With some of "the club died with ENIC" fruitcake comments on social media, I went back and looked at our last pre-Levy season. George Graham as manager and we finished 10th below the Spam, Chelsea and Arsenal. Out in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, 4th round of the League Cup and 2nd round of the UEFA Cup, despite being 1-0 up on aggregate in the 89th minute. Steffen Iversen finished top scorer with a respectable 17 in all competitions. That's less than half of Kane's 41 from last season and it's one behind Son's 18. It's marginally better than Eriksen and Alli's 14. Our goal difference was 30 worse and we had 24 less points. Is Levy perfect? No. Has he got everything right with the stadium? No. Are we in a better position than when he took over? No question. I can understand people's frustrations with things at the moment, but we're getting a lot right and we have been for a while. The comparisons with our time under Sugar are just odd, though. He saved the club and deserves credit for that, but Levy's a better chairman.
I went with it because Sugar's reign was characterised by a lack of progress. We slowly became an irrelevance. This delay in the stadium is a sign of slightly delayed but massive progress. The reaction of some would suggest that they'd prefer not to try, not to dare and not to do. The reason we're getting stick is that we're progressing and becoming a threat. I've seen stagnation - give me progress, no matter what the short-term pain.
I wasn't questioning your reference to it Brian, but the number of fans that think that things were better pre-Levy. Do they not remember what went on then or something? I'm sure that some of them don't and there's nothing wrong with that. Those that can remember it generally don't look back on it fondly, though. Getting battered by Newcastle and Bolton wasn't fun. A narrow loss to Juventus doesn't seem nearly as depressing.
Here's the problem, just today SpursWeb ran a poll asking if we should just play the full season at Wembley, and 46% of those polled agreed https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/poll-should-tottenham-play-the-entire-season-at-wembley/ Even though it's wise to presume a decent chunk of those voting to stay at Wembley may have been "visitors" there has been a lot of comment saying we should just stay at Wembley for the season, even on here, and that's something to worry about. Also, as I haven't touched on it before, this one's for all the bellends who say our leaving The Lane spelled the end of the club as we know it: between 1882 and 1899 the club did not play at White Hart Lane, with the club instead playing either on Tottenham Marshes until 1888 before moving to Northumberland Park where we rented a pitch and built a stand. Of course, as with everything else when it comes to these dullards, knowing a damn thing about the club's history makes me a "happy clapper" and somebody to be derided for siding with Levy...
...and if they bothered to find out that we've only got 6 opportunities to use the whole stadium and then we'll have it half empty? .......and that we now owe £400m and don't have money to spend on hiring Wembley on the new eye watering terms?........and we won't get any sponsorship money while the stadium sits empty and idle?.......and every penny we spend cuts into future wage and transfer budgets? As you and I know only too well, the majority of people are sheep and can be rounded up and sheered and slaughtered as and when. All the click bait merchants have to do is call them in. It's sad to see so many, so easily duped into criticising the club and hurting our collective fortunes. It's sad but it isn't surprising.
I think you're being a bit harsh. If this was aimed at the likes of me, i was not bitching or moaning. I'm simply disappointed that no-one truly knows what is happening. You suggest the stadium will open in the next few months. I would love it if that was the case, but I don't share your confidence due to the scale of the project. But please don't suggest I F-off to the likes of Chelsea, Citeh or United. I have enjoyed and suffered as a Spurs supporter, and I am enjoying Spurs under Levy/ENIC. God, even under the likes of Scholar and Sugar, there were good times.
I wasn't aiming it at you, Barney. I have criticised the club's PR practices on a number of occasions. We are overly secretive and uncommunicative and I believe that it hurts our interests. I'm willing to consider it likely that the club don't know the extent of the problem(s) and the time that will be needed to resolve them. If that's not the case and the information is being withheld, then that's unacceptable. However, that seems unlikely as the sooner the truth comes out, the better for the club. This uncertainty isn't helping and a large number of 'supporters' are damaging the collective aspirations that we should all share. The club have said that they are assessing the situation and will report to stakeholders when a timetable to resolve issues can be worked out. That seems very reasonable and sensible to me and I'm prepared to be patient and wait for an informed report from the club. I don't get the thinking that this is an enormous problem before the club say that is the case. Most major construction projects are late.This is a major project with considerable issues. A delay of some months is not in any way unusual and the club had a contingency plan in place for just that reason. The current line from the club of ceding home games to Wembley on a match by match basis and agreeing a contingency ending in December, suggests a short-term delay of months, unless you have information to counter that and support an alternate view?
I try to tell people what I think, rather than what they should think. On certain topics, my strength of feeling may overstep that intention. After decades of wondering whether we'd ever get back to being really competitive, it's actually happening. I don't want anything to get in the way of that and feel that we, the supporters, must will it and make it happen. I'm for the positive. I'm for yelling my lungs out to cheer on the boys. This is my and my family's club and I am committed to see us win. I see little advantage in negative thoughts about something that is so important to me. I want to love and enjoy it. I don't see the point otherwise.
It's all about being safe and usable. The fact that there's large areas of the East Stand exterior unfinished and the Skywalk on the South Stand is only part done really doesn't matter in that respect. The public won't be anywhere near those areas.The construction experts on SSC say that they will have throttled back on completion dates and overtime when the wiring problem was discovered and knew that they had an extra month, at least, to be ready for the test events. Again, those that know advise that most major buildings are still being finished years after they open, The Emirates certainly wasn't done for at least a year after Arsenal moved in. Provided the Local Authority issue the requisite certification, we can use it and it can be finished between games and during the summer. Up to a few weeks ago, the club believed that the stadium would meet that standard in time for the Liverpool game and it's this problem with safety systems that has altered that. The bowl is getting close to finished and lights, signs, jumbo screens, etc. are being tested and a large proportion of the seats are in. Concrete bases are being poured around the stadium and the South Podium paving is close to being done. The fact that large amounts of furniture and carpet have been delivered this week suggests that a fair bit of the internal areas are done too. This footage won't be up for long on Youtube but it shows the internals were very nearly done when this was filmed...
Some fans have been spoilt since the Jol era. 12 years out of the last 13 with European Football including 4 CL campaigns plus a glut of very good players and sparkling football and memorable games. Berbatov, Modric, VDV, Carrick, Bale, Kane, Dele, Davids, Toby, Vertongen, Loris, Walker, pre mars bar addiction Rose, Lennon, Dawson, Jenas, Huddlestone, Malbranque, Dembele, Benny, Kaboul, Corluka, Crouch, Kranjar, Sandro, Robbo, Friedel, Sigurdson, Huddlestone, Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela, keane, Defoe, Kanute, Davies, Dier, Son....so many very good players...pre Enic we were starved of those...for bloody years. Ginola was pretty much it. I remember us singing "super Simon davies"...and "you're spurs and you know you are" are the LOAN of Paul Koncheski (from Charlton!!!) ended ffs! We had European football in 99-00 and mmmmmmmmmmmmm... Compare that to...06-07, 07-08, 08-09, 10-11, 11-12, 12-13, 13-14, 14-15, 15-16, 16-17, 17-18 and 18-19. Then there are the memorable games and the style of play...people forget the turgid ****e of our football from after 1995 until 2004...a couple of exciting games apart it was awful viewing. A look at Sky Sports football season programmes from 1993-2004 amply shows how bad things were...til Enic took over we had 1...ONE ... top 8 finish! The memorable games involving spurs pre Jol were few and far between... Beating united 4-1 and 2 nil in the 90s, beating Liverpool in the FA Cup in 95, two wins over Southampton (6-2 and 7-2) , beat WIMBLEDON 6-2 to save us from being relegated... the rest were things like losing 5-3 to united after being 3 up, losing 4-3 to a **** 10 man city side after being 3 nil up, losing 6-1 at home to Bolton, losing 7-1 to toon, regularly being thumped by Liverpool, United, Chelsea...while teams like Bolton, Ipswich, Charlton, Boro all finished above us regularly. Even our league cup win in 1999 was a turgid piece of ****e. Compare that to the Jol years onwards, great European nights v A.C. Milan, Inter, Real Madrid, Dortmund etc...look at the great league matches...with pulsating football and results that don't make you weep...4-3 win v West ham in 2007, 4 all v Villa in the 125 game, 4 all away to Arsenal, 3-3 v Arsenal, 3-2 v Arsenal, 4 all with Chelsea, 6-4 with reading...All great spurs come backs. An unbeaten season at home, defenders that can defend, expansive football and only 2 seasons outside the top 6 in 13 years. The are valid criticisms of Enic ( ticket costs anyone) but some of those moaning have short or non existent memories. And breeeeeeeaaaaaaaathe....ahhhhhhhhh....thats better
I know none of you really know but does anyone think there's any chance of it being ready for our visit?
Find yourself a dice. Roll it........... 1 = Yes, You are the first game at Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM. Congratulations! 2 = The game is scheduled for Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM but is abandoned when the pitch retreats under the South Stand and won't reappear for a week.. 3 = No, but the game can't played at Wembley or Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM and is played at Milton Keynes. 4= Fixture switched to St Mary's. 5 = The game can't be played at play at Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM, Wembley or Milton Keynes and has to be played at Fratton Park. Spurs re-sign Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Younes Kaboul, Pedro Mendes and Darren Anderton and play in Pompey coloured blue shirts. 6 = Professional football is outlawed as an anti-Brexit activity due to the large number of foreign nationals involved. Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM becomes the foremost venue for the new national sport of croquet, as decreed by Prime Minister Jacob Rees Mogg. Tottenham Croquespurs defeat Southampton by 4 hoops.
