By DeepBlue
March 4 2007

They say “a man’s home is his castle” and for a club its their ground, for Spurs its an old one, one that has seen its best days, time to build a new one They say “a man’s home is his castle” and aside from being somewhat sexist view it is also a romantic one. The reality is modern people want to move up the property ladder, as they progress in life and their family “grows” it is natural to look to constantly move to a better area or a bigger home in the same area. Obviously it not as simple as that, another common thing to do is to renovate your current residence and add your creature comforts.

Football clubs are no different, as they grow in stature and success they naturally gain a larger fan base, their money is the lifeblood and the future of the club (and the loyalty of those fans is something often abused) in the same way as if you become more successful in your career your earnings increase also. In the same way as you use this higher income to go on holiday buy a nice car, clubs buy better players, improve the infrastructure.

“a mans home is its castle, and it is a very fine castle..”

Eventually they improve the ground, the bigger it is and the nicer it is the more people you can fit in and milk more money from (through merchandise, hot dogs, half time beers etc). Old stadiums the same as old houses were built in a different way, old stadia had to cater for standing fans, old construction techniques meant more solid builds and more compact designs, mostly aimed at men and boys. Therefore clubs that went down the route of renovating their old grounds retained that feel, they just added an extra tier here, a new set of toilets there, seats everywhere. White hart lane is one of those grounds and is why it has a special feel about it, reserved for only that type of ground.

Modern stadia are a completely different kettle of fish; building techniques and design are modern and governed by new rules. They are built with easy access in mind, seating also. It is no longer a man only sport it is now aimed at families and new facilities cater for this, as they should. Building regulations dictate better and quicker access to and from your seat, which is now furnished with more space and all have unrestricted views.

Another thing new stadia have, along with new build houses, is an identikit feel. They just all look so boring, so soulless, so plastic. Yes they can look impressive, but they have to rely on gimmicks on the outside to stamp an individual feel on it (New Wembley, the Allianz Arena and Ashburton grove for example of this trait) once inside they all look the same and none have that feel of individuality you get from and old building that has been added to year after year.

“Guys how can we make this boring stadium look cool? a big random arch? Ok then”

Obviously how nice your house is and what lovely wallpaper it has etc isn’t usually the main reason you live there. More practical things determine that, how big it is for your needs and what the area is like around it. Importantly for most how well connected it is plays a major factor, how close is the shops, schools and how easy it is to get to work. Ditto a club needs to think of the infrastructure around the ground when it thinks about increasing the capacity, if there isn’t the infrastructure to support an increase in size it is not practical to expand.

Walking around Woolwich Arsenal you can see that the move to a much more prosperous and well connected area was a wise one to make, and because of that our rivals have tapped into a larger and richer fanbase, their second big move was only down the road, but again you can see the reasons for doing it were wise ones. They gained a much bigger purpose built ground with the better access to the already adequate surrounding infrastructure. They did however lose a distinctive ground with all the history that went with it. In 100years they will look back and know it was the right decision. They would not have been able to keep “touching up the wallpaper and adding new carpets” to the old ground indefinitely.

Spurs, in essence never left “our Woolwich”, we are still in our poor area with its poor infrastructure, we just made do and improved the ground we had and made do. We still have our long walks from Seven Sisters or Black Horse Road and our packed journey back from Northumberland Park. All through an area that is dilapidated, run down and for most a no go area for anytime other than match day. For many however this is a ritual they love and have been doing for years, something that is part of supporting the club, something they would miss, even if it means a long queue for the loo or a half time beer.

We stayed at our ground, we added our new tiers and Jumbotron and the reward for that is a special feel, a ground that is unique, a ground that no one else has, nowhere looks like white hart lane and on some nights you can feel the history seeping back out of the creaking concrete that absorbed it years before. We have a lopsided ground with poor access (compared to the new builds), poor facilities and restricted views, but its our ground, one we grew up in, one we wouldn’t swap for any other.

“we cant keep adding new tiers again and again, or maybe we can…” (thanks to ftl)

It’s a great way to view it, but it reminds me of the people who live in hurricane valley, every year they run the risk of their house being knocked down, but they stay, because they love their old house and would never want to move. Watching people before hurricane Catrina struck refusing to leave because they love their house and would never leave it, it was their home, their sanctuary.

You cant help but think, grow up, move somewhere new, better, you can make a new house your own, you may have years of history at the old place, full of memories, it may have been passed down the generations, but you can take those with you. The intangible feelings are held by the people who lived there not by the bricks and mortar and you can take those with you to somewhere you can make new memories in a place that is better for you than the old place.

For me I feel the same now about White Hart Lane, we all remember the glory years, those who don’t have been told about it, legends were made there and their stories passed on through the generations. My dad tells me about Greaves, I know how great he was, not from watching him play but by the look in my dads eyes when he tells me about him. The history of the club is not in the ground, but in the fans and they will take it wherever we play, we need to make sure we are best equipped to do that history a service by having a ground that matches our ambitions and our history.

We have painted our walls, added new carpets and a conservatory, but our family is bigger now, we need a better area to grow up in. before we could “keep up with the Jones’” where we were, we can’t do that any longer. The council don’t want to help us improve the infrastructure of the local area; the locals are making it hard to expand it’s a route we have gone down and reached a dead end, we need to move.

“great days, albeit with restricted views..”

It may mean moving the ground outside of Tottenham, but it doesn’t mean the death of the club, just a rebirth, for me staying where we are and slowly dropping down the pecking order of English football would be the true death of the club.

A new ground, a bigger ground, with better facilities and infrastructure will make match days less of a chore, more fans can come through the gate and watch us play and in more comfort. A new ground doesn’t mean it has to be another Stadium of Light look-alike it can, with the right planning be just as unique as the ground we left, the atmosphere is helped by the ground, but it comes from the fans and they will still be at the new ground and in bigger numbers. It will be the foundations from which to build a new history that is in line with the one laid down before, instead of being a distant memory.

Tradition is just an excuse not to progress, without the will to move up and improve and develop we would all be living like Mormons. I want what’s best for the club and although moving wont be great to begin with, in 50 years we will look back and be glad we did.

So like the homeowners with a new kid on the way, we need to be brave, move on to a bigger better place, leaving our old, comfy house that we made our own, for the benefit of our future and our kids future.

We will always be Tottenham FROM the Lane, where we end up is another matter.

Eds note - these are not necessarily the views of posters on NLP, just views expressed in this article. Feel free to comment here