This blog post reflects on personal memories from White Hart Lane, the home ground of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, which the side will leave at the end of this 2016/17 season.
My grinning 12 year-old face reflects back from a shopfront window. We’re walking away from the stadium, down Tottenham High Road, among masses of my fellow Spurs fans. Proudly wearing my new Tottenham Hotspur flat cap and scarf, I am elated because our captain Gary Mabbutt just scored a late winner to beat Nottingham Forest 2-1. This was my thing. Here were my people. What a buzz. Come on you Spurs!
December 1992: Spurs 2 Nottingham Forest 1
I visited White Hart Lane for the first time on December 28th 1992. That Christmas my parents had finally surrendered to the endless requests of their football crazy son and bought tickets for a match at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. They committed to the costly north London trip from a small village in Gloucestershire, a three-hour drive west.
Receiving that first ticket in the post was magical, sacred, something like Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. I was finally going!
The first dark blue seat I folded down was in the upper tier of the east stand. Memories of the debut trip were reinforced by watching the match on video several times afterwards. They include our new signing Darren Anderton looking weak in possession and receiving verbal abuse from the fans; right back Dean Austin having a great game with one mazy, Gazza-like dribble ending in a foul on the edge of the box; Neil Ruddock blasting the resulting free-kick just wide; an annoyingly loud person in the stand sitting behind us and a sense that he was annoying others too; a dramatic touchline fracas between substitute Gudni Bergsson and possibly Stuart Pearce; Tottenham manager Doug Livermore not looking much like a manager; Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough in his trademark green jersey looking much more like a manager, albeit one of fading powers.
A young Spurs player in his first season named Nick Barmby gave us the lead after a flowing move neatly sliced open the opposition defence. We went into half time 1-0 up. In the second period Nottingham Forest had a renewed spark and built up a worrying amount of pressure before Scott Gemmill hit a speculative shot from distance. It left our Norwegian goalie Erik Thorstvedt grasping at nothing and pinged into the goal off a post. My heart sank as a distant red corner of the ground erupted with tinny noise. A can of worms sprang to mind. We couldn’t lose now, could we? Here was my first taste of the addictive jeopardy football fans live with from game to game. The score stayed level for most of the second half before Mabbutt struck from close range thanks to the tireless industry of Barmby.
We held out for the win. On the full time whistle Neil Ruddock punted the ball high into the sky. Relief, joy, Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur blaring tinnily from the speakers, a jubilant smile widening across my face. We did it.
Why Tottenham Hotspur?
Why Tottenham? It’s largely down to the Italia 1990 World Cup heroics of Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker. Never hugely into football until then, that tournament ignited my passion. I would never see Gazza or Lineker play live and Tottenham remained a largely mediocre top division side for twenty years after 1990, but my support was unwavering.
It was cemented by the 1990/91 season FA Cup win, and particularly that famous 3-1 semi-final win over our local North London rival Arsenal. The Gascoigne howitzer of a free kick goal from what seemed like half a mile away, Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman’s panicky flap, the commentary from Barry Davies: “…he is you know. Oh, I say!” I remember leaping from an armchair as it squirmed into the top corner of the net and Gazza set off on his celebration. Gascoigne’s skill across that whole season had been sensational and I watched the season review on video many times over. From then on I made my own VHS tapes of matches recorded off the television (technically illegal but everyone did it then, like cassette mix tapes). I mashed together the stylish montages they showed in the build-up to television matches, bought (or asked my parents to buy) video reviews of the season and overpriced merchandise. I pretended I was certain players, (usually Teddy Sheringham or Jurgen Klinsmann). I was Tottenham.
My later childhood adoration of striker Teddy Sheringham was such that a group of school friends succeeded in convincing me he had been sold to Newcastle United. With no other means of verification, only when I got home and rushed to check the football news on Ceefax page 302, as we all did every day, did I discover Sheringham’s transfer to be a hilarious prank at my expense. The scars of humiliation remain detectable to this day.
My support was mainly restricted to the armchair: Match of The Day and the BBC’s live FA Cup ties. Memorable early 1990s televised matches include away ties at Manchester City and Sunderland. For several years after that first trip in 1992, I regularly visited around my birthday in October and around Christmastime.
December 1993: Spurs 3 Liverpool 3
A pulsating 3-3 draw against Liverpool sticks out in the memory as one of the best games I saw at White Hart Lane in those early years of visiting. It far exceeded a sickeningly disappointing birthday trip a couple of months earlier, when we were lucky to escape with a 1-1 draw against Swindon Town.
Here against Liverpool we were 1-0 up through a Vinny Samways strike at half time, then found ourselves 1-3 down (Jamie Redknapp, and two Robbie Fowler strikes) early in the second half. A Micky Hazard penalty and a beautifully glanced Darren Caskey diving header rescued the draw, but there were still chances at either end after that. It was easily the best game I’d seen. The ebb and flow of open attacking football, two sides going at each other, the belly-churning worry: utterly engrossing.
Sitting in the South Stand lower tier, behind a goal and closer to the pitch, it felt more intimate than my first relatively sanitised visit up in the East Stand. There was greater atmosphere, urgency, more noise, singing, that thundering clatter of seats folding upright as players ran into the near corner and people stood to get a better view. It all heightened the drama.
In delicately poised matches when there have already been multiple goals and there’s the distinct promise of more, a special window opens. Around the 70 minute mark there arrives a fragile magic. Nervous but fiercely concentrated looking defences face waves of menacing attacks. Anxious noise reverberates between the stands and the pitch. Everything feels tantalisingly possible yet wildly unpredictable, teetering uncertainly. As a spectator, you are guaranteed that a story will immediately unfold right here. You and thousands of other people around you are fully invested in it together. This expansive green canvas is ripe for theatre, pantomime, outrage, exhilaration, upset, devastation, entertainment. It’s irresistible and agonising, a huge emotional bet you dare not make. But you do. Of course you do. Around that 70 minute mark, time becomes unfathomable. Depending on the flow and the score it can feel suspended, stretched, condensed, or squeezed. How can all that have happened in 15 minutes? Until those three blows of the referee’s whistle and it’s over, and you can breathe properly again.
In fact-checking this post I have been sidetracked by match highlights on YouTube. Looking back, the Liverpool team of that day seems a fascinating blend of eras: Ian Rush, John Barnes and Bruce Grobbelaar lining up alongside Robbie Fowler, Jamie Redknapp and Steve McManaman.
[The initially embedded video of highlights has now been removed].
At full-time, jaunty Christmas songs played on the tannoy and people shuffled out of the ground. Before joining the hoards and shuffling towards an exit I took a moment, wanting to prolong the buzz of having witnessed this match, look around the ground one last time before leaving. What a cathedral.
The feeling was directly related to a similar pang of hunger I would experience around twenty years later after photographing the first of countless matches at an almost empty Cardiff City Stadium for a women’s international. Football was amazing and I would keep coming back to White Hart Lane for more.
October 1994: Spurs 3 West Ham 1
This was the final match as manager for Ossie Ardiles after a weird and wonderful (if not glorious) period of kamikaze attacking football which at times led with a famous five players up front. Here we beat one of our London rivals West Ham United 3-1 thanks to goals from Jurgen Klinsmann, Sheringham and Barmby. But the decision to fire Ardiles had already been made.
I had a front row seat and was excited to catch the ball at one point – shiny, wet, bright white and surprisingly light – before throwing it back to full back David Kerslake. Seated in the West Stand lower tier near the away fans, I was amused to detect the East End twang through the chanting of “Wankers wanker wankers…”.
January 1995: The Players’ Lounge
A match against Manchester City in early 1995 was postponed at late notice due to a waterlogged pitch. Hanging around the players’ entrance to collect autographs as players left, I felt glum about the wasted trip and wondered whether to return to my patiently waiting, never fully Tottenham-invested Dad, parked down a side street a short walk away.
Just then, a man left the stadium, openly offering free vouchers up to the players’ lounge. I keenly rushed forward, accepted a circular orange piece of paper (which I retained as proof for many years after), thanked the man, and glided through the doors, giggling at my luck.
After giddily climbing a a staircase to the lounge I collected autographs and met a number of players including Teddy Sheringham, who told me Jurgen Klinsmann had already gone home, Uwe Rosler of City, Stuart Nethercott, and a young Stephen Carr, who seemed more interested in an Ireland rugby match on television than our chat. Future prime minister Tony Blair was also in the room with his son. I recognised him but didn’t get his autograph.
There’s a half-erased memory of a disappointing and fully deserved home defeat to Wimbledon in the early months of 1995. A Jurgen Klinsmann diving header equalised the match and gave some hope, and I recall being enraged by a perfectly legal Efan Ekoku shoulder barge on one of our defenders leading up to one of his two strikes.
[Read the Composed piece: My Final Whistle At White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur v AFC Bournemouth, April 2017]
February 1996: Spurs 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 – Coach trips and underage drinking
There were one or two organised coach trips for Tottenham fans from my area of the west country in the mid-1990s. I booked them alone after seeing classified adverts in the local newspaper, but aged 15 I was taken under the wing of a football team-mate from a village football club I’d recently joined with a school friend.
“Oi oi!!” Taffy cried out when he recognised me walking down the coach aisle. I smiled nervously, suddenly more apprehensive about the day ahead. There was no escape now. I liked but feared Taffy, a diminutive Welsh left-back with a malicious streak on the field and an unquenchable thirst for cider off it. He and his friends gleefully fed me beer, took me to a noisy Tottenham pub and generally made me feel queasy. I have never visited the toilets in a ground so regularly.
We beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 through a Chris Armstrong goal but I remember little else about the match.
December 1998: Spurs 4 Everton 1
The first of a couple of games attended with my brother, this one in the West Lower tier. A dominant Spurs performance marked by a brilliant hat-trick from main forward of the time Chris Armstrong. Another abiding memory is former fan favourite Nick Barmby appearing for Everton. He bounced back up in the face of our young but wide defender Luke Young, after being felled by a late tackle. Young was hilariously unfazed and Barmby appeared to bounce off him and away, much to the amusement of the Spurs faithful.
April 2000: Spurs 2 Aston Villa 4
A 2-4 defeat to Aston Villa attended with my brother in the fading days of the George Graham era. This was one of the darkest and angriest atmospheres I’d experienced at White Hart Lane. The native regulars were deeply unhappy and expressed their feelings with open hostility. The day ended with a similarly dark and angry atmosphere between my brother and I on the bus home, following some spat I can’t quite remember the details of.
Most of Villa’s goals had seemed improbably brilliant that day. They included a balletic Dion Dublin scissor kick, a stylish Benito Carbone dipping volley and a ferocious Alan Wright rocket into the top corner. David Ginola sulked and pouted his way around the pitch. When his hands weren’t on his hips they were often pointing fingers at team-mates. There was no small level of toxicity around the club at this time.
2000/01. Dimly recalled wins against Southampton and Sunderland, one around the eve of 9/11, a memory from which was Gary Doherty looking monumentally clumsy in the warm-up alongside the effortlessly nimble Robbie Keane. How was Doherty even a professional footballer?
[Read the Composed piece: International Tournaments Make For Boring Football]
April 2004: Spurs 0 Chelsea 1
This was my only taste of the elite area of White Hart Lane that was the west stand upper tier. I was donated the ticket by an absent season ticket holder friend. People here were much better dressed and there was less singing. I saw the heavily pregnant wife of our then player Jamie Redknapp, former pop star Louise, on the way to my seat. She glowed more than the Tottenham side that day, as Frank Lampard controlled the midfield for Chelsea.
Fuzzy White Hart Lane Memories
I can’t confidently recall every single visit now but there were several more which elude me. Probably with good reason, although it still frustrates me because I want to remember everything. Even the terrible games, of which there were a few. Such as August 1996: Spurs 0 Everton 0, when I was in London due to work experience. I remember nothing of the match apart from the dangerously in-swinging corners of Everton full back Andy Hinchcliffe.
During a spell of almost three years living in West London up to 2010, it was possible to visit Tottenham more often. I could make it across town on week-nights but at the weekends, playing football for a local side was my choice. There was one match attended in the north stand upper and another in the east for a European tie, when my view of the south goalposts was obstructed by one of those terrible pillars.
[Read the Composed piece, Bale’s Wales]
Most memorable during this time were the big matches watched on a television, usually in pubs around my patch of west London. Propelled by close but deserved late season wins over Chelsea and Arsenal, Gareth Bale growing in confidence, Tottenham found form and finally qualified for Champions League football. That decisive 1-0 victory at Manchester City thanks to a Peter Crouch goal (and a pint or three) had me merrily iPod dancing in a supermarket aisle a good half hour after the final whistle (to the joyful debut album of Passion Pit).
Early 2012: an edgy 1-0 win over Wolves, followed only a few weeks later by a 5-0 obliteration of a tame Newcastle United. The latter was an unusual match strangely neutered of any drama thanks to the early goals.
November 2012: Spurs 0 Wigan 1
My last visit to White Hart Lane as a supporter was back in 2012, during the mid-term tenure of Portuguese manager Andre Villas-Boas. I took my then newish girlfriend (now wife) along to witness the most dour spectacle imaginable. (She’d grown accustomed to dour spectacles since we started dating).
Wigan beat us 1-0 and it should have been worse. Tottenham were terrible that day and it’s always been a regret that she never experienced that explosive communal joy of a live Tottenham goal.
Spurs Through A Decent Lens
More recent years have seen me observe Tottenham through camera viewfinders at Swansea and Aston Villa. It’s certainly brought some pleasure, but you can never fully watch and enjoy a football match in the same way when photographing it.
Armchairs, sofas and pub stools have remained the main places of concentrated viewing. Tottenham have had me on my knees in despair and dejection in the privacy of various homes. As a younger man, they had me sulking and skulking out of pubs, bitter, embarrassed, annoyed at myself for caring so much.
The one most amusing for friends of mine was probably the February 2004 FA Cup capitulation against Kevin Keegan’s Manchester City. We squandered a 3-0 half time lead against 10 men to lose 3-4. How could the side betray us like that?
Equally, there have been moments of pure elation. Those, thanks to heroes like Sheringham, Anderton, Klinsmann, Keane, Defoe, Berbatov, Bale and Kane. They have had me punching the air with unbridled and uncharacteristic delight.
Hopefully there will be one final White Hart Lane chapter and some slightly better photographs to add to these memories before Tottenham Hotspur leave the famous old stadium at the end of this 2016/17 season, and move to a shiny modern structure next door from 2018/19. That could be a little emotional too. Watch this space.
POSTSCRIPT: Read my account of photographing Tottenham Hotspur V AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League, April 15th 2017.