Spurs and Tottenham - One Can't Exist Without the Other

Its been a month since I last wrote anything about Spurs. Unfortunately with work and busy weekends taking precedence I simply haven’t had the time. Plus to be quite frank Spurs’ general lethargy in the transfer market with the uninspiring signing of Friedel plus the more promising but longer term signings, making me quite disinterested in football in general, I wasn’t actually looking forward to the season for the first time in a long time.

But Saturday 13th august duly arrived and instead of being at White Hart Lane , I was in the gym. Sadly our match was called off due to safety reasons and my detachment with football still remains. If Spurs aren’t playing like so many of us, football just hasn’t started. Even watching the comedy car crash tv of our highly strung PMT suffering neighbours yesterday , when that funny bloke with the pineapple on his head got sent off didn’t really bother me. Why am I so detached, well it goes back to incidents that have occurred over the past week.

I’m a born and bred Londoner, I love this city. To me London is the greatest place on the planet, nowhere else comes close. Sure it depresses me getting up at five in the morning on a dark cold damp November day and then going to work. But complaints aside there is a vibrancy to my city that nowhere else can match. London is my home and as the song goes…

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner that I love London so…

So the shocking events of the past week hit me hard, like it would any of us who call this great city home, and maybe even more pertinently because they started in the place of my birth…Tottenham.

I was out last Saturday night in of all places Chelsea, when I got a text from my old man to say there were riots in Tottenham and I returned home to watch Tottenham burning on Sky News. It was heartbreaking to see the place where I grew up being burnt to the ground, I am not ashamed to admit that I shed some tears. Although I left Tottenham in the mid nineties, it’s still the place I call home and to see it up in flames was one of the most gut wrenching things I have ever seen.

Why am I writing this piece? I’m not here to look at the reasons behind the riots, on the night it occurred I got texts from friends, most of the lads I go to Spurs with are school friends we all grew up around Tottenham and Wood Green and we are firmly in the camp that the Tottenham the area and Tottenham Hotspur, the football club, are intrinsically linked. One cannot exist without the other. Whilst due to Arsenal‘s rise to prominence under Arsene Wenger, has seen a rise in the number of Arsenal fans who reside in Tottenham, Tottenham Hotspur is still a massive source of pride to the people of Tottenham. It put our area on the map.

When I was a kid I just about remember the Broadwater Farm riots, Tottenham in many people’s eyes is viewed in a negative light. For an outsider I can see why; therefore the football club was a symbol of hope of everything that is good about Tottenham.For an area which has such a negative profile in the public eye, wrongly in my view, Spurs were our hope for a better day. That no matter how crap things might be today, tomorrow could be so much better.

In the aftermath of these events, Daniel Levy has come out and pledged the club’s assistance to the local area. This to me is integral. As you can guess, I was never one in the Pro-Stratford camp. Football Clubs represent first and foremost the local community that they are based in. This applies nowhere more strongly than in Tottenham, Tottenham the area gave birth to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, one cannot exist without the other. Many would argue that Spurs have now outgrown Tottenham, others might argue that Haringey Council haven’t given the club the level of support that is required for the club to stay in the area.

However now is the time to rise above all this, Tottenham as an area has been through some dark times, last saturday was one of its darkest. Now its time for her most famous child ( and I mean Spurs not that Gooner idiot Chipmunk) to play her part in helping rebuild the area. Forget about moving to Stratford, leaving Tottenham will be a death knell for the area. I appreciate many Spurs fan won’t have the same attachment to the area but without Tottenham the football club you support wouldn’t be here. It was heartwarming to see Benny visit the local area, many other players should follow his example.

Lets hope that from these dark days both Spurs and Tottenham can soar.