For this fifth instalment of Spurs with a side of Barbecue, I had the pleasure of watching a match with the New York Spurs. If you haven’t had a chance to read the first instalment of my series of articles, New York Spurs are one of the premier Spurs supporters clubs on the East Coast of the United States, and without a doubt a much larger contingent of Spurs fans than I have ever seen outside of the Baltimore match with Liverpool last July. Instead of my regular match analysis and commentary, I thought it would be best to chronicle my own experience with New York Spurs; the following is my account of what took place that Sunday morning. Check us out tomorrow for part 2!
…I woke up around 7:30 on that morning, realising that I would have to get a move on soon. It wasn’t like I had bundles of energy that morning- in fact, I had fallen asleep around 3:30 in the morning watching the V8 Supercars from Symmons Plains (the OzSpurs will know a thing or two about this, so you can ask them to elaborate), and thus was a little bit more exhausted than usual. But for an occasion like this, I would have gone sleepwalking if I had to. I wasn’t going to miss it.
For today, I was going to watch a Tottenham match with a proper Supporters Club. I was going to watch a Tottenham match with New York Spurs.
The apartment that I was staying in over the weekend was nice, but it was some distance from the famed New York City Subway, at least compared to most places in Manhattan. I had to go from 61st Street all the way to the Lincoln Centre (best known for sponsoring the Jazz at Lincoln Centre program, which is headlined by the Marsalis brothers. Check them out if you get the chance- I can say from personal experience that they are a joy to watch in person). The problem is that the Lincoln Centre is five streets and two avenues north; any New Yorker would know that that is some hike to get to the Subway. Nevertheless, I pushed on.
 |
| Lincoln Centre, NYC |
Eventually, the train came; I leaped onto a car as fast as I could, and we were away. Thankfully, the ride was nowhere near as long as my wait at the Lincoln Centre station, and within five minutes I had arrived at the 42nd Street station. You all will know this better as the Times Square station (or, where we Americans like to drop the gigantic ball to celebrate the New Year). It was here that I was to transfer to another train that would take me to my final destination on the Subway system. After sprinting across to my new platform (all the way across the Subway station, I might add), I was greeted by another time board. This time, there was no indication of how far away my next train was; it only displayed the current time. And when I arrived, it read 8:47 A.M.
Thirteen minutes to get on this train, off of it and out of the station, and then walk to the bar, I thought. Well, isn’t that just fantastic! Luckily for me, I only had to wait another two minutes for this next train, and I was more than happy to get a move on. This ride was no more than a minute long, since my destination station was the very next one down the line, and I hopped off the Subway for good at another world-famous locale- Grand Central Terminal. As I exited through the famed Central Lobby, I thought about all of the history that this place had been a part of over the past 100 years (incidentally, GCT is celebrating its 100th birthday this year)- from its status as the premier train station in New York City and the heart of the New York Central Railroad, to its placement as a backdrop in all kinds of movies and television shows. If we’re talking about recent movies, the 2005 animated hit Madagascar is the best-known film that I can think of that is partially set in Grand Central. Likewise, the most recent T.V. show that I can remember being set in Grand Central (and one that I think a decent amount of readers here would recognise considering its massive international following) would be Gossip Girl- you’ll know Grand Central as the place where Serena van der Woodsen is first “spotted” upon her return to New York City in the series’ pilot episode.
Of course, I had to do all of this reminiscing while running to the exit- it was 8:53 at the time, and I still had another 2 blocks to cover before I would reach my final destination. I exited the maze that is Grand Central and hit the streets running. It was easy enough to find my bearings, and I was able to head the block south on Madison and west on 41st in what felt like record time.
At 8:56, I arrived. Standing before me was the iconic awning of O’Casey’s Irish Bar and restaurant- or, to the rest of us, the weekend home of New York Spurs (they have another bar, Perdition, that plays host to Spurs’ weekday matches). I stepped inside to find a handful of folks in Spurs attire surrounding the bar and the West Brom-Liverpool match on the TV. I thought, Well, it looks like I found the right place- there are some Spurs fans here, and there is some Prem action on the tube. But where are all the people? This is New York City, after all, and there are 7 million people in the area- surely there are more fans here than this! Then I noticed that a few of the Spurs fans were heading up the stairs in the back, and decided that it might be worth it to follow their lead.
 |
| O'Casey's NYC |
My first instinct was to try and find as many of the New York Spurs officials as I could, as I figured they would be most helpful in making my presence known amongst the rest of the crowd (I wasn’t convinced that all of the New York Spurs knew that they had a visitor amongst them). However, the match was kicking off as I entered the bar, so I decided to post up amongst the back wall where I was and wait until the half to find them. That turned out to be a wise decision, as I was able to catch Adebayor open the scoring for us inside of 35 seconds off a garbage goal that skipped past Tim Howard. Immediately, the crowd erupted into all kinds of cheers and celebration, and when everyone was done with their initial flipping-out of sorts, the whole bar burst into a chorus of “COOOOME OOOON YOOOOU SPURRRRS!” No doubt that these guys had the whole atmosphere thing down pat!
As we all settled into a groove over the course of the first 10 minutes, I met my first New York Spur. I learnt that his name was Darren, and that he had moved over here from England after finding an opportunity to come work stateside for his bank, which was based in England (in retrospect, I should have asked him which one he worked for). He had come over to the City a few years ago, and had lived there for half a year; he liked it so much, he said, that he had wanted to return here. After two years of waiting and searching, he got his wish.
(Writer’s note: it was at this point that I had to pause from my re-write of this article to see Borussia Dortmund stage their incredible comeback against Malaga- shades of Man U in the ’99 Champions League Final, no?)
After discovering how he got here, we traded our stories of (as he put it) “Why Spurs?” Darren explained that his father was a native Ulsterman, and came to follow Spurs when we had Pat Jennings in goal. Darren’s father was more than happy to support his countryman, and Darren would follow suit as he grew up. Spurs were always a thing for him.
 |
| Spurs hero Jennings |
My father was an Army child who was born in Berlin (my grandfather was the first head officer at Checkpoint Charlie and was stationed in the German capital at the time). Not surprisingly, my father began a life-long love affair with soccer, and when I was old enough to start playing, he registered me into the local recreation league in Winston-Salem, and coached the side that I was a part of. The recreation league offered its players the chance to take part in a soccer camp run entirely by Brits every summer; being the coach’s son, I was always going to take part. We would go through our warm-ups and drills each day, and play some soccer-related games, but at the end of each day in camp, we would split everyone up into sides of five and scrimmage each other. Since we had Brits running the show, our sides were all named after Premier League clubs. Originally, I knew little about the Prem and was hoping to be named after a club that I actually knew of, like a Man United or a Chelsea (although in retrospect, that was a terrible thing to wish for, for I wouldn’t want to be a supporter of either club now). As our camp counsellors went down the line, they started naming off sides, and the first two clubs that went were…Man United, and Chelsea. So I wouldn’t be playing for either one of those. Darn! I thought. As they continued down the line of sides, they eventually came to mine, and thought for a little while before coming up with “Tottenham! You’ll be Tottenham!” At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about Tottenham; in fact, I had never heard of them up to this point. I thought, Tottenham? Who are they? I knew nothing about the real
club, but I knew one thing about our side after the first day of scrimmages: we were good. Very good. So good, in fact, that we ended up winning the whole camp! I took that to be an omen that I should become a fan of this “Tottenham”. Being the precocious and bright eight-year-old that I was, I went online after camp had been completed to discover what this “Tottenham” was all about. The more I read, the more I like what I saw. And thus I became a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
Check out e-Spurs tomorrow to read the concluding part of this article and find out how James got on in NYC!
Comment on this article below or on our other sites:
e-Spurs Blog - www.espurs.blogspot.com
e-Spurs Forum - www.e-spurs.freeforums.net
e-Spurs Facebook - www.facebook.com/eSpurs1882
e-Spurs Twitter - www.twitter.com/e_spurs
Great read James i think it shows how spurs are becoming an international club if we wasnt already
ReplyDelete