Why are spurs fans called Yids?

[BWFC1986]

As I have been following your forum for the past few days I have been wondering what YID stands for or means?

I may be being really ignorant and if I am I apologise but I have tried to google it and have seen many explainations.

As a result I thought I would one to the fans for my answer.

Thanks

[Londonspecial]

It is because Tottenham was historically a very Jewish area (although no longer), Yid being a slang term for someone Jewish, and there you have it.....Yids! That's my understanding anyway.

[Wotspur]

No problems mate and welcome to our Forum.
Tottenham has a large Jewish area, and we have predominately been under chairmen who have been Jewish. Yiddish is a dialect/language of the Jewish population.
In the late 70's and - 80's, we as fans, when we went to support our club away, especially to West Ham and Chelsea, and other clubs with large number of NF and other right wing fans, often encountered anti Semetic chants and Hissing - as in the gas chambers.
As a Non Jew, it didn't affect me as much as some, but we, the fans reclaimed the obsenities shouted at us and turned ourselves into The Yid Army - and twas our infamous hooligan element.
I'm sure others will elaboarate, with their reasons on why The Yids
Now please respond with why are you The Trotters ?? is it anything to do with your lady folk ?(TIC) I hope not !!

[TettenhallHotspur]

As suggested above Yid is a derogatory term for a Jew.
David Badiel (not a Spurs supporter) recently led a campaign for Spurs fans to stop using it on the basis that you can't stop people using it in a racist context if it's being used so freely by Spurs fans.

He was never going to win that one. Besides I think it's all about context and the intention of the individual using the word. There's a big difference between using it as a term of endearment for a player on your team and yelling 'f off Yiddo' at someone on the street.

[Jaggeh]

Yid comes from the German word Jude (YOO-d). Jude is German for Jew. English is a Germanic language. (My name is Jude )
Tottenham is well known to have had a large Jewish population. There's the connection.

In the English footballing world, yids are widely known name for spurs supporters.

The problem is that currently, Yid is considered a derogatory word for a Jew (according the the vocal minority). It may be a bastardisation of a Jewish word used as an insult or it may have been used casually, with no offence meant or taken once. Who knows? Languages evolve independently over time anyway but now globalization and the internet is speeding up the process.

Personally, I don't consider it offensive - but I'm not a Jew. However, out of respect for those that do take offence, I try not to use it.

[BWFC1986]

No problems mate and welcome to our Forum.
Tottenham has a large Jewish area, and we have predominately been under chairmen who have been Jewish. Yiddish is a dialect/language of the Jewish population.
In the late 70's and - 80's, we as fans, when we went to support our club away, especially to West Ham and Chelsea, and other clubs with large number of NF and other right wing fans, often encountered anti Semetic chants and Hissing - as in the gas chambers.
As a Non Jew, it didn't affect me as much as some, but we, the fans reclaimed the obsenities shouted at us and turned ourselves into The Yid Army - and twas our infamous hooligan element.
I'm sure others will elaboarate, with their reasons on why The Yids
Now please respond with why are you The Trotters ?? is it anything to do with your lady folk ?(TIC) I hope not !!

The story I have always been told is that back in the 1900's we played on a pitch that backed onto a pig farm. When players would clear the ball it would land in the pig pens and people would have to "trott" through the pens to get the ball.

Im not sure how true that is but it's the only explanation I have ever heard or been told.

[Rev John Ripsher]

We own the term Yid , as such if we own it then you cannot use it against us as a derogatory comment , cos that is what we call ourselves .

We along with many other clubs have a generous proportion of Jewish supporters , along with Arsenal , Chelsea , the Manchester clubs , Leeds , Ajax and many more .

Simples !

[BlueCrew LA]

This comes up from time to time.

Tottenham have for it's history had Jewish chairman and board members, but isn't exclusively Jewish, I think the Afro-Carribean community is larger. Tottenham and the area around N17 is diverse compared to other boroughs. The term Yid is a term of endearment that Spurs fans use, not necessarily an identification with any religion. The nickname comes from other supporters antisemitic abuse. The origin is two-fold, the Jewish ethnicities of some of the supportes and what being called "Yid" represented for some of them, which is classic antisemitism. Basically Jews represented a bottom social class which they looked down upon, to be called a Yid or even a Jew to the ignorant mind had negative connotations. There are a lot of origin stories but the one I like to believe and it fits is that Arsenal fans started calling us yids pre-WWII when they were the class of the First Division. To them we represented inferiority similar to how many in the country viewed Jews, hence calling us Yids. Instead of being offended by it we flipped it around, "Yeah we're yids, but a Yid Army".

[steventhfc]

You learn something new everyday @BWFC1986

[andyid1964]

andyid1964 < totally non religious, half english christian/half italinan catholic... 100% tottenham yid!

[Rivron]

And we should be eternally grateful to E. L. Sprylions, who of course wasn't Jewish.

[T.K. Massive]

If anyone ever wants to look deeper in to it, Ajax also has the same story as us, they are proud to call them selves as a Jewish club and rumour has it that Johan Cruyff would only allow Kosher food to be brought in to the dressing room on game days. Now thats a Yid for ya.

[Wotspur]

If anyone ever wants to look deeper in to it, Ajax also has the same story as us, they are proud to call them selves as a Jewish club and rumour has it that Johan Cruyff would only allow Kosher food to be brought in to the dressing room on game days. Now thats a Yid for ya.

Didn't know that, but on Sat, after the abandonment of the game, whilst walking back up the high road to 7 Sisters,I popped into "The Spurs Lodge" ? - the newish pub there, and there was graffitti in the toilet, "Ajax and Spurs brothers in arms" or similar, thought it a bit weird, but within 3 days, heres the answer - thanks

[T.K. Massive]

Didn't know that, but on Sat, after the abandonment of the game, whilst walking back up the high road to 7 Sisters,I popped into "The Spurs Lodge" ? - the newish pub there, and there was graffitti in the toilet, "Ajax and Spurs brothers in arms" or similar, thought it a bit weird, but within 3 days, heres the answer - thanks

no problem mate, it all stems from the war an deportation of the Jews from Amsterdam I just remembered as well. Rotterdam and other clubs would come to Ajax and start making anti semetic chants and gas chamber noises, to which the Ajax fans banded together through pride of their multicultural city and hit back. Youll even see stars of david at the Ajax games

[T.K. Massive]

Heres a the explanation from the wiki site

Historically, Ajax was popularly seen as having "Jewish roots", although not an official Jewish club like the city's nl: WV-HEDW Ajax has had a Jewish image since the 1930s when the home stadium was located next to the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam and opponents saw many supporters walking through this neighbourhood to get to the stadium.^[14] Ajax fans (few of whom are actually Jewish^[15]) responded by embracing Ajax's "Jewish" identity: calling themselves "super Jews", chanting "Jews, Jews" ("Joden, Joden") at games, and adopting Jewish symbols such as the Star of David and the Israeli flag.^[15][16] Some sources say that Ajax fans began doing this after seeing Tottenham Hotspur fans employing similar symbolism.^[17][18]
This Jewish imagery eventually became a central part of Ajax fans' culture.^[16] At one point ringtones of "Hava Nagila", a Hebrew folk song, could be downloaded from the club's official website.^[15] Beginning in the 1980s, fans of Ajax's rivals escalated their antisemitic rhetoric, chanting slogans like "Hamas, Hamas/Jews to the gas" ("Hamas, hamas, joden aan het gas"), hissing to imitate the flow of gas, giving Nazi salutes, etc.^[15][17] The eventual result was that many (genuinely) Jewish Ajax fans stopped going to games.^[15]
In the 2000s the club began trying to persuade fans to drop their Jewish image.^[17][19] This most notably happened in January 2005, when Ajax tried to stop their Jewish image, because of (rival club) Feyenoord's fans chanting anti-Semitic comments (translated from Dutch to English): "Ssssssssss… [the hissing sound of gas]. We're hunting the Jews! There is the Ajax train to Auschwitz! Sieg! Sieg! Sieg! German for 'victory', a quote from Hitler]."^[20]