Tottenham Hotspur: Protest at the crossroads
“Welcome to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the world-famous home of the SPURS!”
These are the words of Paul Coyte that ring around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’s PA system before every single home game, sometimes accompanied by a light show, occasionally a pyrotechnic, but never without massive amounts of cheering as the players line up, ready to face each other.
Sunday was no different, as Spurs faced off against Manchester United in what BBC Sport’s Mark Scott labelled as the “Disappointment Derby.” Spurs won 1-0 thanks to an early goal from the returning James Maddison, marking Spurs first home league win for over three months.
The backdrop for this game, however, was something very different indeed. At 2:45PM, before the football took priority, Tottenham Hotspur fans from all over the world met and gathered on the corner of Lordship Lane and Tottenham High Road, N17, to try and start something new.
Daniel Levy
Daniel Levy is the longest serving chairman in the Premier League, lasting almost 25 years. He has overseen Tottenham Hotspur’s transition from relative mid-table mediocrity to financial powerhouses of both the English and European game. Spurs have jumped from 16th to 9th in the Deloitte Football Money League under Levy’s tenure.
As well as this, he has revolutionised Spurs as a brand with the building of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which offers unrivalled marketing opportunities for concerts with artists like Beyonce, Post Malone and Travis Scott, NFL games in their London series and even a karting track underneath in partnership with F1.
There is no doubt that, off the pitch, Spurs have been uniquely successful in infiltrating the established elite of English football and staying there, almost exclusively as part of an organic rise through smart business, opportunism and sheer willpower to make it work.
On the pitch, there has been relative success as well. Despite a clear lack of trophies, they have managed to finish no lower than eighth for the last 16 seasons, getting European football in all but two of those seasons, as well as making the Champions League regularly under Mauricio Pochettino.
Discontent
However, despite all this, there has been discontent within the Spurs fanbase, vocal discontent, for a long time. The lack of trophies is a common point of contention from Spurs fans, as well as a source of intense mockery from rival fans, and it has been for a number of years now.
The sacking of Jose Mourinho six days before facing Man City in a cup final when he was, at that point, the only manager to have beaten Pep Guardiola in a final is also a decision that seemed baffling, however it was at a time when the European Super League proposals, and Mourinho’s opposition to it thereof, had come to light.
The priority of off the pitch matters has led to some people labelling Spurs as a stadium with a football club attached to it, instead of the other way round as it should be.
There has also been frustration with Daniel Levy’s inability to separate himself from the football side of things. There is no doubt he is an expert businessman, with Sir Alex Ferguson once claiming that dealing with Levy was “more painful than his hip replacement.”
Protest
And so, as Spurs prepared to face Manchester United in the “Disappointment Derby”, these Levy Out sentiments reached a head as the Change For Tottenham-organised protest participants numbered in their thousands.
Walking past such household-known businesses like Sainsbury’s Local, Sports Direct and Jobcentre Plus, these people chanted in their droves things like “Support the team, not the regime” and the original “Daniel Levy, get out of our club.”
The media coverage of it was substantial, with both The Athletic and TNT Sports seen interviewing the organisers and the protesters. Videos posted to Spurs fan accounts online received hundreds of thousands of views as the volume of people who turned up shocked even the organisers.
The organisers, @ChangeForSpurs, released a statement after the protest on Instagram saying, “Everyone at Change for Tottenham are overwhelmed after today’s protest. This team has worked extremely hard all week to get this going and we couldn’t have done this without your tremendous support.”
Families with children showed up to the event and, barring some vocal minority chants about Sol Campbell, it remained fairly family friendly, and chants stuck to the topic about Daniel Levy and the perceived mismanagement of the club.
They marched all the way from their starting junction up to the outside of the stadium, a staggering 500m march that took several minutes and was watched by hundreds more that didn’t protest.
The message was clear from the Spurs fans. No amount of off the pitch success will make up for a lack of on the pitch success. They want a regime change, and they want it now. With whisperings of Qatari investment in the near future, that could come sooner than expected.
Will Spurs be better off without Levy and ENIC’s stewardship? Only time will tell. But one thing is for certain, the protest was loud and well attended enough to be heard, it remains to be seen if it was truly listened to.
