History made and in the making

Article by Mark French

It's appropriate for me to start my first e-Spurs article today, the day we signed Jimmy Greaves from AC Milan in 1961. Being a Spurs fan for so long I thought I'd start with a trip down memory lane. It'll give you some idea of how I view the game and where it stands now: -

I loved my Grandad and still miss him, let’s establish that first. He was an Arsenal fan and did all of his Coaching/physio/trainer badges at Highbury too. He got free Cup Final tickets every year and always brought me a program back – I still have my ’67 2-1 victory over Chelsea program. I was 5 and a half when I became a Spurs fan in ’63 thanks to one Jimmy Greaves, who was – still is – the best goal scorer ever (IMO) and to the Cup Winners Cup Final victory watched on a black & white TV with a grainy picture.

When I lived in Berkshire and Grandad came over to us from Bromley, we used to go to Elm Park to watch Reading play. This was the late 60’s. Going to a match was easy, it didn’t matter who you supported and I never noticed any unpleasantness between fans and certainly none between the Woolwich Arsenal (as Grandad called them) and us. In the early 70’s we moved to Cheshire. Everyone was either a United or a Liverpool fan and of course I didn’t fit in either camp. Although there was some banter there was never any trouble.

This is all leading to my point.

Come the late 70’s things started to change, I used to go and watch Spurs play at Old Trafford or Goodison Park but, as I couldn’t get away fan tickets, I was always in the wrong end and the home fans started to notice both my accent and my tacit support for the away side (hard to hide when you have Hoddle and Ardiles on the pitch). It all became uncomfortable and I gave up going.

The thing is we are all now divided down sectarian lines, intolerant of other teams, other fans, other opinions. The banter has become abuse, the rivalry is fierce and unforgiving and we are all partisan and aggressive toward fans of other teams. None of this sits well with me as I’ve seen many good teams over the years and appreciate good football whether it’s United, City, Liverpool or even heaven forbid Chelsea or Arsenal.

Answer me this – Where did reason disappear to? Where did listening to the opposition’s point of view go? What happened to ‘you were the best team on the day’? Is it better now? Or like me do you miss the times you could go down any pub, watch the match and banter with fans of other teams and not worry about abuse or getting punched?

We love the Premier League but I don’t like how it’s changed us all.

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