The Things We Keep

I bought a guitar recently. 

I can’t play it, although I’d love to be able to. No, this particular guitar is going to hang on my office wall and just, well, be. It’s a very special Spurs guitar, you see.

There’s a whole story behind the guitar and I think it’s a good one. So good, in fact, that I made a short film all about it. You can see it here. You’ll discover that the guitar was played by ‘The Voice of Spurs’ James Black during the preseason tour in Sydney before being signed by the players. Many put their shirt number alongside their signature, so these are easily identifiable. Some didn’t, though, and mystery surrounds six of the squiggles. Do have a look and let me know if there are any you can decipher.

I founded this website to champion long form writing, so I really should have written the story of the guitar, but with the footage I had of the instrument entertaining the OzSpurs fans and the visual aspect of the signature mysteries, I decided to break the mould and head over to YouTube to tell the story. I hope you enjoy it.

The guitar has got me thinking about memorabilia. Up until now, my favourite piece of Spurs memorabilia had been my programme from the 9-0 victory over Bristol Rovers back in 1977. The reason it's so special is that it is signed by four goal debutant Colin Lee. As a kid I used to go and hang around White Hart Lane and see if I could see any of the players in the car park. I must have set out that day with the hope of meeting Lee because I recall having the programme with me and offering it to him in pursuit of an autograph. He hesitated, before looking at the front of the programme, realising what it was and signing it in the corner.

If the current day players had as elegant and legible autographs as Lee’s that day, I wouldn’t have spent the last few hours setting up the ‘guitar’ page on this website in order to solve the mystery of the squiggles.

I actually have a small sports bag from my childhood days that is full of Spurs programmes from that era and all my season ticket booklets. They used to vary the colour of the cover each year and each had the price written by hand inside the front cover. In 1975 a prime West Stand season ticket was £24. And that included FA Cup games.

I put those items into that old sports bag when I went to university in 1983. Since then it has travelled around with me from London to the New Forest and eventually to Sydney. I hardly ever look at them. One day I will shuffle off this mortal coil and my descendents will look at that bag and wonder what to do with it, before most likely putting it in a skip. Maybe I should leave some specific instructions that they are to be burnt and scattered with my ashes.

The Colin Lee programme hints at something I think is important about memorabilia. It matters if there is a personal connection. You can buy all sorts of items that have been signed by players, or that have historical significance. But it was me who handed Lee what was my programme from that memorable day. That item represents my personal history and its connection with the club.

And that is why the guitar is now my new favourite piece of memorabilia. 

I know a lot of Spurs fans think taking the team to Australia for preseason is a stupid idea. Some even say it’s why we had such a bad start to the season. They may have a point in footballing terms. But for those of us who support the club from further afield than anyone (apart from our Kiwi friends, who also received a visit this year) it was a rare treat.

Having James Black ‘The Voice of Spurs’ entertain us in our pub and at the stadiums was one of the highlights of the tour for me, rivalling eating oysters with Ledley and unknowingly meeting Viv Lewis. The very guitar used for those performances, signed by the squad, is once again an item that I have a close personal connection to.

Come to think of it, I should have kept the oyster shell.

This time I’m not going to leave the item in the cupboard, it's going to have pride of place on my office wall, together with pictures of James performing and the players doing the signing. It will remain there for the rest of my days. Now all I have to stress about is what I want to happen to it after I’m gone.

Now I'd like to hear about yours.

I'm going to put together The White Hart Review's Top Ten Spurs Memorabilia Stories — not necessarily the rarest or most valuable items, but the ones with the best stories behind them.

It could be a shirt, programme, ticket, photograph, autograph or something altogether stranger. It might be worth thousands of pounds or practically nothing. What matters is why it matters to you.

So far we have:

1. Signed Sydney Tour Guitar

2. Colin Lee signed Bristol Rovers 1977 Programme

3. ??

Send a photograph of your item and a few words telling its story to editor@whitehartreview.com

Andrew Pettifer is the author of two Spurs books "When the Final Whistle Blows; Glory, Grief and Tottenham Hotspur"  and the follow up "Two Tribes: Community, Big Tech and Tottenham Hotspur"