London’s Fields – An Intimate History of London Football Fandom
by Mark Waldon
256 Pages
Published by Pitch Publishing
ISBN 978-1-78531-821-4
This is not a book solely about Tottenham Hotspur, but there is a fair chunk of it that involves our club and it is written by a former Spurs Youth player, whose Dad was also a coach at the club.
Taking an interesting premise of how fans across the capital view their own club and the others in London Mark throws some background to the various “rivalries” that exist and gets some surprising responses on who some clubs view as their hated opponents and who they don’t find offensive.
The movement away from the object of the fans’ desire is also an interesting aspect of the subject of the book and perhaps one that needs a bit more investigation, with the movement of people occurring for a number of reasons as not all fans of one club will move to the same place. For example, there are lots of Spurs fans in the Irons’ heartland and Gooners sprung up all over the place in the days when they won things.
The stories of how fans came to support their teams are always fascinating. Some following family lines or rebelled against them, while others fell in with mates or were handed clubs to support, sometimes being left in the lurch with a duff team while others went glory-hunting. There are some tracts of the book that almost explain why supporters have a grudge against other clubs with some bizarre reasons and some grounded in a particular stage of history or a specific game. Whatever the reason, some of the grudges are long-held and won’t be shaken off.
We all have our own views on fans of other London clubs. The Orients and Charltons being non-threatening and not often played against being viewed with fraternal (or sororal) feeling, while others such as West Ham, Chelsea and Arsenal inspire stronger antipathy resulting from various past experiences. Then there are some clubs in the middle where you have little disdain for and little love for. With so many clubs in London and the way that football has gone since the establishment of the Premier League, the term “derby” is usually exclusively confined to Sky Sports who use it to big up matches between London clubs even when there is little animosity between them.
Well-written and with the author seemingly a sympathetic interviewer who has a wider view of London football than some of us (through his moves around the capital, playing for some of the clubs mentioned and his contact with other clubs fans through his mates), the book is an easy read and one well-worth giving time to. Mark’s idea is a sound one and gives an insight into why other London fans dislike (or like) Spurs, with some having no strongly held feelings about us, but done in the setting of the interview, most feelings are considered and rational. The only thing missing from the book is a coda that would sum up the individual views and opinions expressed by the fans of the London clubs. Maybe that is for another book ?
Marco van Hip