Spurs Schizophrenia

yiddo

Spurs Schizophrenia by Sean Morley

I have to confess that I haven’t renewed the season ticket yet. It might seem a bit of an odd reaction in a season when we won the Carling Cup and have played some very football. With our recent history you can’t complain about a season that have seen more goals in one season at White Hart Lane than will ever be witnessed in the goal scoring career highlights video of a certain Helder Postiga. You can’t really complain about a season where we have battered the goons, won a cup final against Chelsea and thrashed West Ham, and where John Terry has cried his eyes out on national TV. The potential shake up of the squad and the new signings with another whole new team to look forward to make it an interesting time. It will be interesting to see what Modric will bring to the party. He looks to be the first genuine creative and classy midfielder at the Lane since the days of Ginola.

At the same time however I am more and more struck by the schizophrenic nature of my support for Spurs within the context of the premiership and my relationship with the owners of the club. I am less and less convinced that it is still worth the effort, particularly in the coming days and months when a litre of petrol will cost as much as a season ticket at Wigan, who are just down the road from me. At a time when I will be asked to pay even more money to travel down to journey for days and days past the roadworks on the M1 that try to make Luton a desirable place to live (at least in comparison to living on the M1) and to watch the especial winner Ramos try to motivate his team to turn up and beat next years equivalent of Birmingham and to then face the journey back home again. On a bloody Sunday!! Bob Geldof should have written his songs after being forced to watch Spurs in a UEFA cup campaign season!

Such is the lot of 95% of football supporters. You spend your time travelling up and down the country only to be disappointed by the love of your life again…and again and again. And that is why we do it. Disappointment is what we can deal with. It’s what you expect. The pain and the misery simply affirm the reasons for supporting the club. It’s the hope that kills you. And that is my problem with Spurs.

Despite the reality of history. Despite the reality of the economics of football, I still sign on the dotted line when it comes to throwing good money after bad money time after time. I still harbour the hopes that Spurs are on the move. That there is hope. And at this time of year I always ask myself is it worth it?

Looking at it realistically, head over heart Spurs are not going to be winning the league any time soon. Is there really any point watching Spurs in the premiership. I mean really. if Spurs finish 5th, 10th or 15th, what’s the difference apart from a few million more or less for Enic?

We are probably due to challenge for the title sometime around 2020. Other than that, is there really any point? Unless of course you attend for things like the ‘atmosphere’ it’s a tradition, because it’s expected, your grandfather did it or the good football…

If realistically we have no hope in the league we are left only with the cups.
It is the joy of days like 24 February 2008 that make it all worthwhile. But over the last 20 years we have reached a cup final in 91,99, 02 and 08, or once every five years. The highest price I saw for a cup final ticket this year was £1750 on the black market. The average was more like £400. On current season ticket prices I could save myself something like £14,500 over a 5 year period on travel and tickets etc by not buying a season ticket and by looking to buy a cup final ticket on the open market instead. All I can say is that it is a good job the other half doesn’t read this!

And why is this relevant? Do you as Spurs supporters believe that this time next year we will be league title winners?

As we know, football is now really about money. Those with money succeed. Those without don’t. So unless Spurs have access to a lot more money than what we have seen so far, the status quo will remain as it is and as far as Spurs are concerned some things will never change. It is no coincidence that the 4 richest clubs or those able to stand the biggest debts finish in the top 4 places year on year.

In their last set of accounts, Chelsea owed £736m to all its creditors, the creditor being mainly being Uncle Roman. In comparison, Manchester United's accounts showed total creditors at £764m, mainly being the bank which funded the takeover. But United have their worldwide support to call upon. Both clubs pay out more in transfer fees and wages to their players than Spurs are ever capable of earning. Spurs on the other hand would not be able to carry the level of debt to be able to compete on equal terms.

At Spurs we are told that we get what we pay for and that by paying a little more, just that little bit more, just that teensy weensy itsy bitsy more we will be contenders. Proper contenders? Contenders that are not likely to finish more than 40 points behind the league champions? Or does that teensy weensy bit more mean our league season isn’t really over before the end of August.

In my view Derren Brown would be proud of the Spurs PR machine. In fact he should base his act solely on Spurs supporters. We’d all keep him in business for years and he could charge higher and higher prices as a bargain! This year the season ticket price is increasing by around 8%. In context that will probably work out to be around £1.5m extra to the club. In the background to this english teams will receive a minimum of £30m + from foreign TV rights, as a result of which Spurs should have an income of around £30m+ more than they have ever received before. So forget the £30m+, it is that extra £1.5m will make that little bit of difference to enable Spurs to compete. Compete where exactly? To finish in the top 4 maybe? Or the top 10? Finish within 20 points of the league champions for once maybe?

I suspect we are the most expensive team to watch that has never qualified for the Champions League. And so I ask myself, why do I do it? To be honest, the answer is that it gets harder and harder to know. Personally I will renew the season ticket. I am a football fan and the misery of supporting Spurs is as precious as the glory, But I begrudge paying more for the season ticket. Not because of the cost, but because the club believe that in doing so I am buying into their crap PR. I’d rather they were simply honest and said that the prices have gone up because the owner wants more money.

If you know your history, Spurs themselves are to blame for the current state of football and the situation we as Spurs fans are in. When Spurs joined the football league at the start of the last century, the league had in place rules to promote the sporting values of football within the community, and to discourage the open commercialism of the game which would lead to uncontrolled profiteering and ripping off the man in the street.

The popularity of the game of football had started as a reaction of working mens clubs and religious societies to the squalor of urban life and the grind of work. As a reflection of these origins, the early football league took the view that the clubs owners and directors were the custodians of a club and that they should be prevented from asset stripping or taking money out of a club for the sake of a profit.

The rules essentially were the dividends for a director from football should be limited to 5% of the value of the shares , that no director should receive any remuneration in respect of his office as a director above a certain basic level and that if a club was wound up, the surplus was to be paid to some other charitable or benevolent institution and not the directors themselves. This meant that for years there was little or no money in football, unless the directors were willing to engage in underhand activities.

In 1983 Spurs were the first club to try and get around the longstanding rules that had protected the open competition of English football until that point and meant that there was some meaningful competition for all clubs. That year saw the scrapping of the rules in respect of sharing gate receipts which meant the rich were able to keep more of their wealth and get even richer. Spurs were amongst the prime agitators for these changes, although those with the biggest stadiums like Man Utd benefited the most.

As significant however in the same year, Spurs set up a holding company, Tottenham Hotspur plc of which Tottenham Hotspur FC was a subsidiary which enabled the owners of the club to avoid the long-standing league rules in respect of the restrictions on football clubs and profiteering and opened the door to the rampant the commercialisation of the game. Strictly speaking the league should have come down on Spurs and possibly suspended the club from the league. However the league did absolutely nothing. Other clubs quickly followed suit and the result many years later is an unbalanced league which at the top level has little meaning for the same 88 of the 92 clubs year after year and every year it gets worse.

If you honestly think that by paying a bit more Spurs will be contenders for the title, how much more would you be willing to pay? By my reckoning, in light of the disparity in earnings between the top clubs you should probably be looking to pay about 5 times what you currently do- that should raise an extra £100m a season and would only cost you around £5k+ a year on average for the experience. Would that be worth it?

However if you are unhappy at the way modern football has gone and want someone to blame for the price of your current season ticket, or for the rampant commercialism of the premier league simply look in the mirror. You probably are one of those people who hold a share certificate in Tottenham Hotspur plc. Look where that got you!

http://www.topspurs.com/thfccol-seanmorley.htm