• Home
  • About Us
  • Recruitment
  • Contact Us
  • Gallery
  INDIA SPURS:
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Recruitment
  • Contact Us
  • Gallery

Hotspur Towers - Echoing with Glory

26/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
The next part of our celebration of White Hart Lane and the next part of our new stadium being prepared. We discover what the chairman thought about moving from The Lane in the sixties. Along with some great tales and images across the years.

The series which has run throughout the season was planned last summer, with minor revisions, is then prepared for publication about a month before you see it. This is the first in the series due to appear after the clubs own tribute. Hopefully they haven't used all the same great images and tales, especially as I've saved some of my personal favourites for these last couple.
Picture
Left - Arthur Rowe checks that Ron Burgess and Les Medley are happy with the new showers in 1950.

And below right - Arthur again this time in the Board room with the Directors.

When the idea was floated for Spurs and Arsenal to share a stadium in the Lee Valley in the mid sixties, Fred Wale the chairman said ‘we like our ground it was built for football it looks like a football ground it is a place to play and watch football.

Picture L-R, Arthur Rowe (manager) F.Wale, F.Bearman (chairman), W.Heryet and E.Dewhurst Hornsby.
We have got plans to spend more than a £100,000 on this ground. We are going to add more seats and erect a building in which schoolboys and youngsters can train.  A move from Tottenham would take a lot of thinking about I admit the idea of a twenty first century styled 100,000 seated stadium in the Lea Valley is very attractive.
It may solve some problems but also create many for instance our present stadium is a small island amid a sea of houses we could provide first class parking facilities at this suggested ground and also help ease the housing development problem in north London.

But what of the fans I don’t know what the reaction would be among the supporters if we decided to move our ground after all they also regard White Hart Lane as their home and a move might make them feel we were deserting them another problem of course is the atmosphere at a huge stadium a crowd of say 35,000 would be lost in the new  stadium but at White Hart Lane especially when  the lights  are on 25,000 can create a similar atmosphere to a 50,000 crowd.
Picture Re-turfing 1952
Nevertheless I certainly think there is a future for this type of amalgamation between two clubs,
I know AC Milan and Inter share the same ground with success A first team game every Saturday would be a grounds mans nightmare the pitch would certainly get chopped up and in addition there would be mid-week games played on it.

Anyway looking forward a few years this problem may be solved by synthetic pitches. All-weather synthetic grass is already common in the United States.
Picture
Willie Hall March 1938
Picture
Bill Nicholson and the new plastic sheeting on the pitch 1960
London Daily News, 5th September 1908, assessing the first games of the new season with Spurs now in the Football League, under the heading 'Possibilities at Tottenham.'
“The fact that, excluding Newcastle Tottenham Hotspur have to date collected the largest football crowd of the season reminds me of an old conviction that the Hotspur could command as big a ‘gate’ as Chelsea assuming they were in the first division and had the necessary accommodation at White Hart Lane. Even one of the Tottenham directors has disagreed with me on this point but my assertion is already half proved by Mondays experience, when there were more people to see the game with Wolves than attended Stamford Bridge. North London is an illimitable constituency for the game and if Hotspur fulfill the rosy promise of their first exhibition in the second division they will soon have to start extending the holding capacity of their ground. Their anxieties of the past summer during which they were threatened with banishment's from the first class game thus early been compensated for. They will have no cause to regret their migration from the Southern to the Football League."
Picture

Picture
Left - More building work but this is 1934 and the East Stand goes up while Alsford, Greenford and Michelles (?) warm up.

The press in 1899 reporting on the opening of the new ground that the local MP Colonel Bowles was to perform the ceremony of kicking off but at the last moment couldn’t attend. Chairman Charles Roberts stepped in. The crowd paid 115 pounds, eighteen shillings and three pence. Of which fifty eight pounds was paid to the visitors.

Picture
Next stop finds us in the seventies - right Cecil Poyton checks his watch in the ball court, 

Below left - The treatment room at the time.

Right - The home dressing room.

Picture
Picture
Concerned about ticket prices? This is about the reserves, in 1909 the club programme revealed ‘if these fixtures continue to receive the support to anything like the extent we shall feel that we have done the right thing in reducing the charge for admission to them from 6d to 4d. We know  that much depends upon the quality of the fare provided, but we think we have got together a set of reserves that can play football worth seeing.  Those who witnessed their displays against West Ham reserves and Hastings are of the same opinion.

There will be no Spurs ‘A’ team this year, but we are allowing the newly formed Tottenham Thursday FC to play their matches on our ground. We hear that the club has had any number of applications from players anxious to join.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Above left - The boys are fighting fit in 1938. While right Bill Brown and Cliff Jones a slightly more relaxed approach during the sixties.

COYS
Keith Harrison.
t- Keith 16024542
f - https://www.facebook.com/keith.harrison.9659
You can my full archive at -  View Full Bio




The previous featuring White Hart Lane -

The Hotspurs Ground, Percy Park, Champions Park, That Hallowed Turf, Under Fire, The Shelf, 
The White Harts Ground, Rowels Park, The High Street Ground,  Gilpin Park,  The Ring,
The Edmonton End,  The Marsh Lane End,  The East Side,  Hotspur Towers 58,  33,  16 and 5.
Hotspur Towers 50 - The Cockerel,   Hotspur 46 - Ground Sharing, The German Game,
Talking Tottenham - At The Lane,   White Hot Lane,
Come All Ye Faithful, Choirs of Angels.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Features

    Flying Down to Rio
    History of T.H.F.C.
    Tribute to Bill Nicholson
    Talking Tottenham
    Early Legends
    The Road to Turin
    International Connections
    Hotspur Towers

    Most Read Articles

    The 100 Year War
    Interview with Marina Sirtis

    A Long Dark Shadow
    By Royal Appointment
    School Report: An Insight into the Younger Eric Dier
    Dear Jimmy
    All Change At Spurs
    Hotspur Towers
    History Of THFC: Part 1

    Passage to India: Rohan Rickets
    Thanks For The Memories
    Our Tommy Carroll
    The AVB Files: Part1 
    The Lilywhites 
    You The Jury
    The Hand Of Hugo
    Connection - Argentina
    Creating a Reputation
    One Hotspur


    Archives

    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    Fanpost
    Interviews
    Keith Harrison
    Martin Cloake
    Match Preview
    News
    Nikhil Saglani
    Tactics
    Transfer
    Youth Team

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    View all titles
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Recruitment
  • Contact Us
  • Gallery