White Hart Lane, Northumberland Development Project or The Under Armour Stadium, whatever the new stadium brings, it has to bring back the THFC Match Day Experience.
A few years ago, we played most of our home games at 3pm on Saturday’s with “White’s” opening around noon for Spurs Season Ticket Holders. Why is this important?!
Simply put, it enhanced our Match Day Experience at the Lane. Friends and family would meet outside the Spurs Shop at 11:30am, spend 15-20 minutes having a look around the store and spending a few quid on purchasing the odd gift or souvenir for our young kids and it was an opportunity to purchase a match day programme and place it in a nice THFC carrier bag, keeping it in pristine condition for our collection.
Looking at the issue more deeply, White’s provided us a venue to gather, sit down, eat a nice pie or snack and purchase a few drinks. Let’s not forget, the profits went to THFC not some chap on the High Road who has no allegiance to the club but only to his bank account. Kids, could sit down, read their programme, watch the 12:30pm match and play on their electronic devices. Parents could chill out, have a snack and enjoy a chat with friends and family. As soon as the early match finished, we would walk to our seats, catch the players warming up and back in them days, they were more than happy to sign autographs. Sing a few songs, a quick glance of the match programme and it was time for the roar of the THFC faithful that inevitably followed the ref’s whistle to start the match. We even had time to send the odd text around the stadium to comment about the starting line-up and enjoy the text banter with rival fans prior to the game.
Post match, the two-hour horrendous journey home was all worth it. Digesting the result, we would chat about our match and the other scores, the fact that we were there, at the Lane, what an honour. Left home at 10am and back around 7pm, the Match Day Experience was absolutely worth it. It was worth the pain of the defeats, the immoral hardship of having to pay double the price to sit our seven year old children in the East Stand and being hoarded like animals within the inept public transport systems.
Nowadays, you don’t need me to tell you how infrequent we play our home games at 3pm on a Saturday. Where is there to gather prior to the match? The Match Day Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ) has made driving all but impossible which has caused the public transport systems to meltdown. I still say, 36,000 of us have difficulties travelling to and from the games, can you imagine what 56,000 will have to go through?! We desperately need Northumberland Park to be put Underground Network but this is another topic for another day.
My conclusion: The Match Day Experience today is not as rewarding, not as much fun and therefore, not as good as the Match Day Experience 5-10 years ago.
I’m interested to hear your views and opinions so please feel free to get in touch by leaving a comment below.
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