Tottenham – recent (-ish) historyI first got into watching football and supporting Tottenham as a keen 8 year old in the mid-late 1980s. With skilful players like Hoddle and Waddle – and, not forgetting, a beautiful all-
white kit – it was pretty easy to be attracted to the club. I first started going in 1989/90 when Gazza, Lineker et al. were lighting up WHL and Tottenham finished the season a credible 3 rd ; the following campaign saw Spurs winning FA Cup and, to me at least, it genuinely felt like our club was going to be the place to be as we entered the 1990s and the Premiership-Sky era.
How wrong I was. The 1990s were generally a miserable time to be a Tottenham fan. The early Sky years saw Arsenal and Chelsea regularly challenging – and winning – various honours whilst in N17 there were only a few glimmers of hope and hints at glory which almost always ended in failure. Alan Sugar was our Chairman and he managed to impressively downgrade our ambitions year after year. From the promise of Klinsmann and the Romanians to making do with signings like Andy Sinton, everything about our club was in steady decline, and the gap between us and our London rivals looked unbridgeable. The paltry League Cup triumph in 1999 failed to mask the fact that Tottenham were no longer one of the country’s top teams.
Alan Sugar finally let go of Tottenham in 2001, selling to Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy via ENIC.
The subsequent decade saw a long, difficult, but ultimately successful attempt to put
Tottenham somewhere near the upper reaches of the English Premier League. The high turnover of managers during their reign has, at times, been far from ideal, but the reality now seems to be that our hierarchy were genuinely utterly determined to find a perfect manager for Tottenham Hotspur. The credible efforts of Martin Jol, Harry Redknapp, AVB and Tim Sherwood (just kidding...) all came close but ultimately failed to deliver the required consistency, as well as the strong culture that our club has lacked for too many decades.
Then came Mauricio Pochettino.The Argentinian was not everyone’s first choice for manager the last time we were looking to fill the role. But if there is one word that I would use to describe the impact that he has had on our Club over the past two years it would be unity. It’s hard to think of anyone in recent times who has done so much to both change the ethos of the Club as a whole (in a positive way) and unite everyone from the staff to our frustratingly hard-to- please supporter base. We genuinely seem to be pulling together as One Club, and that has made WHL a much more pleasant place to be on a Monday evening (that seems to be when we have to play games now).
Alongside our desire to play attractive, attacking football, Pochettino has also brought and mental toughness and work-ethic that has been absolutely fundamental to the recent improvement in Tottenham over the past two seasons. The old Tottenham – Spursiness if you will – still exists to some degree (see end of last season’s mini-collapse) but we now have a genuine backbone in the side, and the example of our physical dismantling of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last season – actual result aside – brought a curious satisfaction to those of us who have witnessed too much of our soft centre for too long.
It is also important to recognise the impact that Daniel Levy and ENIC have had on the long term infrastructure of the club: from the Academy, the brand new state-of- the-art training ground and our new home (it will always be White Hart Lane!), the investment in the club has been genuine and meaningful. Whilst these investments may be restricting the cash that we have available for transfer funds, in many ways it’s actually helping us as it has forced us to embrace youth as well as making us more cautious in our acquisitions.
Our current approach seems to be to carefully find slightly underrated players but ones whose ability is precisely what Pochettino wants to bring to our squad. Janssen and Wanyama are exactly of that ilk, and the relief that they should bring to Kane and Dembele respectively – both hugely and overly relied upon- will bring a welcome balance to the squad. There is still work to do, but most Tottenham fans feel optimistic right now.
This seasonIt is impossible to know how the Manchesters and Chav scum – sorry, Chelsea Football Club – will respond under their new regimes. Liverpool could also be interesting to watch. All of them have their own project and each may take time and/or fail. This season is just very hard to predict. However, Tottenham have been clearly progressing for two years now.
Pochettino has a very clear plan and our project is one that is working.
Whether we can sustain a challenge against the super-rich of the Sky 5 remains to be seen.
But there’s no reason to doubt that we can’t push on from last year, and a challenge for the PL title is not in any way out of the question. Champions’ League nights at Wembley with over 80,000 Tottenham fans at each match is going to be fun too. As we say farewell to our old WHL home, it could be quite a party in May 2017 in N17. COYS.
EvertonEverton are a club that many Tottenham fans will have a lot of empathy with. The Premier League era has affected both in a similar way, in that it’s broadly passed us by whilst much loathed rivals get all the attention and honours. Throughout the lean periods, however, Everton and Tottenham – along with clubs like the now pitiful Aston Villa – have managed to retain and identity and a strong core support that has kept the club going through challenging times.
Goodison Park is always a good ground to visit – apart from the shocking sight lines – due to the atmosphere and tradition that the place evokes. RK is an interesting appointment and it looks like Everton have finally found a bit of money too. Sadly, Goodison does need replacing, and quite how all of this fits together over the next few years will be intriguing to see. Just don’t become another West Ham and end up in a ***** athletics stadium acting like classless nouveau riches.
Matches with you are generally pretty intense so it’s a bit of a shame that this comes right at the start of a new season. Hopefully you’re just not quite ready yet and we can take advantage. Hopefully you’ll also end up finishing the season above Liverpool FC!
by Hugh Rawlinson - Tottenham fan
