The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur Quotes

“Remember, you are going to run out in front of the people who pay your wages. Their expectancy of you is high, their value of you is high and their opinion of you is high. So do not let them down. Entertain them and you can only do that by being honest with yourself, respecting your team-mates and your opponents, and by, as a team, playing as one.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“But if any football manager should have been honoured, it was Bill Nicholson. The Double, the trophies, the glory nights, the confident, emphatic assertion that an English club could be the equal of any in Europe – Nicholson’s Tottenham Hotspur did it all first.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“Gary Mabbutt is a living history of Tottenham Hotspur. The refusal to limit his life because of diabetes, the determination to go on playing in spite of injuries, shows the measure of the man. ‘Legend’ is a word that’s applied rather too freely when it comes to describing footballers. When it comes to Gary Mabbutt, it’s the only one you can use.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“Harris had taken a phone call from a Dutch journalist friend who told him that Bergkamp was unhappy at Inter Milan and wanted to try his luck in England. As Bergkamp had always been a Spurs fan because of his boyhood hero worship of Glenn Hoddle, he wanted to know if Spurs would be interested. Informed of Bergkamp’s availability, Alan Sugar passed on the enquiry to Francis. Seeing Bergkamp as more of a midfield playmaker than the out-and-out striker he was looking for, Francis turned him down.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“It’s about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish. It’s about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“The fact is,’ David Lacey wrote in The Guardian, ‘that failing to finish opponents off is one of the prime reasons why Tottenham, after playing some of the most attractive football, have ended the season without a prize.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“Spurs became the first football club to have a listing on the Stock Exchange. The flotation, which raised £3.8 million, was over-subscribed by three-and-a-half times.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“They’d won a lot of admirers that season but finished up with nothing. You can’t put applause in a trophy cabinet.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“For impartial observers, there was only one conclusion. And it was a depressing one. Spurs might have been one of the six most beautiful teams. But they just didn’t have the bottle.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“One of the fashionable coaching slogans of the time was ‘peripheral vision’, a term which attracted Rowe’s derision. ‘You know what that means? It means seeing out of your arse,’ said Rowe,”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“On Trial – Spurs are giving a month’s trial to an amateur, Wm. E. Nicholson, an inside-right of Scarborough Working Men’s Club. He recently celebrated his 17th birthday. His height is 5ft 8in and weight 10st 12lb.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“On 19th November, 1886, Spurs played their first fixture against a newly-formed South London club called Woolwich Arsenal. It was a friendly abandoned due to poor light after 75 minutes, by which time Spurs were 2-1 up.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“I know that being ridiculed for being a Spurs fan is part of the deal and that this team will tear my heart out more times than it will make me leap for joy, but I have made my choice. I can’t wait for the glory, glory nights yet to come.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur

“I can live with the misery of the defeats. It’s the hope I can’t handle.”
― Julie Welch, The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur