Stadium, ticket prices & owners’ failings creating a new, impatient culture.
All roads lead home, to Tottenham.
Pochettino had the incredibly unique and possibly terrifying nightmare of managing Tottenham Hotspur at the national stadium, Wembley. Looking back now, he did an amazing job in extremely rare circumstances. Clubs have had to move out or ground share before, but to use what’s considered the home of football for two seasons is almost unprecedented territory.
Tottenham fans were offered season tickets at reasonable prices. For £700, you could sit in the lower tier with a fairly decent view and a good atmosphere. The costs were, on the whole, more affordable due to the inconvenience of moving the club and its fans into north west London.
Wembley was never really home. Yet, some incredible nights there and outstanding performances ignited Spurs fans’ faith that Pochettino’s Tottenham could remain a force even against the odds. We were more patient then because we understood the complications of playing in a stadium mostly used for cup finals. Opponents would turn up to Wembley motivated as if it was truly a cup final and not just game week 20 of the Premier League.
It’s hard to scream unwaveringly towards Serge Aurier because he can barely take a throw-in when Tottenham haven’t really played a home game all season and yet our season’s almost done. Your expectations shift again somewhat. Or, at the very least, we knew this couldn’t be comfortable for anyone.
We were disappointed to be at Wembley for so long. Of course, there were frustrations when we lost or played a dreadful football game. Fans became edgy, but at that time it was in a totally unique way. Wembley created unrest after we returned when we should’ve already been back in Tottenham. Fans became irritated and uneasy. We knew the club couldn’t progress again until our Wembley period was dead and buried.
Corporate Tottenham is born. The collapse in traditional spirit and new demands not met.
Fast forward to today, and there’s a lot of noise and focus on the fans’ attitude at Spurs within the new stadium now. Emerson Royal became an individual target of moans, booing, and jeering in the last home game before the World Cup against Leeds United. Whilst the rest of the team has had to face a chorus of boos at half-time on a few occasions this season.
The booing and voiced anger from the Spurs faithful aren’t that new. Tottenham ended their 2020/21 campaign to a covid restricted fanbase booing from the upper sections of the new stadium and protests about ENIC on the streets of Tottenham over that summer period.
During Nuno Santos’ final game in charge of Tottenham, against Manchester United, he caused an eruption of boos and anger from Spurs fans when he substituted an inspired-looking Lucas Moura off for no real reason as Tottenham fell to a 3-0 defeat at home. The hostility claimed the headlines and almost overshadowed everything else from the fixture besides Nuno’s sacking.
This ignites a complex argument amongst the fanbase. For many people who support Tottenham, the club is and has been in a jarring cycle for just 20 years. It’s now made entirely worse by the corporate feel around the whole club today when attending games. A corporate feeling that never really existed when Spurs played their football at an old-school stadium that was half the size and far less welcoming to opposing fans and even football tourists.
Is it Emerson Royal, Eric Dier, and Davinson Sanchez and their defensive vulnerabilities that we’re angry with, or are those names just the tip of the iceberg and almost a scapegoat in a club that pretends to have outgrown players of this quality in their starting 11?
Some Tottenham fans are aggrieved at other Tottenham fans for being discontent and voicing their anger during games. Whilst I get the sentiment, people are fed up due to everything around them as much as it’s the individual they’re heckling on the pitch.
Continued…