Nothing is forever. True, the place is bricks and mortar, steel and timber and that most soulless of materials, concrete. But is the essence of the place, the homeliness and the familiarity.
For us old timers, the Majesty of the Main Entrance, the camaraderie of the 'old' Park Lane, the Paxton, the Enclosure, and the imperious East stand, the original 'Fanfare for the Common Man,' the practically and yet almost etherially dubbed 'The Shelf.'
I have seen the ridiculous defeats by Jouneyman clubs, the despair of losing to them, and the out of body experiences of the great nights under lights. The pitched battles of the seventies, the fashions, the names and the faces.
The only structure where it was acceptable to talk to a stranger, even in a Public Toilet, and Heaven save us, hug one after a goal.
Times when it was a real chore to go, times when it was impossible to stay away.
I grew up here.
I arrived as a boy, strutted as a teenager and will be leaving as a man, not too far away from his State Pension.
There are other men from other clubs with other stories. But this is my club. My Spurs. My White Hart Lane.
From Boxing day, 1962 when I first climbed those stairs, and gazed on that pitch, the needle was in the vein.
It was done. I was in.
It has been a great friend, it has been a cruel mistress, but it has always been there. It has been my North Star,
Unchanging, unmoving and I have charted my life by it.
It will not be gone, merely evolved.
And it will still be mine.
For us old timers, the Majesty of the Main Entrance, the camaraderie of the 'old' Park Lane, the Paxton, the Enclosure, and the imperious East stand, the original 'Fanfare for the Common Man,' the practically and yet almost etherially dubbed 'The Shelf.'
I have seen the ridiculous defeats by Jouneyman clubs, the despair of losing to them, and the out of body experiences of the great nights under lights. The pitched battles of the seventies, the fashions, the names and the faces.
The only structure where it was acceptable to talk to a stranger, even in a Public Toilet, and Heaven save us, hug one after a goal.
Times when it was a real chore to go, times when it was impossible to stay away.
I grew up here.
I arrived as a boy, strutted as a teenager and will be leaving as a man, not too far away from his State Pension.
There are other men from other clubs with other stories. But this is my club. My Spurs. My White Hart Lane.
From Boxing day, 1962 when I first climbed those stairs, and gazed on that pitch, the needle was in the vein.
It was done. I was in.
It has been a great friend, it has been a cruel mistress, but it has always been there. It has been my North Star,
Unchanging, unmoving and I have charted my life by it.
It will not be gone, merely evolved.
And it will still be mine.
