There are two ways to review a performance, a defeat such as that. The obvious one being to pick at the bones of the players and the manager, in attempt to identify what actually happened.
But you don’t need a forensic scientist to work out what happened yesterday afternoon.
An apology in advance if you were expecting player ratings.
If you’ve been watching Spurs for any period of time over the last 13 years, you’ll be aware that under ENIC’s tenure of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, they have managed to win a solitary League Cup.
Symptomatic to the ownership style, that team was dismantled almost within hours of the final whistle of that game.
The problems that dog Spurs are endemic to ENIC.
We can identify this to be true in a variety of ways. It isn’t just because that modern football is rubbish other clubs’ teams routinely play with greater commitment and dare I suggest it, a greater pride than Spurs teams do.
The culture of a business (and listen up friends, Tottenham Hotspur is foremost a business these days) trickles down from the top. And the culture at Spurs stinks to high heaven.
ENIC’s representatives on planet earth are more interested in issuing banning orders, deleting loyalty points, making extra cash out of legalised touting and generally extorting client reference numbers until they go pop.
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust are complicit in all this. Once we get past the usual schtick of them telling us all how ruddy bloody hard they work – for free – we need to scutinise what it is that they actually achieve.
Scraps tossed by ENIC that they’ve caught, do not count. ENIC does not concede or give away anything that is of any value to them.
The owners of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, whoever they may be, need to be challenged by supporters. This isn’t aggression. This is a call for complete transparency designed to constantly remind the owners that they are simply passing custodians of club that we have an emotional, frequently irrational connection with.
Apologists for the Trust will mumble about maintaining a civilised dialogue. They clearly don’t understand the role of a supporters’ association.
It isn’t to be complicit with PR disasters such as engineering the arrest of fans, it isn’t to become nodding dogs when they are told that Stubhub will limit legalised touting transaction values to only £200. It isn’t to agree to a crowd surfing hanky.
And as for the NPD, I’m frankly staggered by the unthinking manner in which the Trust has conducted itself. To hell with the the truth. Let’s see what biscuits we get offered next week in the Centenary Suite!
The link between the local community and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is close to nonexistent. I’m not interested in how it was prior to ENIC’s reign, what I do want to know, is how it will be now and in the future, as our club now asks so much of the local area.
It is clear as day that ENIC have shown nothing but contempt to needs of Haringey. Instead of promising the borough anything tangible, they have instead denied affordable housing and instead opted to hide behind utterly meaningless platitudes, some of which are in fact, just outright lies!
The Trust hasn’t challenged any of this. Instead, they have only sought to aid and abet ENIC; trying to perpetuate the myth that Archway have demanded £25million. And suggesting that if you question the redevelopment, you must be anti a new stadium.
I’m not anti anything. What I am is pro doing things the right way.
What we watched for 95 minutes on Sunday simply reflected what is going on behind the scenes at Spurs. And guess what? It isn’t very nice.
No, I’m not blaming the THST for the loss against Newcastle. Of course I’m not. But what I am doing, is calling for supporters to consisitantly challenge the owners of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
The existing THST need to lose the bureaucracy, lose the exclusivity, lose the football governance cobblers, and especially don’t let a polite dialogue drift into becoming cosy.
I’ve asked THST to come on HHH previously and they declined. I asked them again yesterday and await a response. My only criteria is that I’m unprepared to narrow the field of any proposed discussion.
It’s about Spurs. That’s the subject.
He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.
