I was and am still a fan of Hotspurs. My association started when Glenn Hodell played for them.
I went to a few games (late 80's) to White Hart Lane. That was at the height of football violence in UK.
Getting off the tube, you walked between rows of police all the way to the entrance. And then again frisked as if entering a jail. The stadium had no amenities, nothing. On the goal side were the standing only stands - but now banned.
So, this new stadium is welcome.
A couple of years back, I paid a kings ransom to buy me a "tunnel" pass at new Manchester City stadium. It's a pass costing about a thousand dollars per person - which is basically a five star restaurant next to the tunnel where players exit from on to the pitch. A great experience.
I understand new Hotspurs have copied the same. I can't wait.
Overall, there is a big struggle in British attitudes towards comforts or a total lack of comforts at a stadium.
I lived in Aberdeen when Mr Alex Ferguson was the coach. The Dons stadium did not have a scoreboard nor a clock. One stand holding 3,000 fans had one bathroom. The concession stand was one hole in the wall - like a prison commissary.
And so, it goes.
So, hopefully this Americanization of British soccer stadiums catches fire.
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I’m sure it’s a nice stadium but it resembles a toilet seat from aerial photographs and video. Surely someone noticed, or should have noticed, during the planning stages.
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Yankee Stadium has transformed the Bronx, right?
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COYS!
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As a 17 year old American tourist on the Grand Tour remember White Hart Lane in 1963 and a game against Darby County which a Times sportswriter called the dullest he had ever seen. Remember the snockered young fans pouring out of local pubs to stand at one end of the stadium yelling non-stop and a charming Scotsman who in a almost unintelligible brogue complained that the real football was being played in the Scottish First Division. Memories of that drafty fire trap of a stadium.
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GO METS!
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I like the sound of White Hart Lane. I hope TfL doesn't allow the station name change -- specially when the Spurs aren't paying the costs associate with the change (isn't it 20 million GBP?).
Boooo! Gunners > Spurs
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"On Sunday, the club’s manager, Mauricio Pochettino, admitted he and his staff had laughed at the sight of Naby Keita and Fabinho, £100 million worth of talent combined, on Liverpool’s bench when the teams met, representing a luxury way beyond Spurs’ means."
This is disingenuous and deserves context. Spurs are not paupers. Spurs have the means but they took a very deliberate direction in spending their money. They've spent a billion pounds in developing a new ground. Liverpool, having weighed the options, decided against that approach and have, instead, been upgrading Anfield on a rolling basis (echoing what John Henry, et. al., did with Fenway Park). Spending a billion pounds on a stadium means you have to save elsewhere. Spurs decided to make that saving by not buying any new players last summer. Unprecented and unwise. Liverpool decided to spend a large amount of money (most of which they'd earned from selling players) to address obvious deficiencies on the pitch. It worked. In part as a direct result of not investing in the playing squad, Spurs are now sweating the prospect of going into their shiny new stadium next season without Champions League football and the very large financial rewards that brings. If that happens, the bright new future will be in danger of going off the rails 'early doors,' as the football pundits like to say.
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Ahhh sports. The supposed great equalizer. Is the fan base so well-heeled that a sommelier will have enough demand to keep herself/himself employed? The neighborhood doesn't seem to need one. I have seen the positive transformation of a neighborhood when a respectable stadium is built (e.g., Coor's Field).
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The suggestion that Spurs decide to build a new stadium for anything other than selfish business and revenue-generating reasons is laughable. If they want the area to improve it's only because it'll improve their bottom line.
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"laughed at the sight of Naby Keita and Fabinho, £100 million worth of talent combined, on Liverpool’s bench when the teams met"
I'm pretty sure Pochettino and his staff weren't laughing at the end of the game when they lost their 4th out of their last 5 Premier League games.
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@Steve
Prior to this game it was the referees that Poch blamed, which is the reason he's been banished from the touch line in the last few weeks. He's since changed his mind and its Liverpool's funding that's to blame. Sad!
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@Steve It appears you don't quite understand what these words mean. The laughter is gallows humor at the fact that Liverpool have a squad so deep that players of that pedigree aren't even in the first team, while Spurs have not even made a signing for over a year.
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Not to be negative, but the area around the Cub's MLB field, Wrigleyville, improved dramatically without a new stadium. Or even a team that could win, for that matter.
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@jhanzel
It's not a new stadium, but Wrigley Field has undergone massive updates over the years, and for the past three decades the team has played night games, which surely has had some impact on the bars and restaurants in the area, spurring gentrification.
And the team's recent success has brought in more fans—up 40 percent in 2018 from where it was in 1995—which brings money to Wrigleyville.
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@Steven S
Make that a nearly 60 percent increase since 1995.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/cubsatte.shtml
@jhanzel A Cubs manager in 1983 comments on Cubs fans.
A billion for a stadium that seats less than 18,000. Wow not a good investment. no matter what happens in the area.
@john g
I think you misunderstood that section of the article. The statement "capable of holding 17,500 fans" was in reference to just one single-tier grandstand in the stadium, not the entire stadium. The entire stadium has a capacity of 62,000 making it the second largest football stadium in the Premier League.
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@Steve
Thanks for clarifying that.
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