In all seriousness, Eric was a good servant. Consummate professional, and one of the last cogs of a great era.
Hope he does well there.
Hope he does well there.
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"Lucas Bergvall's father, a lighting technician from Stockholm, was said to be pushing for the move to Tottenham after being 'wowed' by the pre-match light show at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium".
Agreed but all turned sour in late 80's early 90's when rebuilding East stand cost double its original budget, debt reached circa £20m (when Spurs total revenue was a fraction of that, top players like Linkeker cost under £1.5m) a vast sum at the time. Things so dire Scholar (then Chairman) tried to sell Spurs to Robert Maxwell (later stole zillions from pension funds before dying) and only rescued from Maxwell by Sugar buying us.
Scholar turned a relatively wealthy club into a club with high debts through poor management, failed diversification into sports clothing etc.
Problem was the debts didn't change, no sugar daddies around, so Sugar sold off any assets he could and cut costs where possible so as to pay down debt.
Footballwise we had an excellent manager in David Pleat until 1987 followed by Terry Venables, another excellent manager both of whom put together very good teams with top players and came close to silverware (close to title in 1987, won FA Cup 1991), but Venables tenure ran in parallel with Sugar's cost cutting.
From the time Venables left Spurs (circa 1993) and rest of 90's we had squads with a few 'stars' (eg Sherringham) but much of the team were of lower quality - there just wasn't the money to buy quality players throughout the team - but for example in 1994 we brought in Klinsman, Dumitrescu and Popescu when we already had Sherringham and Anderton.
But the teams were not finishing high up the table and this coincided with the start of PL where finishing high up the table and playing in europe brought in large sums of money.
So Spurs were in the position where we had 'so so squads' needing more quality but not having the money to buy them in during the more money orientated PL. And the squad simply deteriorated over the 90's as the best players moved on or retired and there wasn't the money to bring in the good players.
The hard times really came into focus under manager Christian Gross in about 1997 with Spurs toying with relegation - and a few years when getting over 40 points was the season objective. .
The league positions reflect where we were :
1996/97 - 10th
1997/98 - 14th
1998/99 - 11th (but League Cup winner)
1999/00 - 10th
2000/01 - 12th
2001/02 - 9th (Sugar sells 27% of Spurs to ENIC, Levy becomes Chairman)
2002/03 - 10th
2003/04 - 14th
2004/05 - 9th
2005/06 - 5th (start of Spurs turnround under Martin Jol, and 'Lasagne gate')
2006/07 - 5th (Sugar sells rest of his shares to ENIC who them have majority control of Spurs)
So for a decade in the 90's through into about 2004 Spurs league position was much closer to what we now would associate with the likes of Crystal Palace or Fulham and reflects the quality of squad we had at that time. And to be clear, league position and europe determined most of the money received by clubs and cups generated very little - very different to pre PL times when winning cups generated decent money.
The start of the PL also started an era when match crowds increased and match day revenues increased - but Spurs missed out having a relatively small stadium of 36k capacity.
So by the time enic took majority ownership of Spurs
- the squad was in a poor way, but improving from 2004 onwards when our first Sporting Director, Frank Arnesen shredded the squad and brought in over 20 players for first team and u21's, lots of duds but also a handful of gems. Sadly Abramovich poached Arnesen a year later.
- A stadium not generating money and requiring replacement
- Very little assets left inside Spurs
- Low profitability and cash generation = very limited ability to buy good players.
- Spurs were firmly embedded in bottom half of the table, past glories many years in the past
So that's where Levy/enic started - with Spurs in a very bad place..
Taken 20 years to get to where we are partly poor choices (eg of managers), certainly Haringey council politics screwed the stadium development by a decade, Oil money and state money (including Russia financed Abramovich) buying PL clubs vastly increased the cost of doing business, covid intervening for 3 years just as the stadium opened and other outside changes being some of the reasons.
Could Levy have done things better or more quickly - quite possibly. But Hicks and Gilette screwed up Liverpool for years, and Glazers have been doing the same to ManU - both saddling their clubs with huge debts without improving the clubs fortunes - and Ashley trashed Newcastle etc, so we'd have been a lot worse with many other owners.
I think it's time for an apology, once again you doubted the great man but as per usual, King Levy has pulled through yet again! 
You all called threw your go karts out the stadium, you all wet your beds, smashed your keyboards like cats
Attended your online protests in your masses BUT you didn't BELIEVE
Trust in the man, the myth, the legend - Daniel Philip Levy!
Can we please have an apology to the great man, the man who is responsible for the club we are today, the man who is
And all you lot can get it to
TomHotspur
ThePreacher
Ex Park Lane....
Ed Vanderlay
Zomb
Archie
Deuterz
Gazzapen
MVP
Doom Funk
thinktank
skywalker68
ElTel
Distaste for scouse
No need to reply to me, just fill the form out and submit it to me, you will remain anonymous, thank you.
You all called threw your go karts out the stadium, you all wet your beds, smashed your keyboards like cats
Attended your online protests in your masses BUT you didn't BELIEVE
Trust in the man, the myth, the legend - Daniel Philip Levy!
Levy fanatics preparing themselves ...for tomorrow
Just in case
Can we please have an apology to the great man, the man who is responsible for the club we are today, the man who is
And all you lot can get it to
TomHotspur
ThePreacher
Ex Park Lane....
Ed Vanderlay
Zomb
Archie
Deuterz
Gazzapen
MVP
Doom Funk
thinktank
skywalker68
ElTel
Distaste for scouse
No need to reply to me, just fill the form out and submit it to me, you will remain anonymous, thank you.
Last edited:
From Reddit:
A few things about Dragusin
Hi guys, not a Spurs fan (tho they're my fav team from Premier League if i had to choose one) but i'm Romanian so i've been watching and hearing about Dragusin's growth over the past 3-4 years, and since the news broke about him joining Tottenham i've been reading a few posts on here and r/soccer and was surprised to see that most people don't seem sold out on him yet.
He has the biggest Aerial Duels winrate in Serie A, and one of the lowest percentages of being dribbled past. He absolutely had Switzerland's attack on lock during the Euro Qualifiers group stage matches and his long passes are a thing of beauty. This guy is an absolute physical monster. Even Chiellini said he was disappointed about Juventus letting Dragusin leave, stating that "he is too talented physically to not succeed at a higher level" Oh and yeah, Paratici brought him to train with the first team so he can train and learn from Chiellini and Bonucci, which is huge.
His mentality and drive is also insane. At just 21 years old, with all the money (admittedly not that much) he's made from football, instead of partying, spending it on expensive luxuries or other things, he invested in the building of an apartment complex in his hometown, and frequently comes back in the country to check on the progress.
Also, during a brief period of scandal at the Romanian U21 team, where more players were accused of indecent behavior, being loud and disrespectful in an airport and on a plane, playing loud music and other things, he was one of the names being singled out as NOT being part of the problem, which i thought speaks about his character since it's easy to be influenced and want to be part of the "group" at such a young age
The only downside i can see to all this is the past example of Chiriches, which undoubtedly he'll get comparison to in case he does not impress from the first few games, and the high-line that Ange is playing in defence. He's not a slow defender, not even close. I'd say he's faster than the average CB but that highline is going to leave a lot of CBs exposed, but he has the capacity to adapt.
Overall, i'm not telling you to expect a Van Dijk, but i'd say he's the closest CB there is to his type, and honestly even if you pay the full 30m that Genoa wants, that's a steal. Treat our boy well!!
A few things about Dragusin
Hi guys, not a Spurs fan (tho they're my fav team from Premier League if i had to choose one) but i'm Romanian so i've been watching and hearing about Dragusin's growth over the past 3-4 years, and since the news broke about him joining Tottenham i've been reading a few posts on here and r/soccer and was surprised to see that most people don't seem sold out on him yet.
He has the biggest Aerial Duels winrate in Serie A, and one of the lowest percentages of being dribbled past. He absolutely had Switzerland's attack on lock during the Euro Qualifiers group stage matches and his long passes are a thing of beauty. This guy is an absolute physical monster. Even Chiellini said he was disappointed about Juventus letting Dragusin leave, stating that "he is too talented physically to not succeed at a higher level" Oh and yeah, Paratici brought him to train with the first team so he can train and learn from Chiellini and Bonucci, which is huge.
His mentality and drive is also insane. At just 21 years old, with all the money (admittedly not that much) he's made from football, instead of partying, spending it on expensive luxuries or other things, he invested in the building of an apartment complex in his hometown, and frequently comes back in the country to check on the progress.
Also, during a brief period of scandal at the Romanian U21 team, where more players were accused of indecent behavior, being loud and disrespectful in an airport and on a plane, playing loud music and other things, he was one of the names being singled out as NOT being part of the problem, which i thought speaks about his character since it's easy to be influenced and want to be part of the "group" at such a young age
The only downside i can see to all this is the past example of Chiriches, which undoubtedly he'll get comparison to in case he does not impress from the first few games, and the high-line that Ange is playing in defence. He's not a slow defender, not even close. I'd say he's faster than the average CB but that highline is going to leave a lot of CBs exposed, but he has the capacity to adapt.
Overall, i'm not telling you to expect a Van Dijk, but i'd say he's the closest CB there is to his type, and honestly even if you pay the full 30m that Genoa wants, that's a steal. Treat our boy well!!
Have you ever seen a player look so ecstatic as Maxime Estève on signing for a new club?
You're speaking to a chartered accountant.
Swiss Ramble even did an expose on the EPL during covid, admittedly this graph is now 3 years old, but we haven't withdrawn cash in that time either.
See us there with (0). That means that since we sacked 'Arry we have seen 0 pounds put into the club by owner Joe Lewis. But unlike the Glazers who take money out as the graph shows, our owners have also not done that either. So our unspent profit sits in the club accounts, which as of 2022 report was 283m pounds.
I have approached this debate with respect and civility and you're throwing around the idiot insult, earlier on it was fathead. A bit unnecessary.
FWIW you started by complaining about the non-football activities like concerts, go karts and NFL. These all contribute revenue to the accounts of THFC, not ENIC International or its parent company Tavistock group. Revenue that our accounts categorically can prove are not used to fund ENIC's real estate endeavours you speak of. Or any other of Joe Lewis' ventures.
They sit in the club accounts as unused funds, probably why unlike other clubs we aren't skimping this window worried about FFP issues.
