“It’s the Spursy thing to do… or is it?”
Why choosing to follow Tottenham Hotspur as your Premier League football team as a US supporter is good for your health.
I have followed Tottenham for over forty years. I did and I didn’t choose them but in the end they certainly chose me and I have never looked back nor regretted it for a single moment (even during that miserable late 90s-early Noughties period of mid-table mediocrity) or contemplated – God forbid – switching my allegiance to another football team. A club is for life.
There was nobody in my family to sway my choice. My grandfather was an Arsenal supporter and bless him, he never once tried to change my mind (and fortunately didn’t give me too much of a hard time when we were quite awful in the mid to late 70s). I have a Fulham supporting uncle but he was Johnny Come Lately and the deed was already done four years earlier. Sorry, Unc. He did take me to my first football match: Fulham v York City in the old Division Two. A dire affair in an unimpressive Craven Cottage. So bad was the product on display, that I went and watched the Thames flowing past the stadium. I have since been back a few times to the Cottage and had far more memorable experiences!
Is this introduction relevant, you ask? Kind of. I have lived in the US for the last twenty-plus years and have seen how football has grown immensely, but in the last five it has exploded to be a surprising juggernaut in an already cluttered sporting landscape. All topics that have been discussed at length this season on various episodes of the podcast, Hotspur America (shameless plug!). With each new season and with the exposure afforded all clubs by the excellent coverage of NBC Sports, the nouveau American supporter asks the question: “this is pretty neat, who knew? I need to follow an English team!” It’s not being a plastic fan by not having taken much more than a fleeting interest in the game before or having had a reason too. There is no shame to jump on this bandwagon and ride the coat-tails because the more the merrier, I say. There are enough Americans out there who cannot be converted and who categorically abhor the sport and will never be swayed by it. Fair enough, but the reason is now here: there are enough supporters all across this magnificent country who converge down the pub at ungodly hours with hopefully a pint in their hand and invariably, they drag their disinterested buddies along and voila! Another conversion! The divine light of the beautiful game shines once more and another follower joins the flock. That might be viewed cynically by many of my English friends but we shouldn’t bank on the next generation of kids growing up and being influenced by their mum or dad. The time is now, it's an in-the-moment kind of thing.
So, if that’s the romantic or popular notion on how an English club picks up new supporters, I’m sure supporters clubs, groups or just footy pubs will be clamouring to swell their ranks by bribing their followers and friends to continually show up with new faces in an effort to bolster the numbers. But it happens. The light-switch goes off…sometimes. Other times, like my fellow Dallas Spurs member and co- host of aforementioned podcast (Hotspur America, if you can’t remember) Ken Saxton, there will be those who do their research because they want to establish the connection on a more educated decision versus the thrill of seeing a match and selecting a team out of two. Neither is right or wrong – the fact that there is another supporter, a new supporter is perfect by me. I’m sure Barclays, NBC nor the Premier League care how your selection is derived. Just do it, already!
Back to the pub, probably still cloaked in darkness because the sun has not yet come up on the West Coast: although a scoreless match is not the end result that you had hoped the uninitiated were to witness. However, a North London Derby or a dismantling of the league leaders on New Year’s Day may well have brought Tottenham many new fans. Clearly an exciting match with drama, goals and a cracking atmosphere may well be enough to do the trick, but an enthralling 0-0 could still do the same if the pub’s crowd sees through the lack of scoring and absorbs the football on show. I think it’s safe to say that the new American fan understands that there will be low scoring matches but let’s face it, they did not become caught up in this for the scoring! Eight goals in a match is the exception versus the rule. An end-to-end 2-1 win is far more of a nail-biting, twisting and turning and gut-wrenching affair for any Spurs fan than the luxury of a handsome, lop-sided thrashing of one’s opponent. It’s the Tottenham way! And as of relatively recently, it’s become a Spursy thing. Spursy? What is this adjective? Well, if you follow American sports teams that have a knack of going through periods of mediocrity (Dallas Mavericks, anyone?) and then become almost dynasty-like very rapidly as they make it to the finals and then win only to fall back to also-rans within a few seasons, you’d call that a bit Spursy. If you follow teams that have a habit of building you up with a run of impressive results to go and blow it at home in the final minutes of a game and lose to one of the worst teams in the league (Dallas Cowboys?), you may consider that very Spursy too.
So where did the term come from and is it fair, just or worthy? Are Tottenham supporters so accustomed to the Spurs way of doing things throughout the last thirty years, that it’s rather complimentary than a negative expression? Let’s face it, Tottenham have a rich and decorated history: first in many accomplishments in football, giants of the Sixties and one of only two teams that have won a trophy in six consecutive decades (five years left to keep that streak going, Mr. Pochettino). So it’s not like we are the Cleveland Browns or the Chicago Cubs. It’s just this legacy of ours that drives every Spurs fan, every generation and every season, craving the football of the 50s, the 60s or the 80s, played The Tottenham Way: “the great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It's about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom”. I recall that said once by a lad who could play. That’s the legacy we have built at White Hart Lane, this is why we are. It’s what we expect. Running away with the League, winning it at a canter only to lose a couple towards the end of the Double season was not Spursy. It was game over, the league trophy was ours. Crushing Asteras 5-1 on a Thursday night in the Europa League to lose 2-1 (after cruising it 1-0 at half-time) to a crappy Newcastle United three days later, in Bill Nicholson’s tribute match? THAT’S very Spursy! But we’ve become spoilt. Those who can say they witnessed the Glory Days – whether it was Blanchflower, Mackay and Greaves or Hoddle, Ardiles and Villa – they saw football played with a flourish. There was a silky, Spurs way of doing it. It wasn’t there every match, but you didn’t have to wait long for it to return. Is today’s match more about winning than entertaining? I’m sure the Man in the Raincoat thought that! No wonder he did not endear himself to the Tottenham faithful… Does today’s Spurs fan want to win and to play the Tottenham way every week? Yes, I think we’d like our cake and to devour every crumb too. The reality is that won’t happen… certainly not for now. Right now, I think every Spurs fan is content to see us competing for the top four – we are not ready to challenge for the title – and putting some silverware in the cabinet every few seasons. Let’s face it, that’s what we have done somewhat consistently over the last fifty years, albeit not so often c.1992-2005. The last ten years have proved we can emerge as a club to be reckoned with again and we have knocked on the door of the Top Four and even been let in for a quick crashing of the party. We liked that and we want some more please, sir.
So, bringing it full circle and back to the American fan. You could do a lot worse, you could argue you could do a lot better: Chelsea, Arsenal, United and City all win things more often than Tottenham these days. No argument there. But I think most Spurs fans, as much as we bemoan our lot every transfer window when - to quote another famous fella from our past - every ‘Carlos Kickaball’ that we are linked with goes to one of those four other clubs, we feel hard done by and we are destined to always be the bridesmaid. Do we want a huge injection of cash through foreign ownership? Do we want the prospect of our new 61,000 stadium filled with the nouveau fan? The Plastic? I think not. So Mr. American fan, bleary-eyed at 6am, clutching your local craft brewery Double IPA, fully grasping what’s unfolding before your bloodshot eyes, that’s Tottenham Hotspur. The mighty Tottenham. From The Lane. You love them for their characters. For the Mr. Evil lookalike in the Directors box to the new hero of English football and the Spaniard that makes Manuel from Torquay look good. You are married to this club, ‘til death do us part. You are Tottenham. You are us and we are you. Yep, that’s Spursy.
Simon Dodsworth is Chairman of the Official Dallas Spurs Supporters Club and co-hosts on the weekly podcast: Hotspur America