We are very nearly there, the stadium has grown in front of our eyes, perhaps more impressive than any of us thought it would look like. You see the artists impressions, they look amazing, but you never really know what to expect until its built. You think you do, you have a vision of it in your minds eye, but when it starts to be built it always changes from what you thought it was going to be. Until one day its finished and your walking through the doors and sampling the atmosphere for the very first time.
I remember my first ever visit to White Hart Lane. I was 10 years old and it was a 0-0 draw against Norwich City on the 26th Feb 1983. I remember walking up the stairs into the stadium in total awe of the sound, the smells, the bright sunshine that hit my eyes as I stepped out into the light after the cold concrete of the building around me. I've never forgot that feeling of belonging, of falling head over heels in love with something and not being able to describe why or how it happened.
Many of you reading this will have had similar experiences down the years. I've had some unbelievable times down the years in that stadium, I've also had some awful experiences as well. The laughter will stay with me forever, the bloke walking into the pub all proud of his new Purple Pony away shirt until we realised he had Dozzell on the back and got ripped a new one. Watching the scousers outside the ground being stuck as their coach had broken down and asking for change to ring home! These are just a few of my memories, but I worry there wont be anymore like these for me anymore.
The season ticket prices were released this week and there has been a lot of anger and disappointment at the increase in the prices. Personally I stopped buying a season ticket years ago due to cost and starting a family, it wasn't viable, I'm still a member and go as often as I can. I know some of you will buy it regardless but there are others that are now priced out of going, after many, many years of being season ticket holders they themselves can no longer go. This worries me.
Football used to be a working mans game, work hard all week, go and watch Spurs on a Saturday. With the ever increasing money flowing into the game this is no longer the case. Unless you are owned by someone that is going to write a blank cheque to fund your club the money has to come from elsewhere. Whether we like it or not that's corporate money. Without it the club cant compete.
I've seen lots of people saying pay Toby what he wants. Okay with what? Where does that money come from? Joe Lewis isn't going to write blank cheques for us and I don't want him to, because when he passes, a long time in the future I hope, I don't want us to end up like Blackburn Rovers. I don't want us to fail because the money run out. I like Daniel Levy, don't get me wrong Ill pull him up on here if he makes a mistake but he genuinely hasn't made many. He has shrewdly taken us from a mess to a club with real promise, a new stadium and a team to be proud off. Whilst also getting top dollar for any player that wants to leave us. What's not to like?
I get people are upset that they feel they are being priced out of doing something they feel so passionate about and that's my worry too. If the club isn't careful where does it customer base come from in years to come? Do we all stream games and pay for Tottenham TV because the ground is full of money men who wont sing and chant? Man Utd this week mentioned they were thinking of handing out song sheets? Really? What the hells all that about? Have they priced out true fans and this is their reward? We all laugh at the library and the crap atmosphere there as well.
The club has to make sure that they don't price the working man out of going to football. Personally I feel they've got the balance right and just about done that, many wont agree with me, that's fine I get it. Me not being able to afford a season ticket doesn't diminish my love for the club. After all I help with this page and that's a labour of love at times I can assure you!. Things move on, things change, we have to move with the times.
I used to like walking around the house with my pants on my head as kid, I don't know why but I did, I don't do it now though as I've changed. So has football. As much as we want things to stay the same we cant buy the players we all want, we cant pay the wages we all want without the cost of it going up. I love Spurs, always have and always will, but I got priced out of going a few years ago, it doesn't make me any less of a supporter it just means the way I do it changes. I want us to have the best players, the best team, the best chance of winning things, so I spend my money on merchandise, still supporting the club but perhaps not in a conventional way. That is the future. We need to be able to tap into that level of merchandise spend that other clubs do. We have to find ways of raising money, and that comes from the restaurant's and experience days that are way beyond the average fans ability to buy. To do that we needed a new stadium. It has to be paid for somehow.
We cant not change with the times if we want to compete at the highest level. We all may laugh at the cheese restaurant of whatever the hell it is, but that will generate income for the club that wasn't there before. It all adds up in the long run. There will always be something I want that I cant afford. That's life. It hurts of course it does, I want to spend every Saturday with my boys, supporting my team, but I cant so I compromise to a few games a season and we go and watch Dagenham and Redbridge. They get to experience live football and the atmosphere of a game, and we make life long memories whenever we go to see Spurs as its more special to us.
The club will never please everyone, it cant, I mean come on who gets Jason Dozzell on the back of their shirt!, but it must also make sure that it doesn't price out the younger generation of fans that will make up its future when the money bubble bursts. It will eventually end these things always do. A ground isn't supposed to be full of corporate guests getting handed song sheets to clap and sing along like they are at an Opera. A football ground is supposed to be about a tens of thousand of men, women, children forgetting about their troubles for 90 minutes and having hope in the fact that the 11 players out there care as much as they do about winning.
Its about that smell of the stadium, that noise that hits you like a hammer, that sense of belonging, that feeling of falling in love with something and not being able to do a thing about it. I hope the club are mindful of this as we progress through the coming years, that whatever it may be called to us it will always be White Hart Lane, it will always be where we make some of the best memories of our lives, that we share them with our friends and family. Where one day a young fan will take his or her first steps into the ground and be awe struck buy it. We owe it to them to make sure they aren't priced out of football like so many before them have been. Without that next generation there is no support. I hope the club don't forget that.
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