{"id":27630,"date":"2026-07-01T21:13:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/?page_id=27630"},"modified":"2026-07-01T21:13:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T21:13:37","slug":"enic_of_time","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/enic_of_time\/","title":{"rendered":"In The ENIC Of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENIC took over the ownership of THFC from Alan Sugar in 2000 with big promises.
\nHere are some articles about the tenure as the custodians of the club that make interesting reading looking back on them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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24.12.2000<\/span><\/p>\n

With the English National Investment Company (ENIC) buying a controlling interest in Tottenham Hotspur plc, the club enters a new era with Sir Alan Sugar taking a back seat on the board.\u00a0 But will it be a new broom that sweeps as clean as some of the fans wanted ??<\/span><\/p>\n

With the company being an investment company, it is only reasonable to assume that they will carefully monitor the profitability of their money and that would not necessarily involve throwing money at the team without any restriction.\u00a0 The days of Jack Walker at Blackburn Rovers and Jack Hayward at Wolves have gone.\u00a0 No more will those who have made their pile come into a football club and be willing to shell out on top price players.\u00a0 Buying the title is not a route that many teams have gone down, although Blackburn did it, you should ask where are they now ??\u00a0 Wolves still linger in the First Division despite spending big.\u00a0 A prudent approach to the financial input to the club is what we can expect from ENIC, which will mean something not far removed from what went on under Sugar.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where they may prove more beneficial to the club is in their marketing of the Tottenham “brand”.\u00a0 The club are hanging onto their media rights and this could make them a very tempting proposition for a TV\/Internet company who realises that the potential for growth at the club is huge should they start to challenge regularly for the top trophies.\u00a0 Just look what happened when Spurs won the “Mickey Mouse” trophy – the League Cup – in 1999.\u00a0 The tie in with a media deal could see the club bring some major investment in to bolster the squad, ground and the development of the Academy.\u00a0 There are also links with bookmaking that ENIC have and also in the sphere of football around the continent.\u00a0 While ENIC didn’t take up their share option at Glasgow Rangers, it is important to see where Spurs lie in their portfolio of football clubs.\u00a0 Rangers were no doubt the top club in the ENIC collection, with the other clubs rarely in the Champions League, usually only the UEFA Cup.\u00a0 Now, although the Scots Champions didn’t often get too far, that didn’t matter.\u00a0 The important thing was that they were getting exposure.\u00a0 Now that they have bought into Tottenham, after a number of years trying to do so, they are undoubtedly seeing Spurs as their “jewel in the crown” of their investments.\u00a0 With this allied to the fact that Chief Executive Daniel Levy is a Spurs season ticket holder, there is a feeling that things might go in the right direction.\u00a0 It remains to be seen if Save Our Spurs will give the company the time to do so.\u00a0 Indeed, I heard someone comment at the Middlesbrough game that Mark Jacob should be held responsible if the new owners failed to restore the “glory days”.\u00a0 Now that’s a bit harsh, but the constant clamour for success is all very well, but it has to be a rational approach to gaining a foothold in the successful reaches of the Premier League.\u00a0 Talk of a five year plan come into line with what GG first said on his arrival and although things have occurred to slow that down (causing resentment among the fans as it has), it is a sound way of building the club up from the position it had fallen to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Levy is certainly saying all the right things to get the fans on his side.\u00a0 The club has lost it’s soul, he was quoted as saying in the News of the World article on Sunday 24th December 2000.\u00a0 He went on to say that the club should be about football rather than making profit and that players like Ginola were fantastic to watch, which is what the fans wanted.\u00a0 He said that Tottenham should be bringing players like this to the club to promote the glorious traditions that have existed in the past and desperately wants to keep Sol Campbell, Les Ferdinand and Darren Anderton who are available on Bosman transfers at the end of the season.\u00a0 The man has shown himself at the start of his involvement as a “Tottenham man”, who is aware of what supporting the club is all about, which Sugar patently failed to do when he came in.\u00a0 Calling them “Tottenham Hotspurs” and not knowing what the “Double” was led fans to have initial suspicions which festered away over the length of his tenure.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all Levy’s brave words, he will upset many by saying that George Graham is set to remain at the club to provide some continuity, instead of the chopping and changing of managers and staff that has gone on over the last few years.\u00a0 He seems to have similar aims and ambitions as Graham, who has said that he wants to bring youngsters through the system rather than splash out huge sums of money on transfers.\u00a0 That must have been music to the ears of the new man, coming after GG was reported to have said that if someone gave him \u00a350 million he could produce a title challenging team !!\u00a0 The amount of investment in the team will only be raised from profits made by the company, as Sugar made clear at the AGM recently.\u00a0 Therefore, the more profit made means that money could be pumped back into the team or other areas needing development.\u00a0 Using their knowledge in the sporting world, it must be hoped that they can generate the sort of funds needed to make Tottenham great again.\u00a0 They certainly seem to want to bring young fans in to the club and appear to realise that these are the future of the club’s support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Would it also be cautious to suggest that the new owners might be looking at moving Tottenham out of their traditional home to a place where income could be more easily generated by having a much higher capacity ??\u00a0 With the National Athletics stadium going ahead in nearby Picketts Lock, Spurs could be housed in a stadium with a potential capacity of 80,000.\u00a0 The arena has received money from the Sports Council of Great Britain and no doubt there will be lottery funding in there somewhere, but Tottenham could fulfill the requirement that is to be met to make sure the facility is used to it’s true potential.\u00a0 The idea of Saracens rugby union team moving in to make it more regularly utilised is one which appeals to locals as they were based at Enfield Football Club originally – about two miles away.\u00a0 However, in terms of revenue generation, Tottenham Hotspur would be a much more attractive prospect and I am sure that having ousted Enfield FC from their own borough, the Council would have few qualms about attracting a Premier League side to bring trade into a deprived area of the borough.\u00a0 The only drawback would be the transport links to the stadium.\u00a0 Talk of a new railway station opposite have been mooted and there is only one main road leading to the site, but the transport questionnaire currently being run on the Spurs official website must be for some good reason – normally working out the feasibility of getting people to the ground using “sustainable means” (i.e not cars).\u00a0 The only problem then would be to get planning permission to use White Hart Lane for development (offices, housing) or for Tottenham to decide what they would use it for if they decided to keep it.\u00a0 If sold, it could be worth quite a lot and moving into Picketts Lock would only involve a leasing agreement; not having to own it themselves.\u00a0 It might not happen, but the thought of increasing the capacity to a similar level at the present location is one which causes lots of headaches.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than being of the same frame of mind as one of the “radical” elements who have been vocal around Tottenham the last few seasons, Daniel Levy appears to be a more pragmatic figure.\u00a0 He realises that Tottenham have fallen along way behind, but doesn’t want to go along the lines of some other clubs to regain lost glories.\u00a0 His is probably a more long term plan not to get Spurs back up there, but to keep them there when they get there.\u00a0 For that, his company’s financial investment and the emotional investment of the fans should reap some benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tony Brennan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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17.02.2009<\/span><\/p>\n

ENIC’s mission statement from the time they bought the majority shareholding from Alan Sugar back in 2000 was to break into the Champions League places. Although we have been flirting with these top 4 positions over recent years, we are currently battling against relegation and this would seem to sum up the schizophrenic performance of the club over the last 25 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The club, of course, has a rich history of success and of achieving this by playing a certain brand of football that would be described as exciting and attack minded and of which the supporters are justifiably proud. I don’t think many Spurs fans over the years would have sacrificed flair to secure success – the feeling has always been that as long as we had a good cup run, played well against Arsenal and generally played “flair” football, then mid-table would just about satisfy us. We certainly would not want to achieve success by playing the Arsenal style of the 1970s or that of Everton in the majority of the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although this belief is still core to any Spurs fan, the feeling over recent years has shifted slightly in that the expectation levels have risen to where the majority of supporters, and probably the Directors, \u00a0now feel that we are at least a top six club and very much knocking on the door or the Champions League places. However, the clubs current position does not show this and we do now need a lengthy period of stability for the investment in the club to reach its fruition. So has Mr Levy’s tenure brought more stability to the club and is it better placed now then before ENIC took over ?<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last 25 years the club has continually imploded just when it appeared that they were on the verge of something special – the FA and UEFA Cup successes of the early 80s came to an end because we couldn’t keep Keith Burkinshaw, the great 1987 team quickly disintegrated to relegation dogfighters after Pleat left, the 1991 Cup final success again lead to nothing but relegation battles the following seasons due to Venables moving upstairs and then falling out with Alan Sugar, the great side of 94-95 again lead to nothing, in part due to us being unable to hold on to, or successfully replace, Klinsmann, with the rest of the nineties being just more flirtations with relegation under Gross and then Graham. Not all of these “implosions” can be blamed on the Directors\/Owners of the club at that time, but many can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan Sugar, although unpopular with an element of Spurs fans, turned the club around financially, made it a very stable business and brought some sanity into the “business” of football – he should be more widely recognised for the job he did for our club. ENIC, therefore, took over a financially secure club in 2000 and Levy spoke widely about “periods of stability” and “not buying success” – much in the way that Sugar had been preaching previously. Levy initially supported Graham and didn’t want to change the Manager as this would lead to instability – yet within weeks Graham was gone and Hoddle was in. Although this action was clearly against Levy’s mantra of “stability”, I do not think there was one Spurs supporter who did not think that Hoddle was absolutely the right choice at that time – both from a popularity standpoint and from his talent as a coach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hoddle did not work out, but the Directors gave him enough time and support. The shower of Season Ticket wallets that rained down on the last day of the season (an empty gesture if ever there was one !) after our trouncing by Blackburn showed that the fans had turned against him and left ENIC with little choice but to terminate his contract. The club did not rush into a knee-jerk appointment, but had a Director of Football in David Pleat who could come in whilst a thorough search could be done to source the right candidate. Again, ENIC can not be blamed for Santini’s departure for personal reasons (does anyone actually know what happened here ?) but had in Jol someone that could step in and do a job until we found a new man. As it turned out, Jol was good enough to take on the job permanently and Enic must be praised for this – Jol was someone who Alex Ferguson rated highly and wanted as his right hand man at Old Trafford before we secured him.<\/span><\/p>\n

ENIC certainly did not cover themselves in glory in the events that lead to Jol’s departure. Their actions directly lead to the instability they had so long sought to avoid and a popular and successful Manager was forced to leave. But why were the owners of the club looking at another Manager ? This has never been fully explained, but there was a feeling at the time, and that remains, that Jol had lost some of his authority or even his drive. Certainly, many members of the squad were failing to build on their performance of the previous year and some were clearly overweight. It would appear that ENIC had justifiably lost faith in Jol and were acting in the best interests of the club to seek a replacement. They handled it badly and Levy made a lengthy apology to Spurs fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, the communication\/language issues that lead to the demise of Juande Ramos can not be fully blamed on Levy – this was a man who was widely respected throughout Europe, had won back to back UEFA Cups, played the type of football that fitted in with the Spurs style of play and who has subsequently go on to manage the biggest club in the world with a near perfect record with them. His initial results were promising, the squad got fitter and performed better, leading to the Carling Cup win in 2008. The performances after this triumph were poor and when it was clear he had lost the dressing room, the club had to act and moved quickly in appointing Redknapp.<\/span><\/p>\n

So not a great deal of stability here, but the turbulence has only once been down to Enic and even then, there are large mitigating circumstances. They have continually invested heavily into the club, have not hiked up ticket prices even though many of our rivals have and even though we have a much lower capacity than similar clubs. They have not often paid over the odds for “Carlos Kickaballs” and have stuck, in the main, to sourcing good, young prospects (often English) who will either stay and grow with Spurs or who will be sold at a profit to plough back into the club. They have maintained the financial stability of the club (currently 14th richest club in Europe) where others have not and who are now starting to feel the panic of “what if our oligarch leaves”, “what if our two US owners don’t get on and then sell at a loss”, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

With Redknapp’s appointment we have an experienced, canny old campaigner. We still need a structure to be put in place so that he is suitably replaced if he fails, falls ill, leaves etc. Not sure if Bond is the man or Clive Allen, but it would be good to have clarity on this, maybe after the season finishes.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we can have a full five years or more of this much desired “stability”, I have no doubt that we will be at the very least knocking on the door of the top four places and winning some silverware along the way. If we can get this far with the same owners and management, we continue to run our club properly and keep investing in good young players, then maybe its not too unrealistic to think we may be looking to win the Premier League and Champions League in 2015 and beyond especially if some of the top four can’t continue their current purple patches of stability. Sounds a long way away doesn’t it and football does have a habit of not looking that far forward. We will wait, look forward with optimism and trust that the current owners have what it takes to establish the stability we have all craved for so long. Please,\u00a0 . . . . .\u00a0 no more seasons of transition !<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul Barker<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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ENIC took over the ownership of THFC from Alan Sugar in 2000 with big promises. Here are some articles about the tenure as the custodians of the club that make interesting reading looking back on them. . 24.12.2000 With the English National Investment Company (ENIC) buying a controlling interest in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27630","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27631,"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27630\/revisions\/27631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mehstg.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}