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After years of incompetence, ENIC/Levy are finally learning how to run a football club - hire a proper manager, open up the check book and GTFO of his way
Gotta give them credit when credit is due.
Airfixx
I'm happy that I haven't had to complain about ENIC this summer and that they have supported Conte with what he wanted. That's the way it should be. The best thing about it was getting in signings early. It doesn't mean their past mistakes should be forgotten. Nuno was an atrocious, awful appointment and the rest of candidates were equally as terrible. Gattsuo FFS! We are lucky that the stars aligned to get Conte because that was a man in demand. I understand that when Conte eventually leaves that it will be highly improbable that we will get someone as good but whoever we get ENIC need to keep that same energy, no more of that bullshit of the past, keep moving forward.
After years of incompetence, ENIC/Levy are finally learning how to run a football club - hire a proper manager, open up the check book and GTFO of his way
Gotta give them credit when credit is due.
/ after years of building the club infrastructure..... its exactly what they said they were going to do, there were just loads of people that refused to believe it.
They refused to believe it because of their fuck ups and murky direction, DOF no DOF, DOF no DOF.
They deserve credit but I think people should ease off the "I told you so" stuff because the reality is if they could have been fired like managers/coaches get fired, they already would have been fired a very long time ago.
Juventus-on-Thames!!
We're nowhere near the Thames!
Juve-upon-River-Lea perhaps? ...or Juve-on-Walthamstow Wetlands??
I still have that niggly feeling that Nuno was a stop-gap and Conte was the target all along. If you're going to hire someone that you're planning on firing soon, you get a meh manager on a cheap contract. I mean, think about the managers we were linked with outside of Conte. They were all meh options. We could have gone after Potter or someone of a high profile rather than Nuno, Gattuso, or that other Portuguese bloke, but we didn't, because Conte was the prize all along.
That's my guess, anyway.
In that case just stick with Mason, the whole procedure and then the hiring of Nuno made us look like a clown shoe club.
Now THAT is what you call a legacy.
Tottenham Hotspur: ‘We looked on as our area burned – now we’ve been offered hope’
The focus is inevitably on achieving good results at Tottenham Hotspur, but not simply on the field. As part of the regeneration of the area around their new stwww.thetimes.co.uk
he focus is inevitably on achieving good results at Tottenham Hotspur, but not simply on the field. As part of the regeneration of the area around their new stadium, Spurs built (and now run) a school that has done so well that ten pupils at present have Oxbridge offers and await next week’s A-level results day hopefully.
Spurs fans thronging into their gleaming home may not realise that there is a school attached, as well as an art gallery that recently exhibited portraits of heartbroken England men’s players at the European Championship. They may not notice the artificial pitch made of 18,000 recycled trainers and small-sided pitches where club coaches work on talent ID at nearby schools. They may not know about the club’s employment policy that has given hope, purpose and funds to local youngsters with cerebral palsy.
Premier League clubs get things wrong at times, they can overcharge fans for kits and tickets, but they remain vital hubs of the community. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is more than an arena that wins architectural awards and houses a confident Champions League team. It’s a beacon of hope and belief in an area that is among the most deprived wards in the country.
It’s only a decade since the streets here were set ablaze during riots, and visiting fans subsequently chanted: “You stupid bastards, you burnt your own town.” Some local youths were more likely to join gangs than coaching sessions. Now, outside of match days, they flock to the stadium to be coached and educated.
One of the pupils at the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET) is Rachel Oloyede-Oyeyemi, who has an offer to read English literature at Cambridge. “I live near where Mark Duggan got shot,” she says of the killing of a 29-year-old black man by police on August 4, 2011, that triggered the riots. “Everyone was on edge there. It was scary. I didn’t want to go outside. It was like Tottenham’s burning down.”
Now it is rebuilding. “I don’t think I’d be doing English lit or thinking about Cambridge without this school,” she adds. “The teaching gave me the fire I needed. They cultivated my love for English. They really show you how much you can achieve if you genuinely put your mind to it.”
LAET is a state-funded sixth form assisted by Spurs and Highgate School, who also help with interview technique to prepare pupils for Oxbridge. “It feels that Tottenham’s proud again, people coming to this beautiful stadium for football but also education,” she says. “The stadium’s a symbol of hope.”
Another pupil, Giovanni Rose, was eight during the riots. “On my road, Park Lane [adjacent to the old and new stadium], there was a gang and it was a very violent time,” Rose says, also recalling what befell the famous Carpetright store on Tottenham High Road. “One of my friends had his house set on fire, it was crazy. I’m grateful to the club, 100 per cent, as it’s kept a lot of us safe.”
Since coming under the guidance of Spurs, Rose has had some of his poetry published by the BBC, studied maths, further maths and physics at LAET and received an offer from King’s College London. “I wouldn’t even be doing A-levels without this place,” he says, looking around LAET.
The Times is given a tour, including to where two games are taking place in the N17 arena behind the South Stand. The Tottenham Foundation has worked hard with local children coming out of lockdown, using the new pitches for games and rebuilding relationships. “They’ve missed out on social interaction,” one staff member confides. “They’re always happy to come down here to sessions. It’s about safe spaces.”
Yards away, on a smaller-sided pitch, two academy coaches, Danny Mitchell and Nick Hardy, are working with under-tens, looking for potential talent for Spurs. “The badge is very important,” Mitchell says. “We want to tap into their passion for the team.” They also find that players open up to coaches over issues in their lives. It’s about developing the player and the individual. “It’s a holistic piece,” Mitchell adds.
Throughout August, Spurs deliver a programme of free holiday activity, from football to the performing arts, for young people at the N17 arena. The aim is to promote “health and wellbeing and reduce levels of crime and antisocial behaviour” but there is also more talent ID work.
Continuing around the ground, along Tottenham High Road we find the grade II listed Warmington House incorporated in the structure of the stadium. Restored to its original 1828 glory and removed from Historic England’s at-risk register, the building houses OOF, an art gallery. “OOF is the sound of someone getting tackled very hard,” explains Eddy Frankel, the inspiration behind the gallery and a Spurs fan.
Frankel was seeking exhibition space in the area and contacted the club. “Spurs went, ‘Well, we’ve got this listed building.’ ” Frankel’s first exhibition had works from the Young British Artists school, including a Sarah Lucas and a Marcus Harvey lent by Damien Hirst. As Harvey’s works are also on display at MoMA in New York, OOF has done well. “To have them here was amazing,” Frankel says. Eric Dier was one of the first to visit.
More recently Frankel curated an exhibition, En-Ger-Land. This included Beatrice Lettice Boyle’s portraits of a haunted Bukayo Saka, Jack Grealish and Jadon Sancho, entitled Tears in Their Eyes, after their loss to Italy in last year’s Euros final. “It’s about the repercussions [of defeat],” Frankel says.
During En-Ger-Land, visitors were encouraged to draw versions of England trauma. “I had to edit them every morning to remove all the penises and take away anything offensive to our rivals!” Frankel says.
More than 20,000 people a year visit OOF. “Over 95 per cent of people coming here have never been to a contemporary art exhibition,” Frankel says. “There are four schools around the stadium, so what is the chance of them getting taken to the Tate or National Gallery? Never.”
The present exhibition is by the French artist Leyman Lahcine, of footballers as “angst-ridden string puppets”. As the captions explain: “Instead of taking the ball down on your chest and accelerating towards goal, your body collapses into a tangle of soft, lifeless limbs. The groan from the crowd is deafening . . . This is how it always ends.”
Fortunately not for Spurs at the moment. They’re flying. Back in the stadium I find the chicken house, and talk to one of the staff, Aaron Plummer, who has cerebral palsy. “When I went for jobs before, they saw my learning disability before they saw me,” Plummer says. “I was looking for a job for over a year. I didn’t know where to go. Then Tottenham gave me a chance.
“I clean tables, making it spotless. It’s changed my life: to say I work at somewhere like Tottenham with 50,000 fans!” The regeneration game continues apace at Spurs.
I think the whole kerfuffle with the manager appointment was because we didn't get our first option in Conte. That threw the whole thing off. And at that point it was "what do we do until we get Conte" and was damned if you do, damned if you don't. Stick with Mason and you get stick. Hire a stop-gap and you get stick. And if you stick with Mason you could well be telegraphing that you're going for Conte at some point soon, meaning other clubs may step in to gazump you.
That's my guess anyway and I know it sounds a bit conspiratorial. We may find out some day.
From my point of view, one trophy in 22 years isn't good enough. For some people it is, to me it's a poor return and Leicester winning more trophies than us in that time is shameful. Top 4 finishes and a CL run to the final can be put on DVD not in a trophy cabinet, I'm not saying I didn't appreciate it but they arent trophies.
Even if that was true, that is terrible organisation, we couldn't be sure that we'd get Conte so that was silly.
And only 3% think that Enic should sell up now.
So that's you, Moan Thomas and Scott covered then.
You can keep my sex life out of the debate, please mate
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This is it.....If in another 22 years time we were still failing to land silverware but had elevated ourselves to the Wealthiest, most profitable sporting establishment on earth some fans would still be happy with the way the club was being run.
It's almost like they've overlooked the football
️ part in the football club
Nuno does whatever Mendes tells him to do - safe in the knowledge that he'll make him extremely wealthy along the way
You think the club would have telegraphed to Nuno that he was a stop-gap? Come on now...
we dont win anything with this manager, i may always just assume we are cursed forever
fa cup and top 4 would be a good step, both doable with this squad
fa cup and top 4 would be a good step, both doable with this squad
Nope, just like top four finishes are not all on the owners.