Tottenham and the Olympic Dream

The Perfect Solution

From the early rumours that the bid for the Olympic Stadium was just an attempt to scare Haringey Council into approving the Northumberland Development Project, each subsequent noise coming out of the club, our financial partners, and the fear-laden bleating of the Caravan Club HQ, has indicated that we are in fact, deadly serious about moving the 6 miles to Stratford. And why wouldn’t we? Whether it’s propaganda being fed to us by the club or not, a move to the OS costing between 150-200 million, or the NDP costing 450m, would certainly seem to make sense. And let’s not forget all the add-ons that the NLP would entail. Seeing the long-term value for the area by investing in the project, when The Emirates was built, Arsenal were given substantial financial assistance to improve public transport infrastructure by the local authority. From day one, all Haringey seem to have done is placed obstacles in our path. Not content at throwing our plans out because they view a few non-descript shells as listed buildings, sending us back to the drawing board at great expense, they have requested further investment from the club to improve transport links to the area. Despite David Lammy’s laughable attempts to strong arm Daniel Levy, it’s a battle with only one winner, and his outrage at the clubs abandonment of the area seems all the more pathetic, put up against Daniel’s refusal to get involved in any back-biting and adherence to the party line that we’re keeping our options open.

But our club doesn’t play in boardrooms or on political stages. It plays in Tottenham. What do I care about how much a new stadium is going to cost, it’s not like I’m going to be paying for it? It is the board, through corporate tie-in’s, sponsorships and player trading that will have to work this out, but it doesn’t give us as supporters, carte blanche to ignore the realities. We can’t complain about the cost of replica shirts, ticket prices and baulking at £30m price tags of players whilst ignoring the financial realities of trying to move the club forward. There’s nothing I, or I’m sure the board in an ideal world, would love more than ‘New White Hart Lane’ on the site of our current stadium, 60k+ seats, kop end, amazing transport links, but the decision makers with all of the facts at their disposal know that when comparing the OS to the NDP, staying where we are is not making any financial sense.



The Money Mans Choice



It’s impossible to separate the club from our own emotions when we invest so much of ourselves in it, in and around the ground and through mediums such as this one. Our club is part of our own identities. If any of us were asked to complete the sentence ‘I love Tottenham Hotspur because…’, depending on our generation, we’d most likely turn in roughly the same exam papers. Mine, for example, would include memories of the great players I’ve seen in our colours, the way we play the game, great goals, the hug-a-stranger moments during the epic games and memorable victories. Way down on the list would be Tottenham itself.

The truth of the matter is that very few Tottenham fans come from Tottenham nowadays. Like most supporters of the all the London clubs, the demographic has moved to the outskirts, mainly Essex and Hertfordshire in our case, and the focus and relevance of the modern game has changed with our own migration. A teams relevance in the upper echelons, where we are certainly aiming to be, is about domestic success, Champions League participation, the calibre of players we can attract and the sponsorship deals that fund it all. A sad indictment of the modern game? Perhaps, but that’s another debate. Point being, nobody from Samsung, Emirates Airlines, AON etc give a monkeys where you’re from or where you play, the only relevance to them is your market share, global exposure and the headline makers in the team. It would be nice to think we can get to where we want to be by staying in a 36k stadium, but state of the art training and match day facilities are what will attract the biggest sponsors and ultimately, the biggest players to get us where we want to go.

If history in a wider context has taught us anything, it’s that standing still is not consolidating, it’s going backwards. We finished fourth through years of investing in youth and some clever negotiating from Levy and co on the financial side, but to get to where we want to be, a move to a bigger and better home, through minimised expense and maximised profit, is our only answer if we ever want to be among the elite of world football. There are some that will say they’d sacrifice it all in the name of tradition. FC Hotspur of Tottenham may even rise from the ashes. It’s yours. No sale here. They’ll soon realise that the spirit of the club isn’t Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey. A dodo atop a VCR might be more appropriate for FC TofH advocates, but if it comes to it, the cockerel and ball will live and roll on elsewhere, and that’s where I’ll be.

The walk down Willoughby Lane, the Decorata chippy, The Olive Branch, the walk down the Park Lane, ascending the stairs to the South Stand will in time hold a wonderfully nostalgic personal memory for the way things used to be, but it’s all peripheral to what we’re all in Tottenham for. Would it mean anything if it wasn’t followed up by watching my team play? Would I do this on a non-match day because I felt that being in Tottenham was a definitive part of being a Tottenham fan? I’m sorry, but no, I wouldn’t, and I doubt anyone else would either. The pre-match ritual and banter with Flymo, Latino, his old man and his brothers will change location, but will still be there. Our seats will move, but will still be there. The team will move, but will still be there. Our history will still be up on the walls, on film, on paper and in our memories. We’ll share the highs and lows, victories and defeats in the same way we always have. The individual memories we all have of our times at White Hart Lane will be with us for as long as we’re breathing and have marbles rolling around up top, and we will be the privileged few who can talk to our grand kids about our famous old home.