A bunch of school kids founded Hotspur Football Club in 1882, to run alongside the cricket club of the same name, which was founded two years earlier. This is the first instance I have heard of a football club running alongside the cricket team, as it is usually bored cricketers wanting something to do in the winter that starts the ball rolling so to speak. The kids named the club after a hero they may have read about, and unlike today there were few in those days, which is good because today we could be watching Tottenham Biggles, Tottenham Batman, or even Tottenham H from Steps, if all the fuss over Strictly is anything to go by, but again I digress. The superhero those school kids were referring to was the very brave and very gallant Harry Hotspur, from the Northumberland family. Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland had a son, Sir Henry Percy, whose adventure’s on the battlefields got him his nickname Harry Hot Spur. The history books tell us that Harry was slain at Shrewsbury in 1403. You can catch up on this gallant young man’s antics in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV. The Hotspurs first game was a 2-0 beating, by a bunch of Radicals on September 30th 1882. The Hotspur team moved from playing at the Tottenham Marshes to Northumberland Park, apt really as Harry Hotspur’s dad was the 1st Earl of Northumberland. As I mentioned earlier there were not as many superheroes around as there are today, so it’s no surprise that another London club had called its self Hotspur. So to avoid confusion with the West London club, in 1884 the name Tottenham Hotspur Football and Athletic Club was adopted. Tottenham had moved quickly from a bunch of kids playing for kicks to a club that attracted thousands of fans.
The obvious next move was to turn professional and this they did by becoming a limited company in 1896, then joining the Southern League in 1898. Tottenham held a game at Northumberland Park against the Woolwich Arsenal that drew a crowd of 14,000, early rivalry being set up no doubt despite Arsenal playing on Plumstead Common at the time, and yet to move to north London. Anyway, it was obvious that the present location was not big enough, so they set out to find a bigger plot of land. They found a site that was big enough just off the Tottenham High Road, It also had the double bonus of having a pub on the site, the pub was called the White Hart, and White Hart Lane was born in 1899. Many thanks, must go to the anonymous benefactor from White Hart Lane who replied to my letter and sent me the Tottenham Hotspur handbook from which I gleaned most of my information from. It also has a page on the club’s shield and badge, a must for every Spurs fan. The club’s shield is believed to date back to 1956, in advance of the club’s 75th anniversary the following year. (PIC 1) Bruce Castle which is shown on the top left-hand side is a 16th Century building that currently holds the local history and archive collection of the London borough of Haringey. On the top right-hand side are the seven trees planted at Page Green by the seven sisters of Tottenham. Anyone who has been to Tottenham will be familiar with the seven sisters, as among other things a tube station and road named after them. The cockerel and ball first appeared in 1909, when the former player and manager W J Scott, cast a copper centrepiece to perch atop the new West Stand. It is believed it originated with the now-banned sport of cock-fighting, as they wore tiny spurs to make them a little bit more aggressive-looking. The two lions rampant are from the arms of the Northumberland family. The shield within the shield has the club’s initials. The Latin motto “AUDERE EST FACERE” translates literally as, To Dare Is To Do, or “Who dares wins Rodney, my son”.
After this badge, the cockerel on the ball became a permanent fixture on the shirts of the spurs team. Before the classic design of yesteryear, there was a cockerel on a shield that looked more like Foghorn Leghorn, than the modern-looking cockerel used later. (PIC 2) The badge did make a brief return in the late 1990s for two seasons, but the badge then returned to the cockerel on the ball and took with it the two rampant lions, the clubs initials and the Latin motto. (PIC 3) The present badge took its place on the shirts in 2006 and returns to the cockerel standing on a ball. I won’t say football because it looks more like an early lace-up basketball. (PIC 4)
As you will no doubt know Tottenham’s nickname is “Spurs” short for Hotspur, as well as referring to the horrible little spikes on the chicken’s legs. White Hart Lane had a capacity of 36,200 when it closed. Now in the new home on the High Sreet, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as it’s called until the sponsors move in, holds an impressive 62,303 fans, and having visited recently it is a most impressive stadium. Only impressive by today’s standards though, because before health and safety laws White Hart Lane had crowds of 80,000 in the 1930s. Tottenham was mentioned in the Domesday Book, or Doomsday book as we call it, as Toteham, meaning Tota’s Hamlet. Tota is a family name going back to before 1066, and the Mercian Bishop Totta. Hamlet meaning home, became Ham, and Toteham became Tottenham. Tottenham’s rivals are Arsenal and there is no love lost between the two clubs and players get a tough time of it if they switch allegiance don’t they Sol. To find out more on “The Spurs” valiantly fight your way to www.tottenhamhotspur.com
