The Look Of The Lane

Turning off the High Road into Bill Nicholson Way past the Red House is the Main Entrance to the ground through Reception in the West Stand.
The famous gates are opened during matches and club operating hours, with a security guard on duty at the barrier to the car park.
The Club offices are housed in the West Stand, which is also the most expensive part of the ground to watch the game from.
Originally, the road leading down to the West Stand was unnamed, but was changed to reflect the importance of Bill Nicholson to the Club,
being the manager who took the team to the first Double of the 20th Century and becoming the first British team to win a European trophy
(the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1963).

Where the last minute preparations for the game and the after-match inquests take place.
Laid out with shirts, shorts and socks for each player, with all their necessary requirements
(socks with the foot cut out, large shorts, chewing gum, etc.) ready for the match.
The photo on the left shows a selection of shirts for the defensive players.
The same items of equipment and kit is laid out for the attacking and midfield players
(the person in the photo is not one of them) and here are their shirts.
There is a massage table, baths and showers in the other part of the dressing room as well as a tactics board,
with a similar but smaller provision for the match officials.

.Unfortunately, we didn’t get a photo of the away dressing room, which was less luxuriously furnished with a tattered,
smaller massage table and players were crammed in closer to each other to get changed.
.There were also fewer washing facilities and the walls were not panelled.

Inside the executive box, there are all sorts of extras on offer.  Food, drink, old photos of historic moments … even a signed shirt in a frame.

The place where all the big decisions are made (or are not !!).  Also used for entertaining visiting board members (hence the empty sandwich trays !!).

In the Bill Nicholson Suite are the two trophies Spurs won at the Costa del Sol tournaments in the 1960’s.  These huge trophies stand either side of the door that leads to the Executive boxes.  I would have liked to see the players lift these cups after playing the tournament in the Spanish sun !!

As the players leave the comfort of the dressing room and enter the tunnel, this would be the first sight they have of the ground.
The floor is covered with an astro-turf like carpet and there is a replica of the Tottenham crest as you reach the pitch.

The stadium opens up around you as you leave the confines of the tunnel and the sound must
be tremendous on a match day to welcome the teams onto the pitch.

Taken from the Director’s Box in the West Stand, this is the view that Alan Sugar will have of the ground.  On the left is the  North Stand (Paxton Road) which homes the Club Members; directly opposite is the East Stand, which contains mainly season ticket holders and to the right is the South (Park Lane) Stand, with the away fans allocated the corner of seating to the far right hand corner.

High in the East Stand you can see the television gantry, where cameras providing most coverage of the game are placed.

At each end, high in the roofing are the Jumbotron screens which provide pre-match entertainment (interviews, old games and advertisements)
and live coverage of the game while it is in progress.  The players tunnel is situated directly underneath the Director’s Box on the halfway line.

The area where the manager, coach, physio, kit man, substitutes and subbed players sit.
The strange thing about the two dugouts at Tottenham is that there is a bit of psychology involved in their placement.  The home dug-out provides a perfect view of the pitch, but the away bench is somewhat lower and to get a decent view of the match, you have to stand up.  Oooh, that’s nasty !!

Neither dug-out is very tall, so you would have to be careful if you jump up to celebrate a goal – you might knock yourself out !!

Situated behind the home dug-out are the Press seats, where newspaper and radio reporters do their work during the match.
(In the bottom right corner of the photos you can just see the tip up tables for the reporters to rest on).

A new press suite has been completed in 2000 to hold press conferences and provide an area for reporters to complete their copy to their newspapers.
Pictured here is the room where all the club’s press conferences are held – to mark a significant event like a new signing or a press release, or for after match press conferences.

There is an area off to the left of this picture where individual booths and desks are provided for reporters to send their match reports or stories to their newspapers or websites via modem links and telephone lines..

Situated on the corner of Bill Nicholson Way and the High Road sits the Red House, which housed the old Club offices and the Ticket Office.
Now the building is used by the club for storage and office accommodation for the Football in the Community team.

The gates to the right were originally part of the access to the West Stand and the next fixture at White Hart Lane is displayed above them.
The old clock with the cockerel on top was refurbished in 2000 to restore it to it’s former glory after it had fallen into disrepair over the years.

Completed for the start of the 1999-2000 season, this is the new Spurs Store at the corner of the High Road and the Park Lane end of the ground.
The modern layout is in sharp contrast to the old store and the increased floor-space means that the store is a bit more comfortable to move around,
although it is usually very busy on matchday.
Just to the left of this photo is Warmington House, the building which used to house the old Spurs Supporters Club
and outside which you used to be able to buy MEHSTG when Spurs were at home.

The second photograph was taken from the corner of the High Road and Church Road.
On the Southern corner (the other side of Church Road), there was a meeting of boys from the local school and the cricket club met in 1882
to decide what to do during the winter.  Out of that meeting, a football club, which came to be known as Tottenham Hotspur, was formed.

This photo, taken from the High Road and Church Road junction, shows the South Stand which contains the away supporters section.
In the foreground, you can see the new Spurs Store and behind that is the Park Lane Ticket Office.

The stand was traditionally the Tottenham end during the 1970’s, but the Spurs fans moved to the Paxton Road end (North Stand) when that became the area for Spurs Members.  The away fans are seated in the nearest part of the stand, while the rest of the stand is available for home supporters.

The second photo is the view of the South Stand from the junction of Park Lane and Worcester Avenue looking towards the High Road.