There And Back Again: A Spuds’ Tale About A Trip To White Hart Lane

A lifetime ticket to pain with brief respites of ecstasy.

Commenter Steve made a pilgrimage to White Hart Lane this past weekend and kindly gave UF his thoughts, words and pictures.  With the summer tour season coming up and many European squads crossing the pond to spread the gospel of their respective brands in the good ol’ US of A, many of you will be attending these exhibition matches and UF would welcome your contributions about those events. 

Saturday at the Lane

What an all around fantastic experience.

First, a few words about my journey there and initial impressions of the trip. My hostel was near Hyde Park, quite far away from Tottenham. Boarding the Victoria Line at the Warren Street station, I rode to the Seven Sisters station. From there, it’s about a mile and a half walk to White Hart Lane. (You can take another train to a stop closer to the stadium, but it seemed like many people just walk from Seven Sisters). The walk itself was wonderful. It felt a bit like I was on the road to Santiago de Compostela, traveling with 30,000 of my new friends. I stopped briefly outside the stadium taking it all in; I then ducked into the insanely busy Spurs Shop. Foregoing the local pubs for an early look at the stadium, I headed in with tickets in hand. Because you can’t take alcohol out of the concourse I downed a Carlsberg before grabbing my seats in section J in the corner of the East Stand about 30 minutes before kickoff.

Rounding out of the concourse toward my seat offered my first glance at the pitch. The wondrous, perfectly trimmed grass angled out in front of me, the blue seats all around only speckled with white this long before kickoff, a hint of orange seen in the adjacent corner. My vantage point was pretty good—I sat near the front of the upper stand, to the side and a bit behind the south goal.

Visual evidence of a Premier League cherry popping.

When I got there, the keepers were warming up, Gomes cutting a somewhat lonely figure on the far side of the pitch. Fast forward a few minutes, and the players came out onto the pitch, first to a chorus of boos, and then to a chorus of cheers. The first “Come on You Spurs!” picked up just behind and above me, the lower stand in front quickly taking it up. Impressively, the Blackpool fans were in full voice early on. I was surprised, but it took a few minutes before the home fans won back control of the stadium cheers. When everyone was finally seated, just before kickoff, it was loud, though probably not as loud as I imagine it would be for a game against a bigger team or a more direct rival.

The best part about the fan experience was its authenticity. It was so nice to enjoy a professional sporting event without a loudspeaker or the latest crappy song blaring at you for the entire game. There were no cues from a jumbotron on when or what to cheer; everything was spectator-generated, and it was enjoyable.

The fans were attentive the entire game. It felt like everyone knew what was going on; nobody was there simply to be seen. A far cry from what goes on during most U.S. sporting events. If somebody rose in the middle of the action, it was glares and grunts all around. Everyone sat most of the time, although it was usually on the edge of their seats.

A close call would see everyone jump up, only to hang their heads in disappointment as they sat back down.

As one guy told me, such is the life of a Spurs supporter.

Look! Gareth Bale before Charlie Adam hacked off his ankle.

I assume most of you reading either saw the game or know the result, so I won’t say much about that other than to offer up a few observations and say that the result was disappointing. My match notes:

- The Yid chant went up a handful of times, but it wasn’t repeated throughout the ground. Nobody shouted it down, and I didn’t get the impression that the chant was unwelcome, but it wasn’t entirely taken-up, either. I didn’t hear anybody refer specifically to themselves as a Yid or Yiddo, although I did see unofficial shirts and the like with Yiddo, Yid, and/or the Star of David on them (“Defoe’s a Yiddo” being the most popular iteration). From what I saw, none of the official club products carry the word.

- Gareth Bale is going to have to figure out how to beat the double team if he is going to continue developing, and kick and run isn’t going to do it.

- Considering it was his first Premier League start in the position, Danny Rose did a decent job. He wasn’t as good as Assou-Ekotto, and at times you could see the discomfort and miscommunications between he and Bale, but overall, Rose did well. He got forward and caused trouble a few times and made some good tackles. His lack of size and ability in the air might prevent him from ever being a consistently solid back, however.

- Good old ‘Arry needs to figure out a formation and stick to it. As brilliant as Modric was, he seemed to get lost—or perhaps his teammates lost him—when Crouch came on. Kaboul was content to hoof it to the far post for Crouch to try, usually in vain, to knock it down. Crouch was the wrong substitution, and his appearance meant that Spurs shifted formations at least twice in the game, going from a 442 to a 4321 and then back to a 442.

- I hate the style Spurs play when Crouch is in the game in the 442. They run the same play every time: Crouch to the back post, knock down, hopefully somebody runs on. I hate it, and it takes Spurs’ best player largely out of the equation. This can’t be good.

- Defoe is not the kind of player that can hold his own as the lone striker in the 4231 formation. He doesn’t have the ball skills, the strength, or the interest. He’s a poacher through and through, and Redknapp needs to remember that Defoe works best with a strike partner who can hold up the ball and let him get into those poacher’s positions.

- Returning to the 442, Van der Vaart was lost out on the right. He simply cannot affect the game in the ways he wants to from out on the wing, and he continually gets sucked inside. Lennon was more incisive when he came in on the right wing. (I spoke with a couple of people after the game who thought that VdV just looks out of place in this squad. Admitting they admired his skill set, they concluded that he just doesn’t fit into the identity of this Spurs team. I think this might be the source of some of VdV’s frustrations over the course of the season—he wants to be the center of the team, and the team just isn’t designed for that to be so.)

- Even before that shoddy tackle on Bale, I heard a lot of whistles and boos for Charlie Adam. Part of the reason was his continual time wasting—at one point when taking a corner in front of the away fans, he took the time to carefully readjust his socks, letting their cheers shower down on him. He seems to enjoy being the focus of the team, which might say something about how he’d perform as a bit part player at a bigger club. At any rate, it didn’t seem like the Spurs fans would like to see him at the Lane next year, although I suppose they forgave Gallas his checkered history.

I also want to say a bit more about how watching the game from the stands compares to watching it on television. In short, they are very different experiences. Controversial statement of the year, right? Nothing new, I know. But allow me to explain the differences I noticed. There are the basic ones, of course—you’re sitting in a little plastic chair, instead of (presumably) on your couch; you have the same (or at least a similar) experience as 35,000 other people, instead of by yourself or with a few close friends; you contribute to the experience, instead of simply receiving it.

There are other differences, however, that go beyond the superficial, beyond the mundane. Simply put, I saw the game on Saturday differently than I had any other. Watching from home, the television cameras dictate to you what you can see (and what you cannot). On Saturday, I was able to follow the ball, the direct action, or follow a single player, like Modric, and track what he does and how he does it. I was able to see what was happening at any point on the field at any moment. It was revelatory.

Instead of reacting to what happens, as you’re liable to do when watching on television, you can follow the play, even anticipate it. On Saturday, you could see Modric pick up the ball and create space for himself, while out wide Lennon turned and took off up field. You cheered for Modric to find the spritely little guy, only for the midfielder to reveal your comparatively simpleton understanding of the game by picking out someone you’d missed entirely.

Where the television camera might have just shown the tackle itself, from the stands you saw Sandro sprint from one side of the field to the other to break up a dangerous play. There was a moment when the referee (who was terrible) hesitated about making a call, saw the play race away from him, looked discombobulated, glanced around, then ran after the play shaking his head. I wondered what he was thinking, and what he would have called if he was willing to exert a bit more influence over proceedings.

Unfortunately, all these little events usually happen outside of the view of the television cameras, which are focused only on the immediate play. Watching the game without the dictates of the television camera made for a complete experience; it was much easier to assess each player’s and the teams’ performances.

Finally, if you have the chance to attend a match but might hesitate at the cost, I would tell you to go for it. It could very well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and for me, well worth the price of admission (oh, and the price of a weekend in London).