What is Tottenham Hotspur?
Its difficult to talk about this question because you can sit and attempt to quantify what constitutes emotional detachment and what defines a club and what it means in practicality for hours and still not get anywhere when attempting to use said arguments in relation to a potential move away from N17.
So what is Tottenham? Is it the fans? The area? Do you define a club by its traditions and if so, what are traditions? Style of play, memories of games? Players? Celebrations? Infamous away trips? Hatred for other clubs? So much goes into constructing the DNA of a supporter and club. I think its all of the above, all mashed together in a sexy gooey kinda way.
Football is emotive, so surely it should be based on emotions?
What? Oh yeah, PLC. I need to remember to get a tattoo of that on my back.
If we moved down the road, say to another part of North London, there would be a transitional period for all of us attempting to move on from the fact we've left WHL. It happens in life when you move jobs, split up with your woman or someone dies. You think its all gone, its all changed, but you adapt and you end up embracing the present and move onto the future.
No matter where we play, you could argue, Spurs exist because they exist in our heads and in our minds. If there were no Spurs fans they'd be no club. Now before I drown in deeply philosophical nonsense that I'm struggling to articulate because I'm sober...what I'm saying is, I do get that history DOES count and everything this club has achieved will not suddenly disappear because we've shifted home. Or will it?
Spurs won the double in 61. Eight FA Cups. Trophies in Europe. I could name 50 flair players off the top of my head that made their mark for our club. These are the things we can't lose because what has happened can never be changed, but the clubs actual physical persona, its character and its appearance will forever morph into something completely different. And why? Because at that moment in time Stratford was more affordable and feasible than N17.
Revenue, 60K + attendances, new supporters, corporate hospitality to die for, transport links made in heaven...all this has nothing to do with what happens on the pitch when Spurs play. I'm talking in the purest sense here. If it takes another 10 years to get the NDP sorted I'd rather wait then spend another 100 years in N17 than to up root and move to another part of London just because it's a more fiscal do-able option in the short term.
Why the mad rush? Football might well implode in the next 10 years, we don't know. The mad rush is because shareholders demand it. And okay, billionaires are buying up clubs left right and centre and changing competition and the landscape of competitiveness. Again, rather be this plucky side on the outskirts punching our way in. And if we get in, and we enjoy a cycle of success and then lose that cycle. So be it. That's football. Nobody is at the top forever. We've not quite been at the top for a long long time.
Comes back to what you define as heritage and would constitutes an acceptable sacrifice (i.e. leaving North London to settle in East London).
The club would have moved had they won the bid. That's the scary thing. The power of custodians over the voice of the dispensable fan.
We are Tottenham, small club they say, yet we always compete or at least show ambition to and the last 15 years has been down to bad management on the pitch (and off) in terms of managerial appointments. We still make money, we still splash said money. And look at us now, with the monopoly practically dead, we are always in with a chance.
We need a bigger ground, not because I'm concerned about the £££ but because we have loyal hardcore fans who want season tickets and they are much needed because 50k make more noise than 37K. The extra revenue will obviously help to bolster the rich and spoilt millionaires that wear the shirt with a fraction of the loyalty we possess.
I probably still haven't got my point across in the best way, but I guess what I want, what I need as a fan is different to how others perceive things. Some are simply focused on the fact that a bigger stadium, more money will somehow guarantee success and glory. Might. Might not.
I do think we need to be ambitious. But want us to anchor ourselves to some of that intangible emotive stuff that glues as together.
You know, from my front door, Stratford is 30 minutes away by tube (and I don't even live in London). But rather spend 1 hour + getting into that shit hole in North London
