The Gravity of Football: Why Spurs Shouldn’t Be This Bad

I walked out of the stadium after the 2–0 defeat to Newcastle with that familiar cocktail of frustration, resignation and quiet disbelief swirling around - the kind of feeling that doesn’t need analysis because it’s become so routine your body recognises it before your brain does. It’s the sort of mood where you don’t even bother checking the other scores because you already know they’ll make you feel worse. No need to look up when Match of the Day is on. And as I made the long walk back up to my car in Edmonton - that slow, trudge listening to others thinking out loud that gives you just enough time to think but not enough time to feel better - I found myself circling a simple question: how often should I actually expect Spurs to win or lose?

Not in the moment. Not in the heat of the latest collapse. But across the full sweep of my supporting life, which for me was the start of the 1988/89 season. To find out, I spent Sunday trawling through and analysing historical data about club’s league performances over a sustained period of time.

Because here’s the thing: unless you choose a club based purely on guaranteed success, and most of us don’t, you are overwhelmingly likely to support a team that wins one in three games. That’s the gravitational centre of English football. It doesn’t matter whether you’re following a stable one‑division club like Preston or Everton, or a perennial chaos club like Norwich, Watford or West Ham, or a even lower‑league churn club like Exeter or Blackpool. The long‑term numbers are astonishingly consistent.

Across the 18 clubs that I looked into, from 1988 to today, the emotional equilibrium looks like this: Win: 33–38%, Draw: 25–30%, Lose: 33–39%.

That’s the baseline and gravitational pull. A significant majority of fans experience as many wins as losses. An equal number of Saturday evenings looking out for Match of the Day or highlights packages and as many avoiding wearing club colours at school or work on Monday mornings.

It’s the rhythm of football fandom.

And for Spurs fans, here’s where things get interesting.

When I recalculated Spurs’ results across my lifetime - 1988 to today - I discovered something that surprised me. Something that actually contradicts the emotional narrative I’ve carried for years.

Spurs in my lifetime have won 42.5% of their games.

That’s not elite. Not Arsenal sadly (55%), not Liverpool (53%), not Sheikh Mansour‑era City (an incredible 65%) but it’s above average. Above Everton (35.6%). Above Aston Villa (36.8%). Above Newcastle (39%). Above almost every club outside the traditional elite.

And, crucially, that 42.5% isn’t an anomaly. It’s consistent with Spurs’ historical eras:

·       Pre‑1988 (1908–1988): 42.3% wins

·       My first four seasons (1988–1992): 42.1% wins

·       The 90s: 35.5% wins (the one era that dipped below gravity)

·       Bill Nicholson era (1959–1973): 47.8% wins

·       Golden Poch Era (2014–2019): 58.9% wins

·       New Stadium Era (2019–today): 42.9% wins

Across 4,000+ games of history, Spurs have been a club that wins two games in five,

loses one in three and sits comfortably above the gravitational centre.

In other words: Spurs have been a good football team. Not a great one. Not a trophy‑collecting one. But a good one. A club that wins more often than the average fan expects to win.

And yet, emotionally, it hasn’t felt like that and this is where recency bias comes in because, as we are all reminded with constant glee in commentary, phone-ins and down the pub or at work, we’ve finished 17^th twice in a row. And now started the season with back to back defeats for the first time since 2011.

No matter how many years we’ve watched this sport, our brains are wired to give disproportionate weight to whatever has just happened. A bad month can feel like a bad season; a bad season can feel like a bad era. And when you’re living through a run of results as bleak as Spurs’ recent form, it becomes almost impossible to remember, let alone feel, the long‑term truth. The emotional noise of the present drowns out the statistical lessons of the past.

So, even though Spurs have spent my lifetime winning 42% of their games - comfortably above the gravitational 35% win rate - the last two seasons have been so catastrophically bad that in our minds they distort everything. They make a historically above‑average club feel like a chronically failing one.

Here are the depressing numbers, the last two seasons (plus two games of this one):

Win rate: 26.9% Loss rate: 52%

This isn’t gravitational. This isn’t normal. This isn’t even “Spursy”. This is catastrophic.

It’s the worst sustained period of results in my entire supporting life. Worse than Norwich’s relegation seasons. Worse than West Ham’s chaos years. Worse than Everton’s existential decline. It’s a collapse so sharp and so prolonged that it distorts the emotional memory of everything that came before it.

And this is where context matters. Because when you look at the last two seasons, plus the opening two games of this one, Spurs haven’t just dipped below their historical norm. They’ve fallen into territory that almost no club ever visits.

The closest comparison I could find was Wolves in the early 1980s.

Wolves suffered three consecutive relegations between 1983 and 1986; a descent so steep it’s still spoken about as one of the darkest periods any English club has endured. Over that three‑year stretch, their record was:

Wolves (1983–1986): Win rate: 19% Loss rate: 57%.

That is the statistical profile of a club in freefall.

And Spurs, a club that has spent my lifetime winning 42.5% of their games, have been uncomfortably close to that profile for two seasons now. Not identical, but close enough that the comparison is no longer melodramatic. It’s mathematical.

When your club’s recent results resemble the worst three‑year period in Wolves’ history - a period defined by three straight relegations - you’re not just “out of form”. You’re in a collapse that probably feels terminal.

And that’s why the emotional experience of supporting Spurs right now feels so disproportionate. Because it is disproportionate. It’s historically abnormal. It’s the kind of downturn that distorts your memory of everything that came before it.

The big question is: is this the new norm?

If you zoom out — if you look at the full sweep of the data — the answer should be no. Mass data always reverts to the mean. Football isn’t random, but it isn’t chaotic either. Over long periods, clubs drift back toward the gravitational centre. They return to the 35% win‑rate band. They settle into the emotional equilibrium that almost every club in the country shares.

Spurs’ long‑term numbers sit too close to that centre for this collapse to be anything other than a temporary deviation — a violent one, yes, but still a deviation. If anything, the sheer scale of the downturn suggests the scale of the upturn that will follow. Clubs don’t stay outside the band forever. They snap back. They regress upward. They find their level again. And Spurs’ level — across 1,462 games of my lifetime — is not this.

And beyond the numbers, my intuition tells me something else. I think we have a good coach. I think we have some very good players — players who will eventually blend together, players who will look different once the injuries clear and the squad resembles something coherent again. I think there is a version of this team we haven’t seen yet, a version that isn’t defined by the last two seasons or the last two months or the last two defeats.

The data says Spurs will improve. The data says Spurs will stabilise. The data says Spurs will return to the gravitational centre. And my intuition says the pieces are already there.

And by Christmas, I’m optimistic that my walk back to Edmonton will be a happier one. Not perfect, not transformed, not title‑challenging, but simply aligned again with the emotional rhythm that almost every football fan in the country gets to feel. After the last two seasons, that alone would feel like a revelation.

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

Featured clubs’ win/loss % (in league games only) 1988 - 2026

Era	Club / Era	Win %	Loss %
1988 - 2026	Manchester United	57.39%	19.56%
1988 - 2026	Arsenal	54.96%	20.26%
1988 - 2026	Liverpool	53.23%	25.04%
1988 - 2026	Spurs	42.48%	33.58%
1988 - 2026	Newcastle United	39.81%	34.89%
1988 - 2026	Ipswich Town	39.30%	33.00%
1988 - 2026	Preston North End	38.30%	33.50%
1988 - 2026	Middlesbrough	37.60%	36.00%
1988 - 2026	Norwich City	36.90%	37.30%
1988 - 2026	Aston Villa	36.80%	35.50%
1988 - 2026	Leyton Orient	36.20%	38.10%
1988 - 2026	Exeter City	36.10%	37.30%
1988 - 2026	Charlton Athletic	36.10%	35.80%
1988 - 2026	Everton	35.60%	36.10%
1988 - 2026	West Ham	35.40%	38.80%
1988 - 2026	Blackpool	34.40%	37.30%
1988 - 2026	QPR	33.60%	38.40%
1988 - 2026	Coventry City	33.50%	38.40%

Spurs across different periods:

	Win	Loss
Spurs — Golden Poch Era (2014/15–2018/19)	58.90%	22.60%
Spurs — New Stadium Era (2019/20–today)	42.90%	37.70%
Spurs — Pre‑1988 (1908–1988)	42.30%	33.40%
Spurs — Collapse Era (2024/25–today)	26.90%	52.60%
Spurs - 90s	35.48%	37.10%
Spurs — All‑Time (1908–2026)	42.40%	33.50%
Spurs - Bill Nich glory era 1959 - 1973	47.79%	27.89%