Not exactly a well kept secret but time to don the Kevlar and fix bayonets. A combination of events have prompted me to blab and tell all…
Levy’s candid appearance on Talksport. Like it or not the guy speaks sense and gives me every impression he’s steering the ship in the best direction. Some will accuse me of being a suck up, but his is a path paved in common sense.
Yes it’s a little chilling in that a sacred spiritual home will probably end up as a combination of launderettes, bingo halls and most ironically of all …a car park. But who’s fault is this?If it’s THFC’s then they are guilty of having ambition.
I’ll be blunt here, I don’t care for the bulk of those demanding to stay and slug it out with the Haringey natives. Is it mediocrity that really binds us together? Is really our rallying call that it’s a hole, but it’s our hole. Is that a sane platform? Not in my name, mush.
Readers who have opted to inflict my nonsense upon themselves for a while might know that one thing that really gets my goat is talk of being ‘a real fan’ or a ‘true fan’. What the hell does that mean? Is there a chart somewhere that works out just where you sit in the foodchain?
If so, who devised this device, a ten year old? Season ticket holders, those who travel home and away. Those can provided documents to support they are at least the eigth generation of support in there family? Extra kudos to those who turn up to games attached to kidney dialysis machines? A what point do you get admitted to the inner sanctum?
To quote a recently unemployed man, do me a favour love.
The disinformation war has raged alright, but more like a jalopy that’s been burnt out by kids than a city being raised. What I find depressing is the cocktail of garbage Tottenham fans are being spoon-fed in sustainable doses by both the Anti Stratford Mob and the West Ham lobby.
The high handed litany of Brady is cringe-worthy. Process, Legacy, Delivery and any other words you can corrupt or at least manipulate to gloss over a collapsing, shoddy, cheapskate, half cocked plan that stinks of desperation.
The bulk of the stadium will be recycled with zero landfill. There will not be a ridiculous running track around any Spurs’ pitch.
The Anti Stratford Mob are about as literate in their argument as dumb mother who when questioned by her child issues a simultaneous ‘Because I said not!’ and slap to the back of the legs. There is a lack of articulation in the Anti Mob’s argument is my point.
I’d hear them out if they had more to offer than a mob mentality rant intertwined with the threat of my treasured footballing memories being plundered by Droogs threatening to bring Billy Nick back to life so he can work as a table cleaner in a MacDonalds. My memories are securely locked up and no amount of bullying will sway me.
I’ve made this comment before and I’ll continue to make it. The relationship between THFC and the local community in Haringey could have been symbiotic. It could have been a focal point – that the Council worked in partnership with to enhance the area.
But no. This never happened. White Hart Lane didn’t fall out the sky last Thursday. For donkeys years Haringey has had this commercial diamond in the rough on it’s doorstep. What has it done to increase it’s value to the borough? What support has David ‘Commuter’ Clammy ever given to this business? What advances have been made in transport links? None. Nothing. Nichts. Nada.
A relationship where one party solely feeds off the other is a parasitic one.
All this talk of being part of the Haringey community actually makes me quite sad. I and the overwhelming bulk of supporters attending home games travel in excess of 35 miles to walk past Haringey folk occasionally stopping to buy a pint or a box of Unlucky Fried Kitten.
It makes me sad because these poor locals have had an opportunity missed on their behalf, an asset so badly mismanaged they’ll be left with nothing at all. This is a community betrayed. Long before Levy & Co started weighing up their options. So don’t wave a bed-sheet at me on the High Roadand tell me you’re Room Service.
So what of the NDP? It won’t happen. I said to old Unc Norman Giller, a devout NDP supporter recently that maybe I was doing Haringey Council and all the locals with vested interests a shocking disservice. Maybe they don’t have their hands out for more money.
Maybe they’re just checking to see if it’s raining.
super spurs from the gabba , lang park or the gold coast . can i get on the list for a season ticket now .
some nice informative banter . nice blog
We’re the Stanley St, we’re the Stanley St, we’re the Stanley St To-tten-ham!
Would love to read everyones response but alas I do not have the time;
All I will say is that staying put at WHL as is will see us slowly drift back to mid-table mediocrity. So the options are;
1. Ideal scenario for 99% of us is the NDP
Current situation; Cant happen
2. Find alternative site near WHL
Current situation; there aint one (so we are told)
3. Move to Stratford (if we are preferred bidder)
Current situation; If selected the ONLY option available to us FACT
Conclusion;
Take head out of sand and smell the coffee
End of debate
Ah, where’s the fun in that??? We want another post on Stratford!
corner post?
It’s a tricky one.
If it was a perfect world I’d like us to stay at White Hart Lane in our pokey little 36,000 capacity stadium and see us compete with the best of ’em. Frankly, I love the place and it’s one of the best places to watch football in europe on it’s day. Unfortunately that’s just not going to happen.
The NDP project was flawed from the start. If we’d gone ahead and stuck and brand spanking new 56,000 capacity stadium in Tottingham the question that always struck me was how did we propose to get people in and out before and after the games? Paracute them in with byplanes leaving every 10 mins from North Wield? We’ve been knocked back on extending the tube line or any other infrastructure improvements on numerous occasions. Whilst I’m sure there are plenty of supporters who live locally there are more that come in from Herts and Essex, and other parts of london. In short, it just wouldnt work.
So what do you do?
Look for alternative sites in the surrounding area maybe? Yeah, righto. I grew up in that area and the only place that would be even remotely suitable space-wise is Picketts Lock, and then you suffer from even worse transport options. So no.
Stay where you are with the current stadium?
Great, but the same people who are protesting now will be outside those gates again chanting ‘sack whoever’ when we are overtaken by another 4 or 5 teams who grow in the Man City mould and have no realistic chance of finishing higher than mid-table every year.
Or….do we move to a brand new, purpose built stadium 5 miles away with all infrastructure in place, continue to build on the success of the last two seasons. A whole new generation of supporters get the opportunity to come to games and we can grow as a club. Yep, we’ll get some shit from other supporters and they’ll have a point. But I think at this stage Levy & Co would be neglecting there duties if they dont at least have a go at getting it for the club.
Saying all that I think the fat sweaty old bint Brady has done a decent job of getting the populist vote on her side which’ll probably mean we’ll lose out but that’s no reason not to have a pop at it.
Anyway, it’s with a heavy heart that I say that it’s not the just the best choice….it’s probably our only choice.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately the lack of investment in the Tottenham area and the infrastructure in that part of London over the last 40 years or more have finally come home to roost. We just cannot stay at WHL unless we want to be a mid table side. We will not keep our best players and attract better ones if we cannot compete and that means getting a bigger stadium somewhere. If it has to be Stratford then sadly that is what we have to do. I would love to stay at WHL but we have outgrown Tottenham/Harringey as an area and we have to move somewhere OR settle for 10th every season and the Fair play/Inter Yoyo cup with a possible Carling cup run now and again. All very sad but the politicians are to blame for the long, slow, painful death of Tottenham as an area.
“Roll out the barrel….”
Already smells like an east London pub in here – yuk!
You have to laugh at the pro-Stratford mob and how quickly they’ve changed their tune and jumped on the move to east London, blind to the hypocrisy, unprincipled and without an ounce of pride.
Forget all that. None of that matters when glory beckons and the golden streets of Stratford await.
At least the author of this blog had a mind of his own, however misguided, when the board first made their real intentions clear.
Instead of questioning why it has to be Stratford or nothing, it would appear that if you don’t run with the Stratford mob now, you either have your “head in the sand” or have an overly unhealthy interest in fried chicken (were you once attacked by a chicken, harry hotspur, is that the real menace here? Perhaps you are a chicken).
We are told by investment bankers who stand to make a killing in east London that the NDP or any kind of rebuild on the current site isn’t possible (or whatever the buzz word is). Do we believe them and instantly agree with what they want, or should we hold back and wait to see actual facts and figures before we give up on Tottenham and start writing blogs and comments on how it’s okay to come out the closet and support the new club because there’s too much chicken or walking at the old gaff?
“We’re moving now, Levy has spoken. You’re either in our mob now or we’re leaving you behind.”
Funny how the supposed silent minority have become, certainly on this blog, the noisy majority. It’s ironic that their behaviour now is exactly the same as what they accused the anti Stratford mob’s of being.
There’s obviously too much apathy and/or confusion among the Tottenham ranks to confront the board in unison. Incredibly, the club’s future will be decided by a government formed Olympic committee (how have we let this happen?).
If ENIC/AEG’s bid is chosen, will it be THFC in Stratford or will THFC be dead?
You arrogantly accuse the pro-OS mob of once being anti-OS. You’re wrong. Plenty were pro-OS from the start, though all the noise was coming from the anti’s on their holier-than-thou N17 moral high ground. Not everyone screamed their allegiances as soon as the idea of moving was mooted, some took time to think about it. “blind to the hypocrisy, unprincipled and without an ounce of pride”? You’ve got a nerve, gettoutta my pub!
By the way the OS isn’t in Stratford, it’s in the Olympic Park, nearest railway station – Hackney Wick.
One last comment before I can take the peg off my nose and clear off.
A lot of the pro-Stratford mob are pro-Stratford because they can’t (so they say) get tickets to the games. It’s understandable to some extent that they’d follow ENIC/AEG anywhere if it meant they could see a team called THFC. Would those same fans, 36000 apparently, worry about the transport links in Tottenham if there were, as there probably is, a way to keep the club where it belongs? Or would they no longer want a ticket because they might have to hang around a bit?
I’m not “suddenly” accepting of the Stratford plan. I have been for some time, under the precondition that it is, in fact, what is best for the club. Also, I wouldn’t refer to myself as “pro-Stratford”, but rather “anti-stagnation”.
I won’t be following ENIC/AEG to Stratford. I’ll be following Redknapp, Modric, Bale, Klinsmann and Nicholson.
You accuse those who are not unequivocally against a move of being naive for not questioning what Levy is saying. I always question everything that man says. For example, when the NDP was proposed a couple years back, I questioned how the club planned on getting 20.000 extra people to and from games without any infrastructure improvements planned. Who is naive?
I also questioned where this “£450m” was coming from to pay for it?
What about the children of the east end? they have been up to now compelled to follow a club of losers. They will now have a choice to follow a proper club :daumen: