Let me start with, do I believe Spurs should have won more under current ownership in last 20 years? yes. However what you painted above is too simplistic a view, lacks nuance and misses out stuff
- Clubs successful periods are cyclic in nature, years/decades of success, followed by years/decades of drought. Forest, Leeds, Everton are easy examples of previously successful teams struggling but still around, you don't need me to go through the Championship and League 1 to point out "big" clubs that are no longer relevant. You starting your trophy view in 1950 is a perfect example of that (in a 40 year period we won more trophies than in the other 100+ years)
- Your view/picture (and this is the extremely frustrating part) looking at that, is basically Spurs were a great club and ENIC fudged it up and it's downhill since purchase, and that is wrong on so many levels it comes across as disingenuous/dishonest
Let me paint a picture slightly different
Trophies
- 1882 - 1950 (2 Trophies in 68 years)
- 1950 - 1989 (12 Trophies in 39 years, ~70% of all Spurs silverware)
- Context - 1980 -82 (2 of the 3 decade trophies pre Scholar purchase)
- 1990 - 2024 (3 trophies in 34 years)
League Positions (Top division only)
- 1900s: Positions 15th, 15th, 12th, 17th, 17th, 20th → Average: 16th
- 1920s: Positions 6th, 2nd, 12th, 15th, 12th, 15th, 13th, 21st → Average: 12th
- 1930s: Positions 3rd, 22nd → Average: 12.5th
- 1950s: Positions 1st, 2nd, 10th, 16th, 16th, 18th, 2nd, 3rd, 18th, 3rd → Average: 9.9th
- 1960s: Positions 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 3rd, 7th, 6th, 11th → Average: 5.1st
- 1970s: Positions 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 19th, 9th, 22nd, 11th, 14th → Average: 11.4th
- 1980s: Positions 10th, 4th, 4th, 8th, 3rd, 10th, 3rd, 13th, 6th, 3rd → Average: 6.4th
- 1990s: Positions 10th, 15th, 8th, 15th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, 11th, 10th → Average: 10.8th
- 2000s: Positions 12th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 9th, 5th, 5th, 11th, 8th, 4th → Average: 9.1st
- 2010s: Positions 5th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th → Average: 4.8th
- 2020s: Positions 7th, 4th, 8th, 5th → Average: 6th
Context, any of the average league position decades of Spurs under ENIC has only be matched/bettered twice, and the best league position decade ever was under ENIC
List of compelling events not listed above
1984 - Club purchased by Scholar
- Context - in 80's TV rights held by ITV, 5 teams including Spurs got 75% of TV revenue deal
1991 - Sold to Sugar on verge of bankruptcy
1992 - PL formed, CL formed
- Context, Sky takes over TV rights, now 50% of revenue is based on league finishes and number of times on tv
- Two decades follow where Spurs doesn't take advantage of new tv money
1994 - Spurs fined, points deduction imposed based on financial irregularities of the Scholar era
2001 - ENIC purchases Spurs
2003 - Chelsea purchased by RA and proceed to lose £1M/week for next 13 years
2008 - City purchased by Abu Dhabi and proceed to invest in a way that has them facing 115 charges of financial irregularities
- Context - 2008-24, Chelsea and City win 30 of the available trophies (basically they win close to 2 of the trophies available each year between them)
2009 - Spurs applies for approval to build new stadium, approved in 2010 but CPO for the needed properties don't get approved until 2014
2019 - Stadium gets opened
2020 -2021 - Stadium closed to fans due to Covid, matchday revenue dropped from £95M to basically nothing for 2 years.
2021 - Saudi Sportswashing Machine purchased by Saudi group with £320B fund
2022 -Matchday revenue returns, Spurs matchday revenue crosses £106M
All of the above is fact, just data points
Let me give you an interpretation (so yes, this is opinion)
- Spurs wasn't a particularly relevant club pre the 50's
- 60's - 70's are heyday, no co-incidence that skews a lot of older fans perspective of Spurs, even in 70's there are a bunch of bottom half league finishes and relegation
- From the 80's the club is on a downward trajectory (some of that doesn't highlight itself until the 90's)
- In the 90's there are series of unfortunate events, loss of fiscal advantage from ITV deal, the close to bankruptcy, the failure to capitalize on the increased revenue of the PL & CL (that allows United, Arsenal, Liverpool in particular to pull away) that basically puts the club in hole that ENIC will have to dig out of.
- In the 2000's you get the addition of the money doping clubs (Chelsea & City) that creates a pool of 5 clubs we have severe financial & structural disadvantages against. (vs. the 80's where we were part of the "advantaged 5")
- Against that backdrop, the club under ENIC puts in consistently the best league form across the history of the club, while building WC infrastructure that will allow the club to compete.
In summary, my perspective is this view of "well, if ENIC had spent $30M more here or whatever decision you disagree with" is the reason Spurs isn't raking in the trophies is nonsense
- They have probably saved the club from being an Everton or West Ham, and future proofed it.
- Could they have done more? absolutely but this "worse owners ever narrative" just doesn't fly
- Would it be great to have owners who splash cash? sure (with the moral hypocrisy that comes with it)
Too lazy, but I could probably do a cup run view, i.e. the QF/SF/Finals/runner ups in ENICs time (last time I checked in was more than 22 in 24 years IIRC), so we haven't been out of cup contention, we just haven't converted (and that itself is a whole other conversation).