Somewhere sporty: White Hart Lane I should have been a Tottenham supporter, it's in my genes. Most of my relatives are hardened Spurs devotees, and they still gasp with horror whenever I mention my devotion to "the other" North London Club. But today it was my turn to grit my teeth, as I forced myself to visit their blue and white field of dreams on the Tottenham High Road. White Hart Lane is not, from the outside at least, a particularly glamorous stadium. From the front it looks like an 80s office development with brown tinted windows, from the rear it looks like a brick Victorian factory and from either side it looks like a particularly enormous carpet warehouse. Only the tubular roof adds any character.
Yesterday the pitch was silent (because the goalie was off playing for England) and the ring of sidestreets surrounding the stadium given over to more mundane residential activities. In Park Lane the café was serving up Caribbean treats to the good and faithful from the Cherubim & Seraphim Church. In Worcester Avenue several local lads were having a noisy kickabout on the sports centre's artificial pitches. And in Paxton Street a lone Spurs supporter was promenading his long-suffering girlfriend past the locked-up entrances to the North Stand, just because he could. Up front, however, a steady stream of white-shirted supporters could be seen entering, and exiting, the glass-fronted doors of the Spurs Shop. Tottenham FC is 125 years old this year and they're celebrating with, what else, a commemorative kit. The shirt's a rather odd half-and-half design, launched yesterday, and is already being snapped up in large numbers by the faithful, all keen to fork out £55 for the privilege of wearing a casino advert across their chest. Me, I found it all too easy to resist. by train: White Hart Lane by bus: 149, 259, 279, 349
I should have been a Tottenham supporter, it's in my genes. Most of my relatives are hardened Spurs devotees, and they still gasp with horror whenever I mention my devotion to "the other" North London Club. But today it was my turn to grit my teeth, as I forced myself to visit their blue and white field of dreams on the Tottenham High Road. White Hart Lane is not, from the outside at least, a particularly glamorous stadium. From the front it looks like an 80s office development with brown tinted windows, from the rear it looks like a brick Victorian factory and from either side it looks like a particularly enormous carpet warehouse. Only the tubular roof adds any character.
Yesterday the pitch was silent (because the goalie was off playing for England) and the ring of sidestreets surrounding the stadium given over to more mundane residential activities. In Park Lane the café was serving up Caribbean treats to the good and faithful from the Cherubim & Seraphim Church. In Worcester Avenue several local lads were having a noisy kickabout on the sports centre's artificial pitches. And in Paxton Street a lone Spurs supporter was promenading his long-suffering girlfriend past the locked-up entrances to the North Stand, just because he could. Up front, however, a steady stream of white-shirted supporters could be seen entering, and exiting, the glass-fronted doors of the Spurs Shop. Tottenham FC is 125 years old this year and they're celebrating with, what else, a commemorative kit. The shirt's a rather odd half-and-half design, launched yesterday, and is already being snapped up in large numbers by the faithful, all keen to fork out £55 for the privilege of wearing a casino advert across their chest. Me, I found it all too easy to resist.
