The People Who Live Next Door

In so many ways, Spurs and Arsenal fans are basically the same people. We grow up on the

same streets, go to the same schools, work the same jobs, drink in the same pubs. North

London and Hertfordshire aren’t divided by culture or class — they’re divided by colours. In

Broxbourne, Cheshunt, Enfield, Hertford and Harlow, it’s always been a nearperfect split. If

anything, the A10 corridor leans Spurs: generations of families drifting up from Edmonton,

Tottenham, Wood Green and Palmers Green. We’re the same demographic, the same

accent, the same everything.

And yet it often feels as though we’ve evolved into two completely different emotional

species.

Part of that goes back to childhood. I grew up with Arsenal being dominant, and banter is

never crueller than when you’re at school. Being a Spurs fan in Hertfordshire in the 90s —

right in the middle of their heartland — magnified every insecurity I already had. I was 12

when they won both domestic cups in 1993, 13 when they won the Cup Winners’ Cup in

1994, 17 when they won the double in 1998. It didn’t get easier in the 2000s. While I was

hopelessly lost trying to work out who I was and what I wanted to be, they won another

double in 2002 and went invincible in 2004. Spurs were mediocre. I felt mediocre. Arsenal

fans — or at least the ones I didn’t know well — seemed confident, selfassured, cocky. I was

convinced any girl I fancied would prefer an Arsenal fan.

Maybe this is my own insecurity, but I’ve always felt a certain type of Arsenal fan didn’t

choose Arsenal for the football — they chose Arsenal for the reflected glory. Supporting

Arsenal becomes a kind of personal branding exercise: if I support them, that makes me

superior to you who supports Tottenham. The Piers Morgan archetype. The fan who talks

about their club the way some parents talk about their children’s exam results — loudly,

proudly, and with no awareness that the people they’re talking to are just as proud of their

own kids.

I know I fall into the TalkSport trap too — the one where a single loud idiot says something

outrageous and suddenly an entire fanbase gets painted with the same brush. One Spurs fan

phones in to say we’ll win the league next season and suddenly “all Spurs fans are deluded”.

I generalise Arsenal fans in the same way. Rivalries make us irrational.

And then there are weeks like this one, when the rivalry stops being abstract and becomes

something you feel in your chest. At my kids’ sports day I found myself deliberately avoiding

several parents I know are Arsenal fans. I couldn’t face the wry grin, the inevitable, “Enjoy

the title parade?” or “How’s the relegation battle treating you?” — both in the same season.

This is Spurs heartland, and yet not a single Spurs shirt in sight. Including mine. Was it

embarrassment? Exhaustion? A desire to avoid the conversation entirely?

Walking home I felt the urge to turn around, pull on my old 1989 Hummel shirt and march

back just to prove a point: we’re still here. Because it’s easy to wave the flag when you’re

champions. It’s easy to be loud when everything’s going your way. But will they still be there

if they slip back into being a topsix side again, like they were from 2017 to 2022? Spurs fans

are still here. We always are. It’s just that this week, it’s been hard to show it.

And the trepidation hasn’t just been about this week — it’s been building for months. For

Spurs fans of a certain age, the nightmare scenario isn’t just Arsenal winning the league or

the Champions League. It’s Arsenal doing it while we get relegated. It’s happened before:

1935, then nearmisses for us in 1994, 1998 and 2004. We seem to time our worst moments

with their best. This season felt like history sharpening its knife again. I so badly wanted

them to slip up, to bottle it one more time, but inevitability took over. And now there’s the

prospect of them beating PSG in the Champions League final. No part of me wants them to

win anything.

I tried to avoid Arsenal fans all week, but eventually I got cornered by an old school friend.

We talked football for an hour — not really about their joy — and it reminded me that the

Arsenal fans I actually know aren’t monsters. They have the same doubts, the same fears

that “it” might never happen for them. The sad truth is that their it and our IT are different

things.

Will I raise a toast to their title? Absolutely not. Can I accept that the people I like have

earned the right to be happy? Maybe. It’s the ones I don’t know — the flaghangers, the

fullkit shoppers, the keyboard warriors — who make it impossible.

And maybe that’s the strangest part. I know what it’s like to live in the blast radius. But

Spurs fans around the world don’t. So I genuinely wonder: what’s it like for you? What’s it

like being a Spurs fan in Australia, California, New York, Dubai — places where Arsenal fans

aren’t your neighbours, your colleagues, your kids’ friends’ parents? Does distance soften it?

Or does it still sting just the same?

Because here, in North London and Hertfordshire, it’s personal. Sadly, it’s ubiquitous.