2 min read
Emerging from Wembley Park tube last week and casting my eyes towards the National Stadium to be greeted by the sight of tens of thousands of Lilywhite clad Spurs fans was quite something. A lump-in-the-throat, pinch yourself moment. A sea of Spurs, bathed in sunshine. Usually at Wembley it's a mix of fans from both teams; not last week. It was just a tidal wave of Tottenham.
Having grown up a stone’s throw from the old Wembley in an era when my grandpa and uncle stopped by our house on the way to and from the numerous Spurs cup finals and Charity Shields, it has always been special to go back to Wembley with Spurs (or of course with North London Raiders who play at the Ark, in the shadow of the Arch).
On Wednesday night I couldn't help but think of my grandpa - the man most responsible for my love of Spurs, who took me to my first Spurs game, at White Hart Lane in 1978 and whose cheeky charm meant that for years my passage in to the Lane was secured with a cheeky pound note and a wink to the turnstile operator as I was slipped in, ticketless, under the creaking metal contraption.
My love of football and Spurs in particular has always been inextricably linked to family, from those early days with grandpa to our row of family seats at Wembley last week with parents, children, uncles and cousins sharing that record breaking experience.
Supporting Spurs is of course something of a heavy burden - the crushing disappointments are inevitable but they make the success when it comes (and every so often it does!) something utterly priceless: moments, sights, sounds, smells and emotions etched in the memory banks for ever and shared both with the family and a community of fellow Spurs fans some of whom are now as close to family as can be.
As I'm sure it is for fans of any club, you find yourself identifying an actual or perceived uniqueness in the Club you follow and clinging on to it to justify why your club is special or more "this" or "that" than any other club.
Success or failure is post rationalised to fit around that narrative. Strangely this season and for the past few, I'm just enjoying the journey - on a path laid down by Pochettino towards a destination unknown.
The passion (Poch likes that word!) on the pitch seems to mirror the passion in the stands, those old stands which are slowly giving way to the new ones rising just yards away - there is a palpable sense of a club on the rise.
We all know that football is cyclical, it's a question of how long those cycles last and for Spurs it feels like the gradual improvement over the last few seasons still has some way to go.
What does it mean for this season? The game-is-about-glory-optimist in me says we might be capable of sustaining a challenge at the top for a large part of the season, but the realist says if we can, let's secure another year in the Champions League and take things from there. We should still make it out of the Group Stages of this season's Champions League, anything further will be a bonus.
As ever with Spurs the cups probably represent the most realistic chance of a trophy but we'll need to improve our record at the new Wembley for either or both of those to happen. Which brings me right back to grandpa. I'd like to think he was looking down with pride last week seeing his son, daughter, grandchildren and extended family all together back at Wembley knowing his love of sport in general and Spurs in particular has been so warmly embraced by his ever growing family.
Jonathan Adelman is a season-ticket holder at Spurs, and also co-manages North London Raiders B in the MGBSFL