A Lifetime Passion, Part 1

Editor’s note: John Ellis truly is a superfan (my word, not his). In this first of two parts we discover how his passion was ignited and what travelling home and away was like in the 1970s.

As a young boy in the 1960’s from the provincial City of Lincoln some 148 miles away, the name Tottenham Hotspur and  White Hart Lane sounded light years away, in the glitz and glamour of London.

With my mother saying their star player Jimmy Greaves had a resemblance to James Bond (Sean Connery at the time), could the club be any more alluring to an impressionable boy of just six years old?!

A year later in 1967 they won the FA Cup with the only disappointment being my hero Jimmy Greaves not being on the score sheet.

The first professional football match I went to was as an eight year old. It was a League Cup tie. My home club from the fourth tier of English football Lincoln City beat Torquay United from the third tier 4-2 in front of 13,532 fans under the Sincil Bank floodlights. It was 11th October 1967. 

This was followed by going to a 4th round replay which ended in a 0-3 home defeat on 15th November, against Derby County in front of what is still to this day a record crowd of 23,196 for Sincil Bank.

My first Spurs game was to come some 16 months later on Saturday, 8th March 1969 at home to Everton. Joe Royle gave the visitors a late first half lead before Roger Morgan rescued Spurs with an 86th minute equaliser. I went home a very tired but very happy nine year old boy.

I sat high up in the East Upper Stand and can still remember being in awe of the size and scale of White Hart Lane. 44,882 attended that day. Outside the ground before the game I vividly remember seeing the large Tottenham Hotspur sign at the top of the staircase leading to the West Stand. It made an enormous impression on me.

During these formative years, my favourite player actually played for West Ham United! Imagine my delight in March 1970 when the 9 o’clock headlines announced Spurs had signed Martin Peters for a record fee of £200,000 with Jimmy Greaves sadly departing in the opposite direction.

On Good Friday 27th March 1970, Peters made his debut in a 1-2 defeat at home to Coventry. It mattered not to me, I was there to see Martin score on his debut for Tottenham Hotspur!

My first away game was at Nottingham Forest when Spurs won 1-0 with my idol Martin Peters scoring the winner.

On 12th October 1974 I went to my first Spurs game without a parent. As a 15 year old boy I travelled down on the train from Lincoln. It was a 1-0 away defeat at Stamford Bridge through a John Hollins penalty.

Whilst waiting for a friend to arrive at Paddington station, imagine my shock at seeing Bobby Moore walking across the station!

A week later I travelled back down to see a bottom six North London derby at White Hart Lane which Spurs won 2-0 through goals by Steve Perryman and Martin Chivers.

From thereon paper rounds and other schoolboy jobs enabled me to travel up and down the country watching Tottenham. It was to turn into a lifetime passion. More than 50 years later and now living in Nottinghamshire I still travel to almost every game and managed all 60 matches in our 24/25 Europa League winning season.

In those heady early days, it was such an adventure for me to be catching trains to cities across the country. It was all I lived for during my school week. As I was so young, at 15 years of age and, concerned about my safety, my parents would try to stop me going but I would sneak out of the house in the early hours to make my way to the train station.

I quickly learned the various routes from Kings Cross to White Hart Lane. Sometimes  rather than take the Victoria Line to Seven Sisters, I would take the 259 or 279 bus from Kings Cross directly to White Hart Lane.

White Hart Lane was without doubt my spiritual home, as is the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

In the 70’s travelling to matches by public transport was fraught with danger. Football violence was high risk at every mainline station across London. Every underground journey to away games across London ran the risk of an ambush by fans of other London teams. 

Even being on an inter-city train was dangerous if fans of other teams were on the train.

The standard question was to ask the time to learn the accent of someone suspected of being a fan of the opposition. My East Midlands accent saved me from a beating on so many occasions! 

I was always undeterred though. By hook or by crook, if Spurs were playing I had to be there!

In those days, tickets weren’t needed for the terraces. Fans would queue on the day of the game and pay cash over the turnstiles. Queue was a bit of a euphemism! It was a scrambled crush akin to trying to get on the school bus after school!

The whole atmosphere inside the ground was much more barbarian than in today’s sanitised stadiums. Fans would sway and fall down the terraces many steps. I even broke my foot when Hoddle scored in Ardiles and Villa’s home debut!

White Hart Lane had peanut sellers in long white coats wandering through the terraces. The Shelf was chaotic and crazy. The stand beneath our feet would often move but still we bounced about with beers flying everywhere.

It was such an adrenaline rush!

Much like today, in the mid 70’s Spurs were a struggling side, but it mattered not a jot.

We were there, cheering our team on, even when 8-2 down at Derby County!

"We are the Spurs," still rang out at the old Baseball Ground. And nobody booed at the end. Things were different then. 

They were great times with great lifelong friendships made!

John Ellis is the author of El Gringos Once in a Lifetime - capturing his hilarious exploits at the Brazil 2014 World Cup.