Tottenham Hotspur F.C.

An early training ground used by Tottenham was located at Brookfield Lane in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. The club bought the 11-acre ground used by Cheshunt F.C. in 1952 for £35,000.[95][96] It had three pitches, including a small stadium with a small stand used for matches by the junior team.[97] The ground was later sold for over 4 million,[98] and the club moved the training ground to the Spurs Lodge on Luxborough Lane, Chigwell in Essex, opened in September 1996 by Tony Blair.[99] The training ground and press centre in Chigwell were used until 2014.[100]

In 2007, Tottenham bought a site at Bulls Cross in Enfield, a few miles south of their former ground in Cheshunt. A new training ground was constructed at the site for £45 million, which opened in 2012.[101] The 77-acre site has 15 grass pitches and one-and-a-half artificial pitches, as well as a covered artificial pitch in the main building.[102][103] The main building on Hotspur Way also has hydrotherapy and swimming pools, gyms, medical facilities, dining and rest areas for players as well as classrooms for academy and schoolboy players. A 45-bedroom players lodge with catering, treatment, rest and rehabilitation facilities was later added at Myddleton Farm next to the training site in 2018.[104][105] The lodge is mainly used by Tottenham's first team and Academy players, but it has also been used by national football teams – the first visitors to use the facilities at the site were the Brazilian team in preparation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.[106]

Between 1956 and 2006, the club crest featured a heraldic shield, displaying a number of local landmarks and associations

Since the 1921 FA Cup Final the Tottenham Hotspur crest has featured a cockerel. Harry Hotspur, after whom the club is named, was said to have been given the nickname Hotspur as he dug in his spurs to make his horse go faster as he charged in battles,[107] and spurs are also associated with fighting cocks.[108] The club used spurs as a symbol in 1900, which then evolved into a fighting cock.[107] A former player named William James Scott made a bronze cast of a cockerel standing on a football at a cost of £35 (equivalent to £3,880 in 2021), and this 9-foot-6-inch (2.90 m) figure was then placed on top of the West Stand the end of the 1909–10 season.[107] Since then the cockerel and ball emblem has become a part of the club's identity.[109] The club badge on the shirt used in 1921 featured a cockerel within a shield, but it was changed to a cockerel sitting on a ball in the late 1960s.[108]

Between 1956 and 2006 Spurs used a faux heraldic shield featuring a number of local landmarks and associations. The castle is Bruce Castle, 400 yards from the ground and the trees are the Seven Sisters. The arms featured the Latin motto Audere Est Facere (to dare is to do).[66]

In 1983, to overcome unauthorised "pirate" merchandising, the club's badge was altered by adding the two red heraldic lions to flank the shield (which came from the arms of the Northumberland family, of which Harry Hotspur was a member), as well as the motto scroll. This device appeared on Spurs' playing kits for three seasons 1996–99.

In 2006, in order to rebrand and modernise the club's image, the club badge and coat of arms were replaced by a professionally designed logo/emblem.[110] This revamp displayed a sleeker and more elegant cockerel standing on an old-time football. The club claimed that they dropped their club name and would be using the rebranded logo only on playing kits.[111] In November 2013, Tottenham forced non-league club Fleet Spurs to change their badge because its new design was "too similar" to the Tottenham crest.[112]

The crest used in the 2017–18 season

In 2017, Spurs added a shield around the cockerel logo on the shirts similar to the 1950s badge, but with the cockerel of modern design.[113]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tottenham Hotspur F.C. kits.

The first Tottenham kit recorded in 1883 included a navy blue shirt with a letter H on a scarlet shield on the left breast, and white breeches.[114] In 1884 or 1885, the club changed to a "quartered" kit similar to Blackburn Rovers after watching them win in the 1884 FA Cup Final.[115] After they moved to Northumberland Park in 1888, they returned to the navy blue shirts for the 1889–90 season. Their kit changed again to red shirt and blue shorts in 1890, and for a time the team were known as 'the Tottenham Reds'.[116] Five years later in 1895, the year they became a professional club, they switched to a chocolate and gold striped kit.[66]

In the 1898–99 season, their final year at Northumberland Park, the club switched colours to white shirts and blue shorts, same colour choice as that for Preston North End.[117] White and navy blue have remained as the club's basic colours ever since, with the white shirts giving the team the nickname "The Lilywhites".[118] In 1921, the year they won the FA Cup, the cockerel badge was added to the shirt for the final. A club crest has featured on the shirt since, and Spurs became the first major club to have its club crest on the players shirt on every match apart from the war years.[119] In 1939 numbers first appeared on shirt backs.[66]

In the early days, the team played in kits sold by local outfitters. An early supplier of Spurs' jerseys recorded was a firm on Seven Sisters Road, HR Brookes.[70] In the 1920s, Bukta produced the jerseys for the club. From the mid-1930s onwards, Umbro was the supplier for forty years. In 1959, the V-neck shirt replaced the collared shirts of the past, and then in 1963, the crew neck shirt appeared (the style has fluctuated since).[120] In 1961, Bill Nicholson sent Spurs players out to play in white instead of navy shorts for their European campaign, starting a tradition which continues to this day in European competitions.[121]

In 1977, a deal was signed with Admiral to supply the team their kits. Although Umbro kits in generic colours had been sold to football fans since 1959, it was with the Admiral deal that the market for replica shirts started to take off.[122] Admiral changed the plain colours of earlier strips to shirts with more elaborate designs, which included manufacturer's logos, stripes down the arms and trims on the edges.[122] Admiral was replaced by Le Coq Sportif in the summer of 1980.[123] In 1985, Spurs entered into a business partnership with Hummel, who then supplied the strips.[124] However, the attempt by Tottenham to expand the business side of the club failed, and in 1991, they returned to Umbro.[125] In 1991, the club was the first to wear long-cut shorts, an innovation at a time when football kits all featured shorts cut well above the knee.[66] Umbro was followed by Pony in 1995, Adidas in 1999, Kappa in 2002,[66][126] and a five-year deal with Puma in 2006.[127] In March 2011, Under Armour announced a five-year deal to supply Spurs with shirts and other apparel from the start of 2012–13,[128][129] with the home, away and the third kits revealed in July and August 2012.[130][131] The shirts incorporate technology that can monitor the players' heart rate and temperature and send the biometric data to the coaching staff.[132] In June 2017, it was announced that Nike would be their new kits supplier, with the 2017–18 kit released on 30 June, featuring the Spurs' crest encased in a shield, paying homage to Spurs' 1960–61 season, where they became the first post-war-club to win both the Football League First Division and the FA Cup.[133] In October 2018, Nike agreed a 15-year deal reportedly worth £30 million a year with the club to supply their kits until 2033.[134]

Shirt sponsorship in English football was first adopted by the non-league club Kettering Town F.C. in 1976 despite it being banned by the FA.[135] FA soon lifted the ban, and this practice spread to the major clubs when sponsored shirts were allowed on non-televised games in 1979, and then on televised games as well in 1983.[132][136] In December 1983, after the club was floated on the London Stock Exchange, Holsten became the first commercial sponsor logo to appear on a Spurs shirt.[137] When Thomson was chosen as kit sponsor in 2002 some Tottenham fans were unhappy as the shirt-front logo was red, the colour of their closest rivals, Arsenal.[138] In 2006, Tottenham secured a £34 million sponsorship deal with internet casino group Mansion.com.[139] In July 2010, Spurs announced a two-year shirt sponsorship contract with software infrastructure company Autonomy said to be worth £20 million.[140] A month later they unveiled a £5 million deal with leading specialist bank and asset management firm Investec as shirt sponsor for the Champions League and domestic cup competitions for the next two years.[141][142] Since 2014, AIA has been the main shirt sponsor, initially in a deal worth over £16 million annually,[143][144] increased to a reported £40 to £45 million per year in 2019 in an eight-year deal that lasts until 2027.[145][146]

1883–84: First kit

1884–86

1889–90

1890–96

1896–98

Tottenham Hotspur F.C. became a limited company, the Tottenham Hotspur Football and Athletic Company Ltd, on 2 March 1898 so as to raise funds for the club and limit the personal liability of its members. 8,000 shares were issued at £1 each, although only 1,558 shares were taken up in the first year.[152] 4,892 shares were sold in total by 1905.[153] A few families held significant shares; they included the Wale family, who had association with the club since the 1930s,[154] as well as the Richardson and the Bearman families. From 1943 to 1984, members of these families were chairmen of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. after Charles Robert who had been chairman since 1898 died.[155]

In the early 1980s, cost overruns in the construction of a new West Stand together with the cost of rebuilding the team in previous years led to accumulating debts. In November 1982, a fan of the club Irving Scholar bought 25% of Tottenham for £600,000, and together with Paul Bobroff gained control of the club.[47] In order to bring in funds, Scholar floated Tottenham Hotspur plc, which wholly owns the football club, on the London Stock Exchange in 1983, the first European sports club to be listed in a stock market, and became the first sports company to go public.[43][153] Fans and institutions alike can now freely buy and trade shares in the company; a court ruling in 1935 involving the club (Berry and Stewart v Tottenham Hotspur FC Ltd) had previously established a precedent in company law that the directors of a company can refuse the transfer of shares from a shareholder to another person.[156] The share issue was successful with 3.8 million shares quickly sold.[157] However, ill-judged business decisions under Scholar led to financial difficulties,[152] and in June 1991 Terry Venables teamed up with businessman Alan Sugar to buy the club, initially as equal partner with each investing £3.25 million. Sugar increased his stake to £8 million by December 1991 and became the dominant partner with effective control of the club. In May 1993, Venables was sacked from the board after a dispute.[158] By 2000, Sugar began to consider selling the club,[159] and in February 2001, he sold the major part of his shareholding to ENIC International Ltd.[160]

The majority shareholder, ENIC International Ltd, is an investment company established by the British billionaire Joe Lewis. Daniel Levy, Lewis's partner at ENIC, is Executive Chairman of the club. They first acquired 29.9% share of the club in 1991, of which 27% was bought from Sugar for £22 million.[160] Shareholding by ENIC increased over the decade through the purchase of the remaining 12% holding of Alan Sugar in 2007 for £25m,[161][162] and the 9.9% stake belonging to Stelios Haji-Ioannou through Hodram Inc. in 2009. On 21 August 2009 the club reported that they had issued a further 30 million shares to fund the initial development costs of the new stadium project, and that 27.8 million of these new shares had been purchased by ENIC.[163] The Annual Report for 2010 indicated that ENIC had acquired 76% of all Ordinary Shares and also held 97% of all convertible redeemable preference shares, equivalent to a holding of 85% of share capital.[164] The remaining shares are held by over 30,000 individuals.[165] Between 2001 and 2011 shares in Tottenham Hotspur F.C. were listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM index). Following an announcement at the 2011 AGM, in January 2012 Tottenham Hotspur confirmed that the club had delisted its shares from the stock market, taking it into private ownership.[166]

Tottenham has a large fan base in the United Kingdom, drawn largely from North London and the Home counties. The attendance figures for its home matches, however, have fluctuated over the years. Five times between 1950 and 1962, Tottenham had the highest average attendance in England.[167][168] Tottenham was 9th in average attendances for the 2008–09 Premier League season, and 11th for all Premier League seasons.[169] In the 2017–18 season when Tottenham used Wembley as its home ground, it had the second highest attendance in the Premier League.[170][171] It also holds the record for attendance in the Premier League, with 83,222 attending the North London derby on 10 February 2018.[172] Historical supporters of the club have included such figures as philosopher A.J. Ayer.[173][174] There are many official supporters' clubs located around the world,[175] while an independent supporters club, the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust, is officially recognised by the club as the representative body for Spurs supporters.[176][177]

Historically, the club had a significant Jewish following from the Jewish communities in east and north London, with around a third of its supporters estimated to be Jewish in the 1930s.[178] Due to this early support, all three chairmen of the club since 1984 have been Jewish businessmen with prior history of supporting the club.[178] The club no longer has a greater Jewish contingent among its fans than other major London clubs (Jewish supporters are estimated to form at most 5% of its fanbase), though it is nevertheless still identified as a Jewish club by rival fans.[179] Antisemitic chants directed at the club and its supporters by rival fans have been heard since the 1960s, with words such as "Yids" or "Yiddos" used against Tottenham supporters.[178][180][181] In response to the abusive chants, Tottenham supporters, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, began to chant back the insults and adopt the "Yids" or "Yid Army" identity starting from around the late 1970s or early 1980s.[182] Some fans view adopting "Yid" as a badge of pride, helping defuse its power as an insult.[183] The use of "Yid" as a self-identification, however, has been controversial; some argued that the word is offensive and its use by Spurs fans "legitimis[es] references to Jews in football",[184] and that such racist abuse should be stamped out in football.[185] Both the World Jewish Congress and the Board of Deputies of British Jews have denounced the use of the word by fans.[186] Others, such as former Prime Minister David Cameron, argued that its use by the Spurs fans is not motivated by hate as it is not used pejoratively, and therefore cannot be considered hate speech.[187] Attempts to prosecute Tottenham fans who chanted the words have failed, as the Crown Prosecution Service considered that the words as used by Tottenham fans could not be judged legally "threatening, abusive or insulting".[188]

The club through its Community Programme has, since 2006, been working with Haringey Council and the Metropolitan Housing Trust and the local community on developing sports facilities and social programmes which have also been financially supported by Barclays Spaces for Sport and the Football Foundation.[198][199] The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation received high-level political support from the prime minister when it was launched at 10 Downing Street in February 2007.[200]

In March 2007 the club announced a partnership with the charity SOS Children's Villages UK.[201] Player fines will go towards this charity's children's village in Rustenburg, South Africa with the funds being used to cover the running costs as well as in support of a variety of community development projects in and around Rustenburg. In the financial year 2006–07, Tottenham topped a league of Premier League charitable donations when viewed both in overall terms[202] and as a percentage of turnover by giving £4,545,889, including a one-off contribution of £4.5 million over four years, to set up the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation.[203] This compared to donations of £9,763 in 2005–06.[204]

The football club is one of the highest profile participants in the 10:10 project which encourages individuals, businesses and organisations to take action on environmental issues. They joined in 2009 in a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint. To do this they upgraded their lights to more efficient models, they turned down their heating dials and took less short-haul flights among a host of other things.[205] After working with 10:10 for one year, they reported that they had reduced their carbon emissions by 14%.[205]

In contrast, they have successfully sought the reduction of section 106 planning obligations connected to the redevelopment of the stadium in the Northumberland Development Project. Initially the development would incorporate 50% affordable housing, but this requirement was later waived, and a payment of £16m for community infrastructure was reduced to £0.5m.[206] This is controversial in an area which has suffered high levels of deprivation as Spurs had bought up properties for redevelopment, removing existing jobs and businesses for property development but not creating enough new jobs for the area.[207] The club however argued that the project, when completed, would support 3,500 jobs and inject an estimated £293 million into the local economy annually,[208] and that it would serve as the catalyst for a wider 20-year regeneration programme for the Tottenham area.[209][210] In other developments in North Tottenham, the club has built 256 affordable homes and a 400-pupil primary school.[211][212]

Tottenham's women's team was founded in 1985 as Broxbourne Ladies. They started using the Tottenham Hotspur name for the 1991–92 season and played in the London and South East Women's Regional Football League (then fourth tier of the game). They won promotion after topping the league in 2007–08. In the 2016–17 season they won the FA Women's Premier League Southern Division and a subsequent playoff, gaining promotion to the FA Women's Super League 2.[213]

On 1 May 2019 Tottenham Hotspur Ladies won promotion to the FA Women's Super League with a 1–1 draw at Aston Villa, which confirmed they would finish second in the Championship.[214] Tottenham Hotspur Ladies changed their name to Tottenham Hotspur Women in the 2019–20 season.[215]

Tottenham Hotspur Women announced the signing of Cho So-hyun on 29 January 2021. With her Korean men's counterpart Son Heung-min already at the club it gave Spurs the rare distinction of having both the men's and women's Korean National Team captains at one club.[216]

Sources:Tottenham Hotspur – History[217]

Chart of Tottenham's performance since joining the Football League in 1908

Steve Perryman holds the appearance record for Spurs, having played 854 games for the club between 1969 and 1986, of which 655 were league matches.[219][220] Jimmy Greaves holds the club goal scoring record with 266 goals in 380 league, cup and European appearances.[221]

Tottenham's record league win is 9–0 against Bristol Rovers in the Second Division on 22 October 1977.[222][223] The club's record cup victory came on 3 February 1960 with a 13–2 win over Crewe Alexandra in the FA Cup.[224] Spurs' biggest top-flight victory came against Wigan Athletic on 22 November 2009, when they won 9–1 with Jermain Defoe scoring five goals.[223][225] The club's record defeat is an 8–0 loss to 1. FC Köln in the Intertoto Cup on 22 July 1995.[226]

The record home attendance at White Hart Lane was 75,038 on 5 March 1938 in a cup tie against Sunderland.[227] The highest recorded home attendances were at their temporary home, Wembley Stadium, due to its higher capacity – 85,512 spectators were present on 2 November 2016 for the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen,[228] while 83,222 attended the North London derby against Arsenal on 10 February 2018 which is the highest attendance recorded for any Premier League game.[229]

The club is ranked No. 13 by the UEFA with a club coefficient of 85.0 points as of April 2020.[230]

As voted by members and season ticket holders (calendar year until 2005–06 season)[257]

• Internacional[258]
• San Jose Earthquakes[259]
• South China AA[260]
• Supersport United[261]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tottenham Hotspur F.C..

• Official website
• Tottenham Hotspur at the Premier League official website
• Tottenham Hotspur News – Sky Sports
• Tottenham Hotspur Ladies Official ladies club website
• Supporters' Trust
• Spurs Canada
• Tottenham Hotspur Brasil
• Tottenham Hotspur Switzerland
• Spurs history 1882–1921
• Timesonline archive
• Full list of honours