What White Hart Lane means to me

As part of Cartilage Free Captain’s commemoration of the final match at White Hart Lane, we are collecting and posting memories and stories from the Cartilage Free Captain community about the Lane and what it means to us.

We want your stories as well. Post your memories and stories either on the site as a FanPost, or email them to cartilagefree@gmail.com. They don’t have to be long. They just have to be real.

‪My mom died on a Wednesday. I went to White Hart Lane with my dad that Sunday. ‬

A few people told my dad it was inappropriate, that we should be mourning instead of watching football. My dad politely told them that they were welcome to shove it.

I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do when a family member dies. Sit around and feel miserable? I just wanted things to feel normal, even if it was only for a few hours. So we went to Spurs, something we’d done hundreds of times before. Nobody there knew what we were going through, and frankly nobody cared. There were no knowing glances, no “how are you doings?” We all just wanted to yell and scream and lose our minds for two hours. There’s honestly no place in the entire world I would have rather been in that moment than at White Hart Lane.

I’ve never been particularly close with my dad, but when I was in school we had season tickets in the North Lower. The only time we really spent together was at games. We’d fight during the week, but come Saturday at 3pm nothing else mattered. Spurs were mostly pretty crap during that time, but it didn’t really matter. It was our thing.

When I went away to college in the U.S., he kept both tickets, just so we could sit together for the two or three games a year when I was back in London.

I love this team an obscene amount. I’ve stood on the subway platform multiple times and just drifted off, thinking about everything they could achieve and I’ve had to take a deep breath to stop from getting choked up. I know the new stadium is a big part of those dreams, but that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to the Lane.

I’m really excited about the new ground and everything that comes with it: the increased revenue, the idea of being able to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the big boys, the possibility of Harry Kane wearing a Spurs shirt for his entire career. It is a 100 percent necessary step that I wasn’t sure we would ever take, and I can’t wait to reap the rewards.

I know White Hart Lane is just a building. It was home to some pretty bad moments (I witnessed a Goran Bunjevčević-Stephen Clemence midfield partnership there) that I won’t mind forgetting and the future is extremely bright. But I know I’m going to be an absolute wreck come Sunday afternoon.