had allowed Spurs to form a holding company. It hadn’t been an issue, I was told. The top clubs’ appetite for money was growing, while the FA, struggling for direction under its old amateur constitution, had lost confidence in its ability to govern the modern game. Manchester United was next to float, in 1991, immediately making £6 million for Martin Edwards, the majority shareholder, who sold a slice of the shares that had originally cost him and his father about £600,000. United were anticipating the windfall to come the following year, when the rights to broadcast Football League matches on television would be up for renewal.

Full article: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n16/david-conn/follow-the-money

Thanks, definitely a good read.

 

[palmers_green_yid]

There is no evidence that they've actually "fucked" anyone over. And as far as treating the fans right, what exactly would that be? There's no consensus among us about what we want out of the club, so exactly who are they supposed to be listening to? You? Me? The Supporter's Trust? They want happy customers. The people within the club are generally fans of it as well, so want to emotionally do the right thing, but exactly what that is depends very much on your particular viewpoint.

Selling our identity down the river is what I was referring to by fucking us over. No it didn't happen but they wanted it to.
You're right, we all want the club to do the right thing but we disagree on what that is. At the very least they should have a vote on something as important as moving to Stratford, with all members who attend games regularly allowed to vote. Those who had been attending games regularly for 10+ years could have more than one vote. I would still encourage a protest to show that if people voted for us to move, they would be losing a large amount of our most passionate fans.

No, it isn't. This is a sports team we happen to support. It's not a fundamental pillar of human civilization. If Spurs the club dies, there are plenty of other clubs around, and we're free to start our own new one any time we like.

Couldn't disagree more. Football clubs are a fundamental pillar of British society. If Spurs the club dies, no we couldn't just pick another one. It don't work like that.

The shareholders who own the club and who are undertaking all the financial risks for the running of the club are the ones who get to make the choices because it's their livelihood on the line, not ours. And by that I don't just mean ENIC, I mean everyone from Levy to the lunch lady. They all have significantly more skin in this game than we do.
.

Why? Why is the money of people who are already very rich more important than the passion of people who are largely not very rich? It's true that people's jobs are affected. But it's not like if we didn't move to Stratford Levy et al were all going to be lining up at the Jobcentre. And the lunch lady will keep her job just the same in Tottenham ;-)

Indeed we will. But so will they. Accusing them of having nothing but bad intentions, and foaming at the mouth with accusations based on fear with no basis in actual facts though isn't really going to accomplish very much.

The club aren't going to find it worth their while to dialogue with us when the most intelligent thing we have to say is: "SPENDMOREMONEYLEVYYOUCUNTHOWDAREYOUMOVEUSTOSTRATFORD#NOTOMKYOUHAVENORIGHTTOMAKEANYDECISIONSITSNOTYOURCLUB"

That is about the level of discourse the fans and THST are managing to provide at the moment. I feel the club could do a much better job of explaining the decisions they're making, and in particular the why of the matter, but at the same time I understand how complicated the real world and major business decisions are, and don't expect instant answers, or that the answer will always be yes.

I'm not accusing them of anything that wasn't a cold fact. They were going to take us to Stratford! That is a fact.
I think THST are very reasonable and diplomatic and in the way their present themselves. If anything they are not radical enough (IMO).
Other than THST there are no channels available to communicate with the club. Venting on a forum like this does not constitute communicating with the club. When the Stratford debacle was going on, I wrote them a very reasonable, polite letter...and received no reply.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting. If there is no way of communicating with the club and the club aren't interested in forming this, then protest, songs, stickers etc. is the only way of showing how we feel. I don't honestly know what we could do to have a more diplomatic exchange with the club. Even if we did have this, why would they listen to us?

Yes, there is. It's called the real world, and the dollars and cents of running a business. Because that is what Spurs are. We can surround that with as much rhetoric as we want, but for the last century Tottenham Hotspur have always been a business devoted to getting you to give them money in return for staging football matches for you to watch. That's it. The amounts of money involved have changed, but the crux of the matter has always been that exchange. And if Haringey put up restrictions which make it impossible for Spurs to actually do that, why should they not move elsewhere? In the end, they haven't. And Spurs aren't moving. But the scenario remains.

This comes back to the same argument. My position is that a football club is more than just a business, and the owners have a moral right to respect this. Yours is that it is a business so they are morally free to do as they please as they own that business. Agree to disagree?

 

[Juicy Sushi]

Selling our identity down the river is what I was referring to by fucking us over. No it didn't happen but they wanted it to.
You're right, we all want the club to do the right thing but we disagree on what that is. At the very least they should have a vote on something as important as moving to Stratford, with all members who attend games regularly allowed to vote. Those who had been attending games regularly for 10+ years could have more than one vote. I would still encourage a protest to show that if people voted for us to move, they would be losing a large amount of our most passionate fans.

Couldn't disagree more. Football clubs are a fundamental pillar of British society. If Spurs the club dies, no we couldn't just pick another one. It don't work like that.


Why? Why is the money of people who are already very rich more important than the passion of people who are largely not very rich? It's true that people's jobs are affected. But it's not like if we didn't move to Stratford Levy et al were all going to be lining up at the Jobcentre. And the lunch lady will keep her job just the same in Tottenham ;-)
I'm not accusing them of anything that wasn't a cold fact. They were going to take us to Stratford! That is a fact.
I think THST are very reasonable and diplomatic and in the way their present themselves. If anything they are not radical enough (IMO).
Other than THST there are no channels available to communicate with the club. Venting on a forum like this does not constitute communicating with the club. When the Stratford debacle was going on, I wrote them a very reasonable, polite letter...and received no reply.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting. If there is no way of communicating with the club and the club aren't interested in forming this, then protest, songs, stickers etc. is the only way of showing how we feel. I don't honestly know what we could do to have a more diplomatic exchange with the club. Even if we did have this, why would they listen to us?

This comes back to the same argument. My position is that a football club is more than just a business, and the owners have a moral right to respect this. Yours is that it is a business so they are morally free to do as they please as they own that business. Agree to disagree?

Yes, we shall have to with virtual beers all around.

 

[Joe Clash]

No, it isn't. This is a sports team we happen to support. It's not a fundamental pillar of human civilization. If Spurs the club dies, there are plenty of other clubs around, and we're free to start our own new one any time we like.

It's not as simple as that. Mr Hopcraft explains it better than I ever could.

"The point about football in Britain is that it is not just a sport people take to, like cricket or tennis or running long distances. It is inherent in the people. It is built into the urban psyche. It is not a phenomenon; it is an everyday matter. There is more eccentricity in deliberately disregarding it than in devoting a life to it. Its sudden withdrawal from the people would bring deeper disconsolation than to deprive them of television. The way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are."

Arthur Hopcraft - 1968

 

[Jenny Talia]

I don't think it is a fair comparison with Cardiff City. The fans accepted a lot of what the new owners decided to do, but not because they liked all of it. The new owners were accepted because they were not Sam Hammam or Peter Ridsdale. If Spurs was being run by Hammam/Ridsdale then I reckon we would also support any alternative. Whatever you think of Enic they don't compare to that pair.

 

[I8AVB]

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.

Mate, we are a North London club. Have we not derided Woolwich for the last 100 years or so for moving into our territory, and now you think it is a good idea for Spurs to do something similar. It may have been a cheaper option, but that isn't our problem. The reality is that we are struggling to get bums into seats at the moment, Just look on the official site to see the swathes of empty seats still available for forthcoming games. A new stadium in Tottenham will be almost impossible to fill, other than a few high profile games, if it were in Pikyland, and taking into account the thousands of Spurs supporters that would refuse to go, just imagine how empty the stadium would be !!

 

[Juicy Sushi]

That wasn't my point. Did you read the quote? If you did, why this response? It makes no sense. It's like you want to answer a different point altogether

I read it, but I apologise for not being clear. I mean that I don't really see the exclusivity which it claims. The emotional meaning that a sports team provides is not an exclusively English thing in its depth.

My point is that for all the meaning and signficance of a football club to the everyday life of the fans, its legal status is completely different. Under the laws of the land, which is what these clubs are operating by, the relationship is simply one of paying for 2 hours of entertainment. Moral obligations have no weight, and are assigned no significance by the owners, in particular American ones used to the idea of getting public tax money to build stadiums, and moving clubs literally thousands of miles for more lucrative markets.

The relationship assumed to exist by the fans, and the legal basis on which ENIC owns THFC are not equivalent. I am not saying that is right, but I think it is a reality that should be acknowledged.

I think that if fans want to change that reality, invective-filled social media screams at the club aren't going to accomplish anything. Nor are banners, or protests or a Supporter's Trust which assumes it has the right to talk transfer policy with the club. If fans want ENIC to listen, they need to actually put some cash on the table and buy some influence by owning a chunk (or ideally all) of the club. All the rich prose on the cultural meaning of football have no bearing on the situation. Power, and how to acquire it does.

I am sorry if that was unclear initially, or that it doesn't make sense following on from what you said. I was replying on the basis of what I understood the conversation to be about, taking into account the conversation which you had quoted. Apologies for the confusion.

 

[palmers_green_yid]

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.