Behind The Scenes At White Hart Lane
Soccerphile writer and lifelong Spurs supporter Andy Greeves recently went on a tour of Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart Lane home.
There is a certain magic about football grounds on non-matchday. The sight of an immaculately mowed pitch, the brightly coloured rows of empty seats and the eerie silence of a place that would usually radiate noise.
Even with no match on, there is still a feel of expectation in the air as your mind drifts to great games of the past or dreams of what fortunes may lie await for your team in the future.
I've often strolled past White Hart Lane, the home of my beloved Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, on a non-matchday, having lived just a few miles down the road until recently. Whether it's to make a trip to the club shop or pick up some tickets, the hairs stand on end more for me when I'm at this special venue with very few people around than on a matchday. If football grounds are, as many people describe them, a place of worship, then perhaps it can be considered my time of quiet reflection!
While I've glanced through the gates on days that Spurs aren't playing at White Hart Lane, I've never been inside the ground for anything other than matches. It's perhaps because I hold the old place in such high regard, that I've never wanted to shatter any illusions of it being anything other than a magical place on a non-matchday by going inside. However, I am about to boldly go where I have never been before!
With Spurs set to start construction of a new stadium slightly to the north of White Hart Lane inside the next few years, curiosity and the pull of history finally got the better of me.
I wanted to see inside the ground, before it is potentially bulldozed to the floor to make way for the new development project so I booked on a White Hart Lane Stadium Tour.
Waiting in the Spurs Megastore to be collected by the stadium tour guide, I had the same feelings of excitement and intrigue I had ahead of the first match I'd watched here in the early 1990s. There was something surreal about walking through the gates of the West Stand on Bill Nicholson Way and through its reception, as I'd seen it so many times before in print or on TV, but never walked it myself. It was somewhere new yet familiar all at the same time.
The hosts surprised me with their enthusiasm. Even though both were passionate Spurs fans, you would imagine that having led so many tours, they might not have the same vigour for their roles as on day one. How wrong I would be proved.
The tour started in the media area of the ground and specifically, the room where Andre Villas-Boas delivers his post-match press conferences. With a decent sized group - though not oversized either - in tow, children only were invited to have their photo taken in AVB's chair. Luckily, they accounted for big kids too, as I raced up for a shot of my own! It was then on to the Directors Box and another famous chair - that of chairman Daniel Levy with the best view in the whole of White Hart Lane - centred in the front row of the West Upper Tier.
Everywhere I turned, memories were thrust in front of me. Images of cup final victories, including the 1999 and 2008 League Cup Finals that I had been fortune to be at the old and new Wembley Stadiums respectively to see. Relics too - shirts worn in big matches, replicas of trophies won and all manner of weird and wonderful gifts picked up from Spurs' adventures in Europe. And time for the camera once again, as I had my picture with the replicas of the FA Cup and Football League Championship trophies that Tottenham famously won together in the glorious double-winning season of 1960-61.
Of course, the place most people on the tour wanted to go was the home team dressing room. Descending from Levy's chair back down to the ground floor, suddenly, there was the door to it which simply read 'TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR'. The tour guide told some funny stories about players' pre-match rituals and the difference in preparation for matches between past manager Harry Redknapp and current boss Andre Villas-Boas. It was that kind of insight alone that made the tour worth going on.
After some more photographs, the walk that every Spurs fan dreams of making - from the home team dressing room, out the tunnel and onto the pitch side. Of all the elements of the tour, this was my absolute favourite, as I was now deeply entrenched in a day-dream that I was leading out Spurs to face Arsenal in the North London derby!
To the right, AVB and the rest of the coaching staff's impressive, racing-car-esque, heated chairs and another vista of the hallowed playing surface. The guides kindly allowed people on the tour to spend a fair bit of time looking out at the ground, knowing what it would mean to them.
The time had flown. The tour was over and given that I felt like a kid that had visited Disneyland, Alton Towers and Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory all at the same time, suffice to say, the magic illusion I'd painted in my head of White Hart Lane behind the scenes really did exist!
In addition to classic Stadium Tours, Tottenham Hotspur also offer Legends Tours, giving fans the chance to experience the Lane with former club greats, Lunch Tours and VIP Tours, where groups are limited to just four people. Tour prices start from £20 for adults, £9 for children (U16s) and £11 for senior citizens (over 65s) with a discount for One Hotspur Members. To book or for more information visit tottenhamhotspur.com/stadium-tours or call +44 (0)844 0102.
© Andy Greeves & Soccerphile.com
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