(Kicker magazine, Monday 08 April 2019)
For some it's been 18 months in the waiting, or for others 18 years in the making.
But patience has finally paid off for Tottenham Hotspur fans after English club football's second largest stadium finally opened for business.
Heung-min Son went down in history as the first man to score a goal in an official game at the North London side's £1billion new ground on the footprint of their old White Hart Lane stadium, almost 120 years after the old venue was opened and two years after it was demolished.
Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen added a late second on Wednesday night as Spurs marked their homecoming with a 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace, ending a five-match run without a win and ahead of Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final first leg against Manchester City.
For all its stunning appearance and stirring unveiling, the new stadium has come late and at quite a cost.
Wednesday's grand opening began with mock-operatic singing on the field, as well as a marching band, before a burst of fireworks above the north London skyline - as well as a roar of relief fromfans who have spent almost two seasons exiled at Wembley.
Yet years of delays may well have done Spurs and their supporters plenty of favours - at least in learning lessons of local rivals' new-build hitches.
Arch enemies Arsenal moved into their 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium in 2006, the year before the FA opened the redeveloped Wembley national stadium. Both have been criticised as soulless barns.
West Ham United's move into the London 2012 Olympic Stadium left fans complaining about their distance from the pitch, thanks to the original running track.
By comparison, Spurs' new 17,500-capacity single-tier South Stand approaches as close as 4.9 metres from the goalposts.
There certainly seemed a mighty racket on Wednesday night, from early choruses in praise of England attacking midfielder Dele Alli onwards - just as there had been in two earlier "test events". One saw 28,987 watching the club's Under-18s beat their Southampton counterparts 3:1 then 41,244 turned out for a Spurs "Legends" game against Internazionale old boys with former favourites such as Jurgen Klinsmann, David Ginola and Paul Gascoigne.
Even with the club encouraging people to turn up early on Wednesday, and much-touted bar and restaurant options aimed at keeping people inside the ground rather than neighbouring venues, there were reports of lengthy queues and also beer pumps running dry.
There were also the inevitable queues after the game outside Tube and railway stations, which have received only limited upgrades so far despite wrangling between the club and local authority Transport for London.
Yet most people seemed to come away with beaming faces, perhaps a little bemused where to go in surroundings both familiar and unfamiliar, the new stadium looming like a spaceship above a high road haunted by memories of riots in summer 2011.
Tottenham’s current owners ENIC took over the club in 2001 and, in 2008, unveiled plans in 2008 for the Northumberland Park Project – named after a neighbouring green space and overground railway station. Yet it was years before local council permissions could be obtained and work could start.
Tottenham spent their last season at the old White Hart Lane with one corner of the ground, on the north-eastern corner, open to the elements as builders worked on the new development.
They did at least finish second in the Premier League that year and see out their last season ‘at the Lane’ unbeaten in 19 home games, with fans invading the pitch as soon as the final whistle blew in their valedictory 2-1 victory over Manchester United.
Yet hopes of starting 2018-2019 back in Tottenham were denied, and not only after initially warning fans their first ‘home’ game against newly-promoted Fulham would be at Wembley but a September 2018 clash with Liverpool would be the proper homecoming.
Instead they have been confirming Wembley games in a piecemeal way, with delays blamed on problems with electrical alarm systems in the new venue.
Tottenham started the season with posters across the London Underground public transport network showing off artists’ impressions of the new stadium and dubbing it ‘The only place to watch Champions League football in London’ - a dig at capital neighbours Arsenal and Chelsea, both consigned to the Europa League.
Yet they risked mockery when losing their first three Champions League games, only to squeak through with a 1-1 draw in Barcelona, before beating Borussia Dortmund 4-0 on aggregate in the second round to set up a quarter-final against Manchester City.
UEFA granted special dispensation for Spurs to switch stadia mid-competition and the ground is likely to be packed for next Tuesday’s first leg versus Pep Guardiola’s team,
The price-tag has also soared in recent years, from a mooted £400million to what Levy accepted this week was closer to £1billion - and so far without a naming rights commercial deal, even though kit sponsors Nike are widely expected to step in after agreeing a £30million-a-year, 15-year kit agreement last autumn.
The new stadium, for all the hefty repayments ahead for a club who failed to sign a single player in the last two transfer windows, is expected to double Tottenham’s matchday income from just over £45million to £100million.
Their annual revenue, £380million last year, puts them sixth in the Premier League rankings, suggesting what an impressive job youth-encouraging manager Mauricio Pochettino has done to ensure three consecutive top-four finishes with the prospect of even better ahead.
But Levy - renowned for striking hard bargains over transfer fees, whether incoming or outgoing, would surely feel embarrassed and disappointed if recent poor form continues and sees Spurs begin their new era not in the Champions League again but the Europa League - while also facing flak from fans who believe he should have better invested in players as well as infrastructure.
The morale boost of the new stadium could not be better-timed for a Spurs side whose recent form is the worst since Pochettino took charge in 2014.
They went into the Palace match on the back of four defeats in their last six games and just one point from the previous 15 available, having lost 2-1 to Liverpool on Sunday after a last-minute Hugo Lloris error and Toby Alderweireld own goal.
Pochettino - linked with vacancies at Manchester United and Real Madrid before both clubs recently opted for alternative appointments - described Wednesday night's Palace victory as an occasion he would "remember all my life".
In advance he had declared: "We are going to play in the best stadium in the world and everyone deserves for us to be at our best and compete and win."
Yet he has also challenged the club to follow up investment in their infrastructure with investment in the playing squad - so that this "World Cup" of a new stadium will have trophies to store and show off some time soon as well.
Tottenham have not lifted silverware, after all, since beating Chelsea in the League Cup final in 2008. The new stadium needs to be filled with cheers, not jeers.
WHITE HART LANE
Opened: September 1899
Demolished: May 2017
Capacity: 36,284
Cost: £100,050
Most expensive season ticket, 2016-2017: £1,895
Cheapest season ticket, 2016-2017: £765
First match: Tottenham Hotspur 4 Notts County 1, September 4 1899
First goalscorer: Tommy McCairns, Notts County, September 4 1899
First league match: Tottenham Hotspur 1 Queens Park Rangers 0, September 9 1899
First league goalscorer: Tom Smith, Tottenham Hotspur, September 9 1899
Final match: Tottenham Hotspur 2 Manchester United 1, May 14 2017
Record attendance: 75,038, Tottenham Hotspur vs Sunderland, March 5 1938
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM
Opened: 2019
Capacity: 62,062
Cost: £1billion
Most expensive adult season ticket, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020: £2,200
Cheapest adult season ticket, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020: £795
First match: Tottenham U-18s 3 Southampton U-18s 1, March 24 2019
First goalscorer: J’Neil Bennett, Tottenham U-18s, March 24 2019
First league match: Tottenham Hotspur 2 Crystal Palace 0, April 3 2019
First league goalscorer: Heung-min Son, Tottenham Hotspur, April 3 2019
Features:
17,500-seat single-tier stand, the largest in Britain
65m-long Goal Line bar, the longest in Europe
23,000sq ft retail store – the largest football club shop in Europe
60 food and drink outlets
32 lifts
4,155 steps
7 escalators
1,800 HD TV screens
35,000 decorative tiles
30,000 tins of paint used
1,000 general admission turnstiles
324 floodlights
4,801 panels on the stadium ‘veil’
287 glass sections forming the roof
7,217 tonnes of steel in the single-tier South Stand
4.9m between South Stand’s front row and the pitch
ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Most expensive season ticket, 2018-2019: Tottenham Hotspur, £2,200
Cheapest season ticket, 2018-2019: Huddersfield Town, £249
Other clubs’ most expensive season tickets: Arsenal, £1,768; Chelsea, £1,250; West Ham United, £1,155; Fulham, £1,149; Leicester City, £1,065; Bournemouth, £950; Manchester United, £950; Manchester City, £940; Liverpool. £869
Largest stadium capacity: Manchester United’s Old Trafford, 74,994
Smallest stadium capacity: Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium, 11,000
No comments:
Post a Comment