Why Everything's Fallen Apart

I expect, like me, you’ve experienced a moment of realisation. Some claim to have had it years ago, others more recently. You look at the table, the performances, the transfer strategy and you think: how did everything become such a mess?

There’s actually a scientific explanation for it.

I used to enjoy physics at school, although I often felt I was on the edge of fully understanding it. Take thermodynamics, for example. The first law I could get: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or converted from one form to another. 

The second law of thermodynamics was a bit more of a challenge: the entropy of an isolated system never decreases; it either stays the same or increases, pushing towards maximum disorder.  

I never quite grasped what entropy actually is, but nevertheless found the concept intriguing. For those who might not have been paying attention in their physics classes, here’s what it means:

Entropy is a measure of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty in a system; it's the natural tendency for things to spread out, become messy, and lose useful energy over time unless energy is added to create order. 

Or, put simply, everything always turns to shit unless you make sure it doesn’t.

Spurs supporters will recognise this principle immediately. For the past few seasons we’ve been watching entropy play out in real time at Tottenham Hotspur. Without leadership, without a coherent plan and without the investment needed to maintain order, the system has fallen into decay.

This sense of needing to exercise control over a dynamic system is something we all constantly battle with. It’s part of the human condition.

If we accept that all natural systems are dynamic and tend towards disorder then it's helpful to have a mental picture in mind of how we are trying to impose order, control and direction. 

When I was in leadership roles myself, I used to think in terms of spirals.

All organisations are constantly either spiraling upwards or downwards. The job of the leader is to maintain an upward spiral by making good decisions and imparting positive energy. Failure to do so leads to a downward spiral.

The first requirement for achieving the upward spiral is culture. If the culture is not conducive to meeting the objectives of the organisation then any amount of good decision making will not bear fruit. That is not to say that the culture has to be a good one, it simply needs to be aligned with the objectives of the business.

Take Amazon, for example. I am currently in a legal dispute with them over unpaid royalties for my book ‘When the Final Whistle Blows: Glory, Grief and Tottenham Hotspur’. Never mind that the evidence is crystal clear, they are refusing to pay royalties that have been pledged to a cancer charity. The whole story is long, complicated and yet to be resolved. But what I can tell you is this. They just don’t care. 

The fact that Amazon is a nakedly commercial organisation that cares only about making a profit is probably no surprise to anyone. We either choose to dance with that particular devil or we don’t.

When it comes to a football club there is a different social contract at play. As many social media posts that are despairing of the current situation declare - our club is being ruined! But it’s not our club, in any meaningful way. It just happens to be something that we, the fans, care more about than any of the owners, leaders and managers that work there.

Successful football clubs understand this social contract and establish a culture that respects it. Do any Spurs fans seriously think the current Spurs owners do this? 

The next factors in achieving the upward spiral are a compelling vision supported by a coherent narrative. Put simply: ‘What’s the plan?’ 

When Venkatesham and Levy sat together and described how they were going to work together to make Spurs competitive as potential winners of the Premier League and regular Champions League contenders they described a desired outcome. But those words were cheap, and came with no sense of a plan. The next thing we knew Levy was gone and even those words were undermined. 

What actually is the current plan? Stay up and hope for the best?

At organisations that exhibit a great culture and a compelling plan, something important then happens. They attract the best people. The sort of people who want to be part of something that is clearly set up for success. The best people make better decisions (and, on the pitch, play better football), in turn attracting more good people. Which leads to more wins and an upward trajectory, attracting even better people. In the boardroom, in the dugout and on the pitch. An overwhelming sense pervades of an organisation that is on the up. With appropriate investment, progress becomes continuous and self-fulfilling. 

And therein lies the heart of the issue. Investment. That upward spiral can only go so far based on culture and planning. At some point it needs backing. As Russell Chopp highlighted in his recent article (here), it was the owners' failure to invest when we were on the up that has led to the decline.

We can all see that Tottenham Hotspur is in a downward spiral and in this situation it is easy to point the finger at people. The truth of the matter is that any individual player, coach or manager would perform better, most likely perfectly adequately, if they were in a different environment. The problem is a systemic one established by owners that just don’t get it, and won’t put in the funds required.

With Daniel Levy now gone it’s starting to feel like, despite all of his failings, it was him that was at least applying the brake to the downward spiral. Now we’re in free fall. 

At some point the downward spiral will bottom out. As the famous 1977 banner said “We will return.” The club really is too big to fail. How low we will go, and what the catalyst for change will be, are the big questions.

Entropy is inevitable in every system. Football clubs are no different. Without energy, leadership and investment, decline becomes the natural state. Spurs are not just suffering from bad luck or bad refereeing decisions. We are simply witnessing the second law of thermodynamics at work.

And unless someone applies the energy required to reverse it, the disorder will continue.

Or, in social media shorthand: #ENICout.

Andrew Pettifer is the author of "When the Final Whistle Blows: Glory, Grief and Tottenham Hotspur"