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Tottenham Hotspur Stadium - Licence To Stand
- Thread starter Jordinho
- Start date
The relationship is the same - the thrill is from the product, not the company.Without a doubt. However, as I mentioned, can I safely say that you enjoy 'supporting' your bank, your local, your accountant, your preferred supermarket and so on? It's the same relationship between the service/product provider and customer you're describing here, and none of them give a solitary damn about your views on things beyond ensuring your custom, similar to the club's owners and the execs running Spurs. Your earnest 'support' for your supermarket must be enjoyable to you to some degree, I'm presuming - over and above the simple payment for products provided, which may vary in quality similar to how the football we play varies in quality.
A better analogy would be with the company(ies) that I pay to let me rag single seater race cars and the like around tracks. Now because I can only get excited about supporting Spurs, you have to imagine that every other company's cars are limited to 100mph. It doesn't matter whether I love, hate or am indifferent to the person who I pay for that privilege, neither does it matter how he treats me or whether he wastes his time pretending to listen to my concerns. If his cars are the only exciting ones out there, he will keep my business.
Certainly not whether or not ENIC make me feel all warm and cosy inside, nor whether they waste their time helping me cope with some deep-seated feeling of inadequacy or lack of importance.I guess what I'm driving at is, you pay to be a spectator, essentially - what turns you from a spectator into a supporter? When the football becomes utter brick and the team struggle through absolutely dreadful times, why do you keep showing up when the product ceases to satisfy on an aesthetic level? When you go to an away game in the post-industrial north and stand there in the freezing rain watching eleven dreadful players limply lose to inferior opposition in the driving mud, while some tattooed psycho urinates in your back pocket (possibly - I may be extrapolating from on or two away experiences from different times
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
Nothing's inevitable unless people allow it to become so. And even then things might change if people work hard enough to make them change. The game went 'professional' a century ago - why do some countries' fans refuse to roll over and let their clubs be bankrupted by terrible owners, used as a vehicle to earn profits for investors or as an advertisement hoarding for various unscrupulous dictators? What difference is there between the English fan and the German fan that accounts for the German fan ensuring that the 50+1 rule is rigidly applied throughout the upper tiers of the German league system, while the English fan only watches as his or her club is passed around to various loaded owners without having a say in it?
I don't particularly see German players or the staff at German clubs being hard done by due to their clubs being owned by 'emotive amateurs'. They have staff too, and professional ways of running their clubs - their end goals are to be successful as well. Indeed, they're arguably a lot more successful at the moment than English clubs are, at least in Europe. The only difference is, when they decide policy, because of their ownership being held by the members (i.e, the fans), they have to consider things like this:
"We could charge more than €130 (£104). Let's say we charged €380 (£300). We'd get €2.5m (£2m) more in income, but what's €2.5m to us?"
"In a transfer discussion you argue about the sum for five minutes. But the difference between €130 and €380 is huge for the fans."
"We do not think fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody."
That's the biggest difference between us and England." - Uli Hoeness, president of Bayern Munich
That's Bayern 'wayyy-more-successful-than-'professionally'-run-Spurs' Munich.
Ah, but they don't call spectators at the theatre 'supporters'. Nor do spectators stay if the show's bad - they generally leave, and in worst case scenarios throw rotten vegetables at the performers and demand refunds. They don't loyally stick to certain theater companies or sets of actors, either - if a theatre puts on consistently bad shows, it goes bust, and no one continues to show up to watch the sh*t it puts out; they just go to a better one.
What accounts for the difference between theatres and football clubs if all people do is spectate as eleven men kick a ball around and eleven other men try to get it back so they can do the same thing? I put it to you that the reason football is the way it is is not because of the players kicking the ball around, but because of the shirts they wear - shirts that people dedicate their lives to. The players in them come and go.
A customer buying a product provided by Tottenham Hotspur plc.? Well, why stick around when other companies in the same 'football' market are offering far superior spectacles/viewing pleasure (measured in terms of world-class footballers and trophies, they range from Madrid to Bayern and Barcelona abroad, and City, Chelsea and so on at home) for far cheaper prices than Spurs, who charge the second-highest ticket prices in the league on average?
After all, the players make the game, and the best players are all at Madrid or Barca - the best players domestically are scattered around Chelsea, City, Arsenal et al. Why sit and be a spectator for Spurs? Brand loyalty, like with Apple fans? That only goes so far when there are far superior products - much like even those who were loyal to MySpace now use Facebook. So why stay here?
Because you care more about the club than the base, flimsy, colourless 'spectacle' it provides of eleven men kicking a ball around. It isn't about them, it's about the shirt they wear, and the shirt you love, whether you'd like to admit it or not - a love you share with every other Spurs supporter, and a love that is often irrational to the point of making an absolute mockery of any claims to a mere customer-service provider relationship.
Clubs have been going bankrupt across Europe too, that's not an English only phenomenon.
English clubs have won more European Cups in the last two decades than German clubs.
Bayern are undoubtedly more successful than Spurs on the pitch, but considering the enormous difference in resources and the lack of any true rival they should be.
I think the balance between "supporters" and "spectators" in the PL is rapidly reversing, "spectator" is a far more accurate description of me now.
I stick around as I can see it being a fun narrative to be involved in and identifying (and being recognised) as a Spurs fan doesn't preclude me from enjoying watching other teams. My being a Spurs fan was not a considered choice, it just happened, i'd probably enjoy football more if I had remained impartial, as much for the clubs as despise as for those I take interest in.
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
well put
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Why? Returning to the customer - service provider analogy, Spurs aren't exactly the best car out there - it's more like we're stuck at 100 mph while other cars get 120, 140, 160 and so on. Why Spurs in particular? From a rational consumer's point of view, many, many other companies exist that are simultaneously better at providing what you want, namely the thrill of driving race cars across tracks, and charge you less for doing it, as every club bar Arsenal does, while providing for a greater range of customers (fans) that share your patronage of that particular company.
Why choose the inferior product offered by Spurs in particular? It's irrational from almost any angle - a sense of love for the product that transcends a customer-seller relationship. And one that will last whether or not that car goes a 100 mph or exists only as an asthmatic nag of a vehicle that a Ford Model T would comfortably putter past, possibly while spouting disdainful black smoke in its general direction.
That's the relationship a supporter shares with his club, that puts him or her (you, or me, or anyone else) in dreadfully, objectively awful moments and then pulls him or her out of them while maintaining that desire to only patronise one club instead of taking his money elsewhere to objectively superior service providers. It's unique - nothing outside of professional sports can match it, and I have my doubts about whether any sport outside of football can provide it in the form that we see it in this game. This cannot in any sense be compared to a genuinely elastic customer-seller relationship, and, in my mind, that puts a sense of responsibility on both the fans (to support the club they can't help but to follow, in the true sense of the term) and, reciprocally, from the people who run the club (to keep the people who genuinely care about the club in mind when making decisions and publicly discussing them, a category of people which will never, ever be present for Pfizer Inc., Pepsico Inc. or any b*stardish race car joyride provider you care to name
).That's the moral argument against calling people who just ask questions 'entitled'. The practical argument is one of comparison with practices across rival corporations (in this case, clubs) - the blunt answer would be that answering questions raised by fans is the standard concession a club could make to its fans, since the standard in Europe is at that level, with many clubs going beyond it into full ownership territory or actual practices that involve fans in the decision-making processes of those clubs. Relatively, it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't see what entitlement exists when customers are asking for the same considerations that are basically industry-standard. From a practical perspective, sod your distinctions between 'milder' wrongs and flat-out wrongs - this is a question of existing practices being adopted by the corporation in question, and since it's industry-standard, the customers aren't exactly demanding anything unusual.
And of course, the argument in terms of the effects on revenue would be that, whatever your views on irrational fans needing to be pandered to or whatever, those fans provide money to the club as much as possible, but might cease to do so due to straightened personal or financial circumstances (or in circumstances where they genuinely leave because they didn't feel the club cared about them - it happens more than most would like to admit) - half an hour answering their questions politely might keep some of them satisfied enough to keep contributing even in situations where they otherwise might not, and that's half an hour well spent.Right, but, with all due respect, you haven't answered my question at all, just dodged it with some patently useless malingering about the people that do ask questions of the club that you feel are 'entitled'. What keeps you here when, objectively and from the perspective of aesthetics, there should be nothing holding your less emotional, more rational self here when things are awful and the club's in the doldrums? If the customer-supplier relationship is fine as a model for clubs to emulate, why stay when there are so many objectively superior commercial products out there?
Clubs have been going bankrupt across Europe - objectively, however, it's less common in Germany, and there has never been an insolvent club in the Bundesliga - as of 2013, 17 of the 18 clubs were debt-free and the league as a whole recorded operating profits of roughly 380 million euros, while only 51% of club revenue went to wages versus an average of nearly 70% in England for that same year. (https://liamsmithlaw.wordpress.com/...ccess-and-how-other-leagues-can-take-lessons/)
Quite a performance for a league filled with teams owned by the fans, those 'emotive amateurs', eh?
Hell, if I were trying to secure my club's financial security, I'd take those amateurs over most Prem owners with glee, just on those numbers alone.In terms of European Cups, you're right - however, in terms of performances in Europe, you're wrong, as the UEFA league ranking demonstrates. The Bundesliga moved ahead of the Prem as a whole in 12/13 (iirc) and sicne then has consistently outperformed Prem teams despite the infusion of riches the latter have received. (http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/)
Bayern are much more successful than Spurs, but they charge a fraction of the ticket prices Spurs do, is my point. Because they're owned by their fans, that sort of thing is key for them. Their revenue, as a result, comes from commercial sponsorship and partnerships, an area where 'professional' club management is needed. They absolutely dominate us here, and indeed, they dominate most teams here - again, not exactly the work of 'emotive amateurs'.
You're right that the balance between supporters and spectators is changing, but for me, that's something sad, as opposed to something to cheer. And that's something that will absolutely hurt the long-term competitiveness of the league as stadiums empty out or are filled with silent (but higher-paying) spectators and the sheer 'spectacle' goes away. I don't mind that you're identifying more as a spectator, but, with all due respect, you chose Spurs (or the club chose you) and were then disenfranchised of the notion that you were a supporter because of the increased powerlessness of the average supporter when compared with fans elsewhere. Football as an aesthetic choice is, for the most part, crap - believe me when I say that I've had my fill of American sports, and there's far more excitement, entertainment, competitiveness (due to the strangely socialist draft and salary cap systems, which reward the worst teams with the best players and penalize high spenders, respectively) and 'spectacle' in those sports. Aesthetically, football can't compare, and the basic indicators of that are evident in the fact that the sport's still unable to gain a foothold against the most popular sports in the United States despite possessing all the advantages that should enable it to do so (ease of access, low financial investment, global popularity et al). It's just a fact. But because I've grown up with football, I see its aesthetic elements - however, I doubt I would have had it been a simple, rational choice between sports based on player skill and spectacle. The reason I grew up with football is the club - and I think that's true of most football supporters worldwide, and will be true for many years to come.
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
Why? Returning to the customer - service provider analogy, Spurs aren't exactly the best car out there - it's more like we're stuck at 100 mph while other cars get 120, 140, 160 and so on. Why Spurs in particular? From a rational consumer's point of view, many, many other companies exist that are simultaneously better at providing what you want, namely the thrill of driving race cars across tracks, and charge you less for doing it, as every club bar Arsenal does, while providing for a greater range of customers (fans) that share your patronage of that particular company.
Why choose the inferior product offered by Spurs in particular? It's irrational from almost any angle - a sense of love for the product that transcends a customer-seller relationship. And one that will last whether or not that car goes a 100 mph or exists only as an asthmatic nag of a vehicle that a Ford Model T would comfortably putter past, possibly while spouting disdainful black smoke in its general direction.
That's the relationship a supporter shares with his club, that puts him or her (you, or me, or anyone else) in dreadfully, objectively awful moments and then pulls him or her out of them while maintaining that desire to only patronise one club instead of taking his money elsewhere to objectively superior service providers. It's unique - nothing outside of professional sports can match it, and I have my doubts about whether any sport outside of football can provide it in the form that we see it in this game. This cannot in any sense be compared to a genuinely elastic customer-seller relationship, and, in my mind, that puts a sense of responsibility on both the fans (to support the club they can't help but to follow, in the true sense of the term) and, reciprocally, from the people who run the club (to keep the people who genuinely care about the club in mind when making decisions and publicly discussing them, a category of people which will never, ever be present for Pfizer Inc., Pepsico Inc. or any b*stardish race car joyride provider you care to name
That's the moral argument against calling people who just ask questions 'entitled'. The practical argument is one of comparison with practices across rival corporations (in this case, clubs) - the blunt answer would be that answering questions raised by fans is the standard concession a club could make to its fans, since the standard in Europe is at that level, with many clubs going beyond it into full ownership territory or actual practices that involve fans in the decision-making processes of those clubs. Relatively, it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't see what entitlement exists when customers are asking for the same considerations that are basically industry-standard. From a practical perspective, sod your distinctions between 'milder' wrongs and flat-out wrongs - this is a question of existing practices being adopted by the corporation in question, and since it's industry-standard, the customers aren't exactly demanding anything unusual.
Right, but, with all due respect, you haven't answered my question at all, just dodged it with some patently useless malingering about the people that do ask questions of the club that you feel are 'entitled'. What keeps you here when, objectively and from the perspective of aesthetics, there should be nothing holding your less emotional, more rational self here when things are awful and the club's in the doldrums? If the customer-supplier relationship is fine as a model for clubs to emulate, why stay when there are so many objectively superior commercial products out there?
Clubs have been going bankrupt across Europe - objectively, however, it's less common in Germany, and there has never been an insolvent club in the Bundesliga - as of 2013, 17 of the 18 clubs were debt-free and the league as a whole recorded operating profits of roughly 380 million euros, while only 51% of club revenue went to wages versus an average of nearly 70% in England for that same year. (https://liamsmithlaw.wordpress.com/...ccess-and-how-other-leagues-can-take-lessons/)
Quite a performance for a league filled with teams owned by the fans, those 'emotive amateurs', eh?
In terms of European Cups, you're right - however, in terms of performances in Europe, you're wrong, as the UEFA league ranking demonstrates. The Bundesliga moved ahead of the Prem as a whole in 12/13 (iirc) and sicne then has consistently outperformed Prem teams despite the infusion of riches the latter have received. (http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/)
Bayern are much more successful than Spurs, but they charge a fraction of the ticket prices Spurs do, is my point. Because they're owned by their fans, that sort of thing is key for them. Their revenue, as a result, comes from commercial sponsorship and partnerships, an area where 'professional' club management is needed. They absolutely dominate us here, and indeed, they dominate most teams here - again, not exactly the work of 'emotive amateurs'.
You're right that the balance between supporters and spectators is changing, but for me, that's something sad, as opposed to something to cheer. And that's something that will absolutely hurt the long-term competitiveness of the league as stadiums empty out or are filled with silent (but higher-paying) spectators and the sheer 'spectacle' goes away. I don't mind that you're identifying more as a spectator, but, with all due respect, you chose Spurs (or the club chose you) and were then disenfranchised of the notion that you were a supporter because of the increased powerlessness of the average supporter when compared with fans elsewhere. Football as an aesthetic choice is, for the most part, crap - believe me when I say that I've had my fill of American sports, and there's far more excitement, entertainment, competitiveness (due to the strangely socialist draft and salary cap systems, which reward the worst teams with the best players and penalize high spenders, respectively) and 'spectacle' in those sports. Aesthetically, football can't compare, and the basic indicators of that are evident in the fact that the sport's still unable to gain a foothold against the most popular sports in the United States despite possessing all the advantages that should enable it to do so (ease of access, low financial investment, global popularity et al). It's just a fact. But because I've grown up with football, I see its aesthetic elements - however, I doubt I would have had it been a simple, rational choice between sports based on player skill and spectacle. The reason I grew up with football is the club - and I think that's true of most football supporters worldwide, and will be true for many years to come.
English clubs will drop ticket prices as soon as demand drops, in the meantime it's stupid to leave money on the table.
I'm still not having the atmosphere argument, F1 still sells its TV rights for insane money all around the world despite the docile crowds.
I wasn't disenfranchised, I was never under any illusion of influence.
Looking at the last decade i'd say successful
teams have gamed their way around the NFL draft, the Pats make smart choices and continue to excel with lower picks, 134 places separated Goff and Prescott, who did their homework properly there? I'll add that a perfectly balanced system probably isn't a good thing for a sport, you need David's and Goliaths, would the European Cup have such meaning were it not for the special Madrid sides of its formative years? It's entertainment, there has to be a story to tell.
Men's Football hasn't taken off in the US because they can't own it (yet), the MLS is patently poor imitation of the European game, it's a vets league, people see through that quite quickly. It's America so it would be stupid to say never, but the game has a long way to go.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Uli Hoeness disagrees with you, as do 32 of the 36 Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga chairmen who voted against loosening the 50+1 rule when it came up most recently. That quote I provided sums it up - and, again, it's difficult to say that German clubs are any worse off for treating their fans like fans instead of plain customers. You understand I'm not criticising our board alone - if all of English football is engaged in busily turning what's left of the game into a mute spectator sport with prices as high as the market will take, it's difficult to avoid going along with that if you want to stay competitive. But the notion of football as this coldly professional business relationship is just wrong given how different the inelastic relationship between fan and club really is to any sort of elastic free-market consumer model.
F1 is about engineering brilliance, the pinnacle of terrestrial automotive technology being put to the test in ways that push the limits of human capabilities. It is not a spectator sport - it isn't even meant for live spectators, really. It's also a far more expensive, envelope-pushing endeavour than football, which is just blokes kicking a ball around - there's nothing limit-defying in it, nothing that draws attention like the breaking of technological and physical barriers in the manner of F1. For the most part, football's iterative, has an extremely low barrier to entry and is feasibly within the capabilities of a large number of us to at least partly approximate if we wished - that detracts from its viability as a silent sport in and of itself, unless accompanied by the invisible, electric thrill of the crowd, the passion of the club supporters, the fans who are the heart and life of the professional game.
There are Davids and Goliaths in American sports as well - the difference is that, despite that, the system affords the smallest (or worst-performing) teams a good chance to upend the order of things by dint of its redistributive nature, which is equally, if not more magical than the overcoming of odds in a more unevenly distributive system.
I don't think that's true. Completely anecdotal, of course, but from my time following (among others) baseball and hockey, I don't think Americans prioritise a sport by how much they own it, despite the stereotypes. I think it genuinely comes down to how much excitement, drama and passion there is in American sports (especially high-scoring ones) versus what they perceive as a a lack of it in football. And that ties into the relative aesthetics, imo.
(Btw, I liked your post because I enjoyed thinking about the points you made - as may be clear, I don't particularly agree with them.
)
JerusalemMan
Chris Perry
I think Dubai won rather than it being a score draw.
K.D.D.D.D.Soc
Ian Walker
Tottenham Hotspur own us, they don't have to do anything to retain our loyalty, sure some people will say they'll never go again because they aren't getting stroked but there are plenty more mugs out there to replace them, I've recruit 5 myself and I'm sure they will continue riding on the treadmill.
You're missing the point completely.Why? Returning to the customer - service provider analogy, Spurs aren't exactly the best car out there - it's more like we're stuck at 100 mph while other cars get 120, 140, 160 and so on. Why Spurs in particular? From a rational consumer's point of view, many, many other companies exist that are simultaneously better at providing what you want, namely the thrill of driving race cars across tracks, and charge you less for doing it, as every club bar Arsenal does, while providing for a greater range of customers (fans) that share your patronage of that particular company.
Why choose the inferior product offered by Spurs in particular? It's irrational from almost any angle - a sense of love for the product that transcends a customer-seller relationship. And one that will last whether or not that car goes a 100 mph or exists only as an asthmatic nag of a vehicle that a Ford Model T would comfortably putter past, possibly while spouting disdainful black smoke in its general direction.
That's the relationship a supporter shares with his club, that puts him or her (you, or me, or anyone else) in dreadfully, objectively awful moments and then pulls him or her out of them while maintaining that desire to only patronise one club instead of taking his money elsewhere to objectively superior service providers. It's unique - nothing outside of professional sports can match it, and I have my doubts about whether any sport outside of football can provide it in the form that we see it in this game. This cannot in any sense be compared to a genuinely elastic customer-seller relationship, and, in my mind, that puts a sense of responsibility on both the fans (to support the club they can't help but to follow, in the true sense of the term) and, reciprocally, from the people who run the club (to keep the people who genuinely care about the club in mind when making decisions and publicly discussing them, a category of people which will never, ever be present for Pfizer Inc., Pepsico Inc. or any b*stardish race car joyride provider you care to name
That's the moral argument against calling people who just ask questions 'entitled'. The practical argument is one of comparison with practices across rival corporations (in this case, clubs) - the blunt answer would be that answering questions raised by fans is the standard concession a club could make to its fans, since the standard in Europe is at that level, with many clubs going beyond it into full ownership territory or actual practices that involve fans in the decision-making processes of those clubs. Relatively, it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I don't see what entitlement exists when customers are asking for the same considerations that are basically industry-standard. From a practical perspective, sod your distinctions between 'milder' wrongs and flat-out wrongs - this is a question of existing practices being adopted by the corporation in question, and since it's industry-standard, the customers aren't exactly demanding anything unusual.
I don't support Spurs because they're the best, I don't support them because they're the most exciting (although that may have had something to do with it back when I was a kid), I don't support them because they're the nicest, or the cleverest, or anything other than because they're Spurs. That attachment is here to stay, it will not fade with time, it will not wither when we're grinding out an ugly draw on a rainy night in Stoke.
It doesn't matter what the owners and execs do, there are no competing products, there are no other clubs I can or will support the way I do with Spurs. They don't have to keep me happy to keep me supporting the club and they don't need me supporting the club to be successful. They do, however, need the people at Spvrs and the increased revenue that comes with success.
Equally, I don't need someone in a suit to pretend to listen to my whinging to make me feel important. I'm perfectly happy being just another fan.
I answered that way intentionally because that is the part that is relevant to the discussion.
As I've answered above, in terms of what we're discussing, it doesn't matter what keeps me attached to the club unless that attachment has something to do with how important the owners make me feel. And it doesn't. I neither need nor want their recognition, I don't need that emotional crutch to make me feel all big and important. In fact, football is a wonderfully free place for me where I am not expected to make decisions, I'm not responsible for others and I can just be a fairly anonymous member of a crowd.
Don't mistake verbosity for accuracy.
inkpenspur
Allan Nielsen
Tottenham's new stadium plans have been mooted for several years now and, finally, work began on the £400 million development earlier this year.
The plans have been scrutinised and pored over by the club’s long-suffering fans – from NFL fixtures to Safe Standing – but how exactly were decisions on the new ground made? And what sort of challenges did the club come up against when pushing for the new stadium?
We sat down for an exclusive chat with a member from the Spurs Consultation Committee, who has witnessed the evolution of the project from day one.
Due to non disclosure agreements, he decided to remain anonymous…
So, you were on the Spurs Consultation Committee which pushed for and worked towards the construction of the new stadium is that correct?
In the early stages of the process the club reached out to supporters for feedback via a Consultation Committee which was made up of supporters of every demographic, in 2012 the club formally recognised the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust and the method in which the club sought supporter feedback changed to them. It’s more effective and clearer that way.
The stadium plans were to be adapted to allow the grass playing surface to be ‘floated’ on a bed of air and magnets (very clever technology I can’t hope to explain) and be moved under the South Stand into an artificial environment complete with lighting and water to keep the playing surface in top condition, underneath these there will be a state of the art 4G surface for playing NFL on.
This also opens up a whole new commercial avenue for the club in that we can host concerts without wrecking the pitch with those awful plastic pallets used to cover the playing surface at Wembley, the Emirates, the Olympic Stadium and the likes.
The stadium is also designed to lend itself to big concerts in terms of acoustics and will be second only to Wembley for concert in the ‘round’ capacity. For the privilege of this the NFL are contributing in excess of £120m to the project so it’s paying for itself several times over.
I was present at the ground breaking for the new ground and I have to admit I shed a tear, it’s been a long hard road.
So tell us a bit about the new stadium, what can we expect?
I’ve already touched on this, however you can expect one of the best stadiums in the World, the designers and architects have been responsible for creating some of the very best stadiums in the World including the Dallas Cowboys stunning new stadium in Arlington, the Emirates, Wembley and the likes.
We also have an advantage in that our near neighbours moved into the Emirates about a decade ago, now don’t get me wrong visually the Emirates is a fantastic ground, there’s very little wrong with it, however we’ve been able to learn from the few mistakes they made and correct them.
We’ll be closer to the pitch than supporters in any stadium of comparible size in Europe and the ground will almost immediately be credited with UEFA and FIFA Elite stadium status (a status held by a surprisingly small number of grounds in Europe) which will make us eligible to host major finals like the Champions League and Europa League, I have absolutely no doubt that’s going to happen.
The stadium is also going to be fully equipped to host NFL and concerts, the NFL will actually have their own dressing rooms so our kit man won’t even need to move the boys stuff when the NFL are in town. It’s going to be stunning. There’s always a risk that we turn into a ‘souless bowl’ however that’s down to the supporters and will the new South Stand being the biggest single tiered stand in the UK holding 17,000 home supporters, I am pretty confident we’ll make ourselves heard.
Do you think there will ever be Safe Standing in England, as has been introduced up at Celtic Park?
This has been the subject of a massive amount of discussion at Supporters Trust Meetings and the likes, from what I can gather the club are completely in favour of it and the new ground (South Stand in particular) has been designed to make such a transition very easy. It would mean fundamental changes in the rules from FIFA down, I know it’s being trialled seemingly very successfully at Celtic Park and several grounds in Germany also have safe standing areas, however it’s not allowed for Champions League games.
I think it’s going to happen, I hope it happens and I will campaign for it to happen, I just don’t know when. I remember standing in the terraces in my formative years and it was amazing, although it could also be scary at times. Things have changed since then and safe standing is exactly what it’s called SAFE! I wouldn’t be in favour of the whole stadium going that way, but certainly portions of it.
And what about the future for Spurs? Can you win the league in the next few years?
In a word, no, probably not. I think we’ve a great squad and a great manager however the Premier League is insanely strong and just about any team can beat any of the others. We have a habit of dropping points in games we really should be winning. But hey, who knows, if we learnt anything from last season it is that if you string the results together anyone can win the league. Blackburn have done it, Leicester have done it. I would need about a month off work if it happened just to get over it. We should be aiming for a regular top four position. People also need to remember that we’ve a season at Wembley to play and then there will be a settling in period in the new stadium, almost every single club that’s moved into a brand new ground has experienced this.
I have to be honest our last ever game at White Hart Lane is going to be against Manchester United (subject to change) and it’s going to be a very emotional day, I got tearful watching the North East corner get knocked down White Hart Lane has been our home for over 100 years and it’s been my spiritual home for more than 30 years, my son has also started attending games with me and it’s abundantly clear already that Spurs are in his blood even at the age of 6, it will be a sad sad day leaving that old ground for the last time, but you know what, then I look over my shoulder at the new ground rising almost by the day and I can’t wait.
The plans have been scrutinised and pored over by the club’s long-suffering fans – from NFL fixtures to Safe Standing – but how exactly were decisions on the new ground made? And what sort of challenges did the club come up against when pushing for the new stadium?
We sat down for an exclusive chat with a member from the Spurs Consultation Committee, who has witnessed the evolution of the project from day one.
Due to non disclosure agreements, he decided to remain anonymous…
So, you were on the Spurs Consultation Committee which pushed for and worked towards the construction of the new stadium is that correct?
In the early stages of the process the club reached out to supporters for feedback via a Consultation Committee which was made up of supporters of every demographic, in 2012 the club formally recognised the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust and the method in which the club sought supporter feedback changed to them. It’s more effective and clearer that way.
The stadium plans were to be adapted to allow the grass playing surface to be ‘floated’ on a bed of air and magnets (very clever technology I can’t hope to explain) and be moved under the South Stand into an artificial environment complete with lighting and water to keep the playing surface in top condition, underneath these there will be a state of the art 4G surface for playing NFL on.
This also opens up a whole new commercial avenue for the club in that we can host concerts without wrecking the pitch with those awful plastic pallets used to cover the playing surface at Wembley, the Emirates, the Olympic Stadium and the likes.
The stadium is also designed to lend itself to big concerts in terms of acoustics and will be second only to Wembley for concert in the ‘round’ capacity. For the privilege of this the NFL are contributing in excess of £120m to the project so it’s paying for itself several times over.
I was present at the ground breaking for the new ground and I have to admit I shed a tear, it’s been a long hard road.
So tell us a bit about the new stadium, what can we expect?
I’ve already touched on this, however you can expect one of the best stadiums in the World, the designers and architects have been responsible for creating some of the very best stadiums in the World including the Dallas Cowboys stunning new stadium in Arlington, the Emirates, Wembley and the likes.
We also have an advantage in that our near neighbours moved into the Emirates about a decade ago, now don’t get me wrong visually the Emirates is a fantastic ground, there’s very little wrong with it, however we’ve been able to learn from the few mistakes they made and correct them.
We’ll be closer to the pitch than supporters in any stadium of comparible size in Europe and the ground will almost immediately be credited with UEFA and FIFA Elite stadium status (a status held by a surprisingly small number of grounds in Europe) which will make us eligible to host major finals like the Champions League and Europa League, I have absolutely no doubt that’s going to happen.
The stadium is also going to be fully equipped to host NFL and concerts, the NFL will actually have their own dressing rooms so our kit man won’t even need to move the boys stuff when the NFL are in town. It’s going to be stunning. There’s always a risk that we turn into a ‘souless bowl’ however that’s down to the supporters and will the new South Stand being the biggest single tiered stand in the UK holding 17,000 home supporters, I am pretty confident we’ll make ourselves heard.
Do you think there will ever be Safe Standing in England, as has been introduced up at Celtic Park?
This has been the subject of a massive amount of discussion at Supporters Trust Meetings and the likes, from what I can gather the club are completely in favour of it and the new ground (South Stand in particular) has been designed to make such a transition very easy. It would mean fundamental changes in the rules from FIFA down, I know it’s being trialled seemingly very successfully at Celtic Park and several grounds in Germany also have safe standing areas, however it’s not allowed for Champions League games.
I think it’s going to happen, I hope it happens and I will campaign for it to happen, I just don’t know when. I remember standing in the terraces in my formative years and it was amazing, although it could also be scary at times. Things have changed since then and safe standing is exactly what it’s called SAFE! I wouldn’t be in favour of the whole stadium going that way, but certainly portions of it.
And what about the future for Spurs? Can you win the league in the next few years?
In a word, no, probably not. I think we’ve a great squad and a great manager however the Premier League is insanely strong and just about any team can beat any of the others. We have a habit of dropping points in games we really should be winning. But hey, who knows, if we learnt anything from last season it is that if you string the results together anyone can win the league. Blackburn have done it, Leicester have done it. I would need about a month off work if it happened just to get over it. We should be aiming for a regular top four position. People also need to remember that we’ve a season at Wembley to play and then there will be a settling in period in the new stadium, almost every single club that’s moved into a brand new ground has experienced this.
I have to be honest our last ever game at White Hart Lane is going to be against Manchester United (subject to change) and it’s going to be a very emotional day, I got tearful watching the North East corner get knocked down White Hart Lane has been our home for over 100 years and it’s been my spiritual home for more than 30 years, my son has also started attending games with me and it’s abundantly clear already that Spurs are in his blood even at the age of 6, it will be a sad sad day leaving that old ground for the last time, but you know what, then I look over my shoulder at the new ground rising almost by the day and I can’t wait.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
ricky2tricky4city
Steffen Freund
There is some doubt about that article, either in its entirety or in certain details.
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
Uli Hoeness disagrees with you, as do 32 of the 36 Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga chairmen who voted against loosening the 50+1 rule when it came up most recently. That quote I provided sums it up - and, again, it's difficult to say that German clubs are any worse off for treating their fans like fans instead of plain customers. You understand I'm not criticising our board alone - if all of English football is engaged in busily turning what's left of the game into a mute spectator sport with prices as high as the market will take, it's difficult to avoid going along with that if you want to stay competitive. But the notion of football as this coldly professional business relationship is just wrong given how different the inelastic relationship between fan and club really is to any sort of elastic free-market consumer model.
F1 is about engineering brilliance, the pinnacle of terrestrial automotive technology being put to the test in ways that push the limits of human capabilities. It is not a spectator sport - it isn't even meant for live spectators, really. It's also a far more expensive, envelope-pushing endeavour than football, which is just blokes kicking a ball around - there's nothing limit-defying in it, nothing that draws attention like the breaking of technological and physical barriers in the manner of F1. For the most part, football's iterative, has an extremely low barrier to entry and is feasibly within the capabilities of a large number of us to at least partly approximate if we wished - that detracts from its viability as a silent sport in and of itself, unless accompanied by the invisible, electric thrill of the crowd, the passion of the club supporters, the fans who are the heart and life of the professional game.
There are Davids and Goliaths in American sports as well - the difference is that, despite that, the system affords the smallest (or worst-performing) teams a good chance to upend the order of things by dint of its redistributive nature, which is equally, if not more magical than the overcoming of odds in a more unevenly distributive system.
I don't think that's true. Completely anecdotal, of course, but from my time following (among others) baseball and hockey, I don't think Americans prioritise a sport by how much they own it, despite the stereotypes. I think it genuinely comes down to how much excitement, drama and passion there is in American sports (especially high-scoring ones) versus what they perceive as a a lack of it in football. And that ties into the relative aesthetics, imo.
(Btw, I liked your post because I enjoyed thinking about the points you made - as may be clear, I don't particularly agree with them.
sorry, went to bed, also enjoying the conversation...
They might think that way publicly but that the vote happened at all suggests there is some desire for it.
I still don't see local fans being important enough in the long run compared to those on the end of a broadcast stream, I think stadium crowds will get smaller throughout the sport. This is the crux of my point really, match going fans have never mattered less to the large clubs and thats a trend that will continue, as the size of the league and the number of professional clubs inevitably decreases the clubs hands will only be strengthened.
I still think the better run NFL teams are using free agency to better effect than anyone is using the draft. It looks good on paper but it's not the leveller it was intended to be.
JerusalemMan
Chris Perry
Thanks.
I didn't.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Ah, but from what I can gather from what you've said in all of your previous posts on this, you're not a fan - you're a customer, and declare yourself happy to be one.
Which, by extension, indicates that you shouldn't by all accounts be as committed to what is just an above-average service provider that charges out of proportion to what it offers, relative to the other, cheaper, often far more successful, frequently local service providers in the industry. Yet you are; that irrationality is what defines you as a fan of the same club I support, and not a customer, and it's what keeps you doing 'fan' stuff instead of acting like a pure customer would - demanding refunds for bad performances/club troubles, switching providers and calling in Consumer Protection people when you feel you aren't getting a fair deal. We're not going to get beyond this point, I guess, because the inherent irrationality of being a fan who only gets a thrill from one club, the needless inelasticity of that demand, to my mind brings with it a recognition of a club-supporter relationship that should transcend the basest market considerations and brings obligations upon both the club which is lucky enough to have people who care about it in all its aspects, and upon the fans who constitute the largest portion of the club itself. That isn't entitlement, that's the recognition of football being intrinsically different from the pure customer-supplier relationship that a stadium full of people who only get the SPVRS package would likely resemble, at least in part. That's the moral argument for retaining at least the token practice of consulting with *all* fans (as represented, however badly ,by the Trust) instead of just the SPVRS people. And I suspect we'll eternally disagree on that - however, I also afforded practical and financially-motivated arguments for keeping the practice as is which don't refer to 'entitlement' in any form. Overall, it's the least the club could do and well within the expectations of fans, even from those angles.In terms of point one, there is some desire for it, yes - from Martin Kind, of Hannover 96, who is pretty much universally detested in German sport for being one of the only people consistently proposing the removal of that rule. But 35 out of 36 (or, if you want to be precise, 32 out of 36 with 3 abstensions) clubs voting against the proposal is pretty much as unanimous as you can get - only Hannover actually voted for it.
Again, you're right that local fans are probably losing power compared to the TV audience, but my contention is that what keeps the audiences tuning in is not just the footballers themselves, but also to a great degree the fan culture and stadium atmospheres that make games so memorable and clubs so attractive to advertisers and broadcasters. As the TV revenue forms an ever greater slice of club income, local fans should be pointing out that, ideally, clubs should be taking measures to *increase* engagement and involvement with the match-going fans - since downward price adjustments in tickets and coordination with regard to ensuring matchday atmosphere is as good as it can be aren't as expensive as they once would have been to clubs that don't really rely on the income anymore. Plus associations like the Trust don't just represent local fans - they also represent overseas fans, and membership is open to anyone who pays their dues. Often, the Trust is the only voice of these overseas TV viewing supporters - so that just increases the impetus behind the argument for suitable fan representation in situations where the club takes decisions that involve them.
As I said, nothing's inevitable unless people let it become so.
And as for the NFL, I partly agree, but I'd propose a counter-example from hockey - lord knows the salary cap is the great equalizer, and I am abundantly aware that most Leafs fans are definitely bitter at how much it inhibits them from spending what they generate on the pursuit of that long-awaited next Stanley Cup. Wouldn't that be equalization measures working both on paper and in practice?
Thank you, bud.
Anyway, as Whiffler sagely advises....
So, as a peace offering, have these screenshots of the salty c*nts from KUMB changing their tunes.
