A Quick History Lesson

[subtle spur]

I'm sure this has been here before but i saw someone asking about it in another thread,so for the youngsters and those that don't know,this is why we hate the scum.

Henry Norris was a west London estate agent who dreamed of challenging the dominance of Northern and midlands clubs in the English League early in the last century. Norris, who later became mayor of Fulham, a Conservative member of parliament and earned a knighthood as well as a lifetime ban from soccer, believed that if he merged ailing Woolwich Arsenal of south London with Fulham in west London his dream of a London super-club could take shape. But the League blocked his proposals, so he cut his ties with Fulham, gambled all on Arsenal and moved them across the River Thames and north to the wide open spaces of Highbury. The only trouble with this plan was that the new stadium was close to the established homes of Tottenham three miles (five kms) north and Clapton (later Leyton) Orient, two miles east.
Despite Spurs and Orient's protests, the League was powerless to prevent the move and in 1913 the North London rivalry between Arsenal-Spurs began. If Tottenham were upset about Arsenal moving on to their doorstep, they had even more reason to be angry six years later, for Sir Henry wasn't finished with Spurs.

In 1915, when soccer ended because of World War One, Chelsea and Spurs had finished bottom of the first division and Arsenal were sixth in division two. The League planned to expand the first division by two clubs and precedent dictated that the two bottom clubs would stay up and the top two in the second division would join them. Sir Henry had other ideas. To this day the details of exactly what occurred at the league's meeting in March 1919 remains a mystery, but by the end of the day, Arsenal had been voted into the first division and Spurs voted out. Arsenal have never been out of the top flight since.

Spurs embarked on a tour of South America (Argentina & Uraguay) in 1909. The boat journey either way to Argentina was fairly long. One of the distractions provided for the passengers on the way home was a fancy dress competition. It was actually won by two of the Spurs' players dressed as Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday. The ship had a parrot and they had borrowed it as one of their props. As a result the parrot was presented to the club (or the two players) by the ship's captain. And yes it is claimed that the bird died on the day the dirty deed took place in 1919 which saw Arsenal replace Spurs in the first division

It has been suggested in some quarters that this was the origin of the phrase "as sick as a parrot"! .....Add Parrot murderers to their list of crimes

The Gooner scum also managed to get Gillespie Road station renamed to Arsen*l station by some dodgy dealings with London Transport and the local council. A wrong that should have been righted when they move to their converted rubbish dump at Ashburton Grove.

Sir Henry got his come-uppance. In 1929 the FA banned him from soccer because he constantly flouted their rules and was also suspected of making illegal payments to players. A year after he was banned, Arsenal won the FA Cup for the first time and in 1931 became the first London side to win the Championship.

Tottenham, meanwhile, spent most of the 1930s in the second division -- our glory days still in the future.

So you see the scum never earned their place in the top division which is why clubs like wigan,stoke,wba,burnley and every other team that has played in the top division of English football can look down on the scum with a sneer of distaste on their face.

[basskadet]

To those who don't know, there is a full Spurs history on this website that explains much more in detail.

We have some of the most extensive & accurate Spurs history pages on the internet:

The Early years

Full history in brief

Random Spurs Facts

[P UNIT 1980]

This is wonderfull imo and I'd love to get the PDF of it.

A Romance of Football - The History of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.

[basskadet]

This is wonderfull imo and I'd love to get the PDF of it.

A Romance of Football - The History of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.

Yeah, cheers for that link Unit.

When the history pages for this site were being done I looked all over the internet for a proper Spurs history. Very few went into much detail (many were just copied) & so many contradicted each other or got facts plain wrong.

I wanted to do something properly so I got in touch with Andy, Tottenham's official historian, & he was great & helped us out loads, making sure that all our content was as near to the truth as possible. Whilst the site's history isn't 'official', its as good as.

However, if I had found this site that you've posted it would've been great. It a little bit old fashioned in the way it's written but that adds to its charm. I actually found some of the stuff taken from this old article in another Spurs publication & I used bits of it but it is great to see it in its original guise.

[theZer0v]

As someone who is not familiar with all of Tottenham's history... Thanks! Makes for some good reading to pass the time at work.

[P UNIT 1980]

Yeah, cheers for that link Unit.

When the history pages for this site were being done I looked all over the internet for a proper Spurs history. Very few went into much detail (many were just copied) & so many contradicted each other or got facts plain wrong.

I wanted to do something properly so I got in touch with Andy, Tottenham's official historian, & he was great & helped us out loads, making sure that all our content was as near to the truth as possible. Whilst the site's history isn't 'official', its as good as.

However, if I had found this site that you've posted it would've been great. It a little bit old fashioned in the way it's written but that adds to its charm. I actually found some of the stuff taken from this old article in another Spurs publication & I used bits of it but it is great to see it in its original guise.

Mate the streetlamp bit chokes me up!!!

Proppa history of the conception of our great club.

What a phenomenal book that would be to own.