North London Is Falling Apart

Spurs fans coming on here and acting big because they've won the League Cup. Boro won it too - does that make them a big club? I don't think winning a League Cup makes any club a big club. But what about not winning any Cup AT ALL since the 60s? I'm sorry but to all but your own fans you just aren't considered a big club. I remember seeing a poll on a West Ham forum where they were ranking clubs in order of size and a very large percentage of their fans felt that West Ham were bigger than Newcastle (with only a couple of poor deluded souls having West Ham above Tottenham). All had Tottenham in the top six and above Newcastle. I think the thing that puzzles all of us Spurs fans is why you Geordies dismiss Spurs as a small club while claiming Newcastle are a big club? The only thing this seems to be based on is the fact that SJP has a larger capacity than the inadequately sized WHL (which of course THFC are trying to address). Surely even the most diehard Geordie can see that statements such as Spurs not being able to fill even a 42,000 stadium are clearly not based on fact. Otherwise why on earth would our board of directors have spent £48 million buying up all of the property around the ground and commissioned architects to design a new 55K - 60K stadium? Personally I am reasonably confident that our board of directors are better placed than the Newcastle fans (or myself) to judge the level of capacity that would be optimum for Tottenham Hotspur. survey of 2,708 football fans... wow, that is supposed to back up an argument... 2,708??? Such a small sample does make the result rather questionable and looking at the list a few things stick out like a sore thumb. Firstly there is no way that Liverpool really do have more fans that Man Utd these days, or that we have more fans than Arsenal these days. Chelsea should also be a lot higher up the list. My guess is that the survey doesn't really include kids - as Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea have all taken a lot of young support due to their recent success. In saying that surely any type of independent survey has to be a better method than 'The Greatest Fans in The World TM' claiming that Newcastle are the biggest and best supported club in the World and that Tottenham are merely the 5th best supported in the South East of England. Also if you look at the entire top ten in that survey. You would have to say that those ten are what I think most would consider to be the ten clubs with the highest level of support in England (Leeds would probably also have made it had it not been Premiership only). So they have obviously got something right. Anyway I'll leave you lot to your insular looking Geordie World now. Good luck for the rest of your season (other than this weekend) and also in finding a decent buyer for your club (although to be honest the existing one probably hasn't done you too much harm seeing as he cleared over £100 million of debt that you were carrying).

Lots of strange, as well as uneducated and simply incorrect statements on this thread. I'll try to pick out and address those that are the most wide of the mark. Those that don't like long posts or hearing some facts that disagree with some of the opinions on here look away now They wont fill it. A League Cup win and some heavy spending has got them excited. When it comes to a few seasons of shite in a row, no champions league football, back to normality with no european football they will be plenty of empty seats. Have a look at our attendances compared to capacity over the last several years. You'll see that we have been practically 100% full in ever one and that is despite having the joint second highest prices in the country (and the highest for some of them before Arsenal moved). As far a few seasons of shite in a row and no Champions League football.... I would say we're the masters at that since the Premiership began with our constant midtable finishes (other than two 5th place finishes under Martin Jol - which is hardly a crack at the title now is it?) also seeing as we've never played Champions League football unfortunately it's not really something that we miss. Normality for Tottenham is a full stadium. I know you lot don't like that fact, but that's what it is - a fact. 21k waiting list lol It's 22,000 actually. And fans actually have to pay for a different type of membership to be on this waiting list so a good number of those fans actually do really want a season ticket. You probably do have a waiting list as your stadium is small but to come up with such a ludicrous number as that is frankly embarrassing See above. They had 13,000 on a waiting list last season, that was down to about 9,000 at the start of the season. These 9,000 have first option on match day seats, so that's 31,000 including their 22,000 season ticket holders, 2-3,000 away fans, leaving at least 2,000 general sale tickets. 18,000 on the waiting list last season actually - also 70,000 paying members. You really are rather poorly researched. Back to the point of the thread, i've just noticed the words "Naming Rights" emblazoned across the front of the stadium. Unless they're going down the Mackem route of giving their stadium a bizarre title then that obviously means they're going to bend over and get fucked in the arse for a couple of extra pennies from Sudafed/Waitrose/Preperation H. I'd be hugely fucked off it Fat Ash or anyone for that matter tried to sell the naming rights to SJPs Unfortunately it's part and parcel of paying for a new stadium these days. I wouldn't worry about it happening at SJP as the commercial value in naming an existing stadium is nothing like that of naming a new stadium. Names tend to stick so SJP will always be SJP just as WHL will always be WHL. But Arsenal's new stadium will probably now always be known as the Emirates - even when that deal runs out after the 15 years. They say with a degree of certainty they have the biggest fanbase outside the top four. I'd be astonished if it was anywhere near half of ours in Britain. I don't know one Tottenham fan who isn't from London, they'll level the same thing at us, but look at this board or Newcastle Online, maybe 20% of the people are actually from the toon, half of this board are foreign cunts. We have a fanbase far beyond the North East, which is why we take 6,000 to Wigan on Boxing Day without the blinking of an eye lid, or 6,000 to Fulham any time. They say they have the biggest fanbase outside the top four, that's admittance Chelsea have more fans than them, Chelsea don't have more proper fans than us, and the Chelsea I know wouldn't even contest that. This fact was established by research from a company that specialises in this sort of thing - sorry can't remember their name right now - I'll try to find out and get back to you on it, but it is the standard company that do this sort of thing for all of the clubs (and the people who's statistics are used when sponsorship deals etc are being negotiated). Of course there will be more Newcastle fans in London compared to Spurs fans in Newcastle - but that is simply because of the nature of the City of London where the population is made up of people from all over the country (including lots of Geordies) Newcastle is much more of an insular City where very few from the South East settle. If you go to a Spurs game up in other areas of the North though (say) Leeds or Sheffield or Liverpool then there are plenty of Spurs fans there with Northern accents. The statistics from the same company showed that Chelsea overtook Spurs for number of fans in the last two years.... I guess here you have to factor in the success factor meaning that a lot of kids from all over the country will just decide to support whichever team wins the league. The company who do all of the stats break it down further into those that show a passing interest, those that actually watch games, those that go to games at the stadium etc. As I said if this new ground is 42,000, there will be empty seats. If the new ground was 42,000 then there would be no empty seats for league games (other than perhaps tickets not sold in the away team allocation or the odd Season Ticket holder who doesn't show up). The new ground will be between 55,000 and 60,000 seats depending on what they can fit into the relatively small space in which the stadium has to be built. What on earth would be the point in spending big money to build a new ground with only another 6,000 seats? excuse me if i dont believe it and believe its utter bollocks. Arsenal are the traditional big club in London and have proved that with their attendances since they have moved, Even though the initial price of tickets were astronomical. You're way of Arsenals support IMO. Those that are on the season ticket waiting list have to PAY for the privilege of being on it. That is how the club have their figure of 22,000 (this is aside from the other 70,000 members who pay for membership but not the extra to be on the ST waiting list). Arsenal do indeed have huge support. Pre Wenger Spurs and Arsenal had a very similar level of support - with Spurs actually being the better supported club around the country - but Arsenal's support has really swelled since Wenger came in and brought them all the success, while Spurs' has remained reasonably static. When Arsenal moved from their similarly sized (38,000) stadium to The Emirates however they had a quoted number of 30,000 people on their season ticket waiting list (although these people didn't have to pay to be on that list). Arsenal are the ONLY big club in London, the same as we're the only big club in the North East. Face facts there are no big clubs in the North East. There a few in the North West, a few in London and perhaps one in the Midlands. Newcastle have a 52,000 capacity stadium (that you don't fill now it's been a few years since you had a little purple patch and made the Champions League) but many clubs are now looking at capacities in advance of this. In terms of trophies won even West Ham have a better record than Newcastle (unless we're going back pre-war). Have any of you lot even seen Newcastle win a trophy? How can a club be considered big with a trophy cabinet that was last touched practically back in Victorian times? This is is what I don't get. Their support don't really care about football. They're not fanatical about football. Anyone who knows anything about the game knows we had a great history for a long time. An awful lot more??? I don't recognise the League Cup as a major trophy, so by my reckoning we have 11 trophies to their 13, but that's offset by the fact they've only been champions of this country TWO times in their history. Yes TWO. Fucking Sunderland have treble their titles yet still they get mouthy So by your analogy Sunderland are a far bigger club than you? That's quite interesting to hear from a Newcastle fan. Also your four League titles were so long ago that they really are ancient history (even more so than ours) and were won back in the day when getting into the football league was via election and there was a huge Northern Club bias in terms of who was allowed to be in there. Spurs have won at least one trophy every decade since the fifties (and more than one in most of those decades) In that same time you've won what? One trophy? (or is it two? - apologies I haven't looked it up) and wasn't that last trophy won the 'Fairs Cup' that was an invite only competition for football clubs from Cities that held trade fairs? had 3 UEFA Cup Quarter Finals in 10 years, UEFA Cup Semi Finals (when it wasn't the mickey mouse competition for mickey mouse clubs it is today) UEFA Cup Quarter Finals? Haha - have you got that on your honours board? And UEFA Cup Semi Finals when it wasn't the mickey mouse competition?....... Erm suggest you have a look at our history matey seeing as we won it twice when it was that sort of competition and lost in the final on another occasion - not that I'd normally bring that up as any sort of "success" but when you're talking about getting into Semi finals it's getting stupid. We're an older club and played in the league a lot longer and the first ten averages were under 5,000 obviously dragging the all time average down. I think you'll find that THFC are actually 10 years older than Newcastle FC but why let facts get in the way of your argument. Newcastle fans in their hearts can say they've competed for league titles more than twice in the last 12 years, they can say they've qualified for the Champions League, we might never get back there again, but I don't think a club like Tottenham could get there and sustain it. Why? THFC already turns over more money than Newcastle and that's with a stadium that has only two thirds the capacity. With a larger stadium and the increase in finances that this would bring why could Spurs not get there and sustain it? Any one of around ten clubs could do so with the right infrastructure, manager and club set up - yourselves included. To try to get back to the whole new stadium thing. Let's assume that the capacity at the new stadium is set at 57,500 (bang in the middle of the range specified by the architects). Will we fill it week in week out? No, I very much doubt it - especially at the current pricing levels, in the existing financial climate and with the team marooned in the middle to bottom half of the table. But will we see an increase in average attendances overall? Yes I think that is pretty much guaranteed seeing as we average 99.8% of capacity at our current home and tickets for all but the really low interest games are hard to come by. My guess is that in a 57,500 capacity stadium, we would probably have an average league attendance of about 53,000 with about 46,000 - 48,000 being necessary to service the interest and repayments on the loan required to build it. Does that mean that we should downsize and build a 53,000 capacity stadium? Of course it doesn't. The new stadium is to be used for many, many years not just those in the immediate future.