Ledley King shows how White Hart Lane is literally part of Spurs’ new stadium

As we inch closer and closer to the opening of the (currently named) Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, we’re starting to get away from the macro and into the micro when it comes to how the new ground will look. The roof lift will happen momentarily, but the real interest is shifting to little details like the tiling details, various facades, and the concourses.

Tottenham has been very good about sharing update videos on social media and their website that keeps fans up to date as the stadium build has progressed, and today they had club ambassador and Spurs legend Ledley King inside the stadium to share a new detail about the concrete floors on the concourse that is sure to make Spurs fans smile.

Specifically, the club wasn’t very happy with the look of the concrete flooring, and to make it more interesting they added crushed aggregate to give it a more varied, coppery look. But it’s more than that, because the aggregate they used is made up of actual crushed parts of White Hart Lane that are now permanently embedded into the floor of the new stadium.

Tottenham Hotspur has a long and rich legacy, and one of the concerns that supporters had going into the process was that despite the new stadium sharing a footprint with White Hart Lane, the new ground wouldn’t have the same connection to history that WHL did.

We shouldn’t have worried. At every step of the way Spurs have bent over backwards to make this not only ring in the new, but also keep a direct connection to the Lane. That comes through through the little details like the repurposing of the Bill Nicholson gates and the bronze cockerels from atop the Lane, and to the re-interring of Nicholson’s ashes under the new stadium site.

And it continues here. It seems like such a small thing, but using pulverized bits of White Hart Lane visibly in the concourse floors not only makes the flooring more interesting, but also makes another visible connection for long-time fans between the old and the new.

This is stadium creation done right. It’ll also make me think twice before spilling my beer in the concourse the next time I’m at the new ground.