A Historian’s Guide to Spurs Starting Badly and Turning Out Fine

There’s a strange comfort in recognising a bad start, not because it feels good, not because

it feels manageable, but because after forty years of watching Spurs stumble, stagger,

misfire and misjudge their way through August and September, you begin to realise that this

isn’t new, and it isn’t unique, and it isn’t even particularly alarming - it’s just another entry

in a long historical pattern of Spurs starting badly and somehow ending up, in the broadest

possible sense of the word, ok.

And before anything else, the caveat matters. History is not prophecy. No two seasons are

the same. No two squads are the same. No two managers are the same. Just because Spurs

have recovered from bad starts before doesn’t mean they definitely will this time. That’s not

the point. The point is perspective — the historian’s instinct to look backwards not to

predict the future but to understand the present.

And when you look back, you realise how many times Spurs have begun a season in chaos,

in confusion, in ridicule, in apathy, in outright crisis, and still found a way to settle, stabilise

and finish somewhere between respectable and promising. The definition of “ok” has

changed over the decades - sixth used to be the bar, then fifth, then Champions League

contention - but the emotional rhythm is familiar. Spurs wobble early, Spurs find

themselves late.

1988/89 — One win in ten, bottom in November, finished sixth

Take 1988/89, which is always the season I go back to when people talk about “crisis starts”,

because that autumn was bleak and fortunately not surrounded by noise on social media,

24-hour rolling sports news and the other platforms that distort reality. One win in the first

ten games. Bottom of the table on the 5th of November. A team branded “moneybags” for

spending what, in 1988 terms, was an eye-watering amount: Gascoigne at £2m, Stewart at

£1.7m, Walsh, Fenwick, Mimms and Venables himself on a salary that became a

punchline. The money spent wasn’t just mentioned, it was weaponised.

And yet they finished sixth. Not spectacular. Not transformative. But ok. A season that

began in crisis ended in stability. And yes, the caveat matters: we don’t have anyone with

Gascoigne’s potential or Waddle’s star power waiting to ignite this season. But the

emotional pattern — the noise, the panic, the ridicule — is familiar. It’s not identical, but it

rhymes.

1992/93 — Apathy, churn, stasis… then promise

Or take 1992/93, which is one of those seasons that looks calm in hindsight but felt anything

but in real time. Three draws and two defeats in the opening five games. A deeply

underwhelming previous season still hanging over the club - relegation fears kept at arm’s

length but never fully banished, very few home wins, very little spark. That summer brought

huge squad turnover, and the first half of the season reflected that: more losses than wins,

performances that flickered but didn’t ignite, a team that looked like it was still trying to

remember its own name.

And then, almost quietly, things clicked. It took until February - and that’s important - but

once it kicked into life, it really kicked. Sheringham, Anderton and Barmby formed a

relationship nobody would have envisaged in the darkness of autumn 92. The football

sharpened and the mood lifted.

We finished eighth. Not spectacular. Not era-defining. But ok - and more than ok in the

context of where we’d been.

2008/09 — The iconic crisis start that launched an era

And then there’s 2008/09, the season most people instinctively reach for when they think

about dreadful Spurs starts. The emotional whiplash was extraordinary: the high of the 2008

League Cup win under Ramos, the turmoil of a summer where Berbatov and Keane were

reluctantly sold, the false hope of an unbeaten preseason and that intoxicating 5–0 win over

Roma.

Then reality hit. Two points from eight games. Bottom of the table. Gomes in tears at Stoke

after being physically battered from pillar to post. A team overwhelmed by the basic

demands of the league.

Ramos was sacked. Redknapp arrived. Within hours, we won our first game of the season.

Then came the cathartic 4–4 draw at Arsenal. But the recovery wasn’t immediate and this is

often forgotten - we were back in the bottom three around Christmas and into January. It

wasn’t until February that results stacked, performances stabilised, and the team pulled

away.

We finished just outside Europe. And then carried the momentum straight into 2009/10,

breaking the glass ceiling and qualifying for the Champions League.

A season that began in crisis ended in transformation.

2014/15 — The uneasy beginning of the Pochettino era

And then 2014/15, the first Pochettino season, which looks neat in hindsight but felt fragile

in real time. Two wins from two, a merited draw at Arsenal - but home defeats to West

Brom and Stoke, and batterings by Liverpool and Manchester City, told a different story. The

football looked disjointed, the squad unbalanced, and while we were never lower than

mid-table, the bar for “ok” was sixth, and we didn’t look like a sixth place team.

Pochettino has said many times that had we lost away at Aston Villa on the 2nd of

November, he might have been out of the job. That’s how precarious it felt.

And then the shift; Poch transformed the mood, the first XI and the feel of the squad. The

patterns and tempo emerged. Chelsea at home. Arsenal at home. A League Cup Final

appearance.

Fifth place. Objectively good. Emotionally transformative.

And yes, the caveat matters: we had Harry Kane emerging in his breakout season - a

generational talent, one of our own, the emotional accelerant for the entire project. But the

historian’s point remains: a shaky start didn’t preclude a strong finish, and the team we

thought we were watching in October wasn’t the team we ended up watching in May.

A false start is better than a false dawn

And it’s worth adding - because history isn’t just a catalogue of recoveries - that the

inverse happens too. Spurs have had their fair share of false dawns too. In 1999/2000 we

were top of the table for 24 hours at the end of August before embarking on one of the

most forgettable campaigns imaginable. In 2002/03 Teddy Sheringham’s stoppage time

penalty gave us an opening day win over Southampton, but mediocrity seeped in almost

immediately. And last season was the modern example: two wins from two, third by the end

of October, but anyone watching with their eyes rather than the league table could see the

structural issues and we all know how it panned out.

A false start is better than a false dawn. Because a false start can recover. A false dawn can

only fade.

History, and this article doesn’t promise safety, and it doesn’t guarantee recovery, but it

does offer perspective, and after four decades of watching Spurs wobble their way into

seasons that eventually settled into something resembling normality, I can say this much

with confidence: whatever this is, it isn’t unprecedented, it isn’t necessarily terminal,

and it isn’t the first time Spurs have looked lost in September and found themselves again

by May.

Gareth Dace is the author of "Hot Shot Tottenham" and "Is Gascoigne Going To Have a Crack?"