At the end of the week when Beyonce tickets went on sale at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, followed by the visit of King Charles to throw an American football across the pitch, there will be a football match.
Shortly after Manchester United make their way down the High Road, it is anticipated that hundreds, if not thousands, of Spurs fans will follow. At the corner of Lordship Lane supporters will gather for a “peaceful march” to voice their displeasure at owners Enic and its face in the boardroom, chairman Daniel Levy.
It is not the first time Levy has been the subject of such demonstrations. The proposed move to Stratford – and the ground eventually inhabited by West Ham – prompted vociferous protests outside the old White Hart Lane. Later, so did the dalliance with the European Super League.
But the “Levy Out” chants have grown by degrees – and decibels – as Tottenham have plummeted out of contention for major trophies and this season, perilously close to the relegation zone.
“To dare is too dear”. “Profit before glory”. “Our game is about glory, Levy’s game is about greed.” Amid the burger vans and scarf stalls, the banners against the board have become part of the Spurs matchday experience.
“My view is that whilst I respect his financial acumen, Tottenham Hotspur is a football club,” says Alan Fisher, writer of Tottenham on my mind.
“Tottenham from 2000 onwards, I think people will see the Levy era as as big a football disaster as the Premier League has seen. That’s not quite true of course because some clubs have gone completely bust. But utterly wasted – an entire generation of fans that’s been treated to a sea of waste opportunities.
“This isn’t just about the fact our squad isn’t deep enough because of injuries. It’s because he’s been in charge for 24 years and we’re still seeing the same problems, the same issues are coming up that we had with [Jacques] Santini [manager for five months in 2004].
“Santini couldn’t communicate with the players, [director of football Frank] Arnesen was tasked with recruiting lots of young players on the cheap we could sell on, and the team wasn’t of sufficient quality. They’re repeating the same things over and over and over again.”
While the relationship with supporters declined further with the sacking of Martin Jol – news of which leaked at half-time of a Uefa Cup match – it was not irrecoverable. There are elements of the fanbase who remain behind the chairman due to the club’s commercial success, but they are less vocal and risk dwindling in number as Spurs’ problems deepen.
“Levy Out” has perhaps become a byword for the frustration felt at years of decline. It is less than a decade since back-to-back title challenges and not six years since the Champions League final in Madrid. Neither Jose Mourinho nor Antonio Conte, two of the modern game’s most successful managers, were able to arrest the slide in the period since.
The trophy drought now stands at 17 years, the 2008 League Cup the only silverware since Levy took over from another tumultuous period under Alan Sugar in 2001.
“I have mixed views of Enic and Levy’s ownership,” Spurs fan Aaron Hanlon tells The i Paper.
“One the one hand, I think it’s fair to say that success on the pitch is not their top priority. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they don’t care at all about footballing success, but my sense is Enic understand their main duty to the club as financial, rather than as putting out a competitive football team.
“I don’t agree with the protests. This is a low point to be sure, and it’s maybe the hardest time for fans get behind the players and the manager and help them through this, but also the time they need it most.
“The protest seems like a distraction. It’s also not likely to budge Levy, a substantial shareholder in the club who’s no stranger to this kind of thing and probably would’ve removed himself from the picture by now if he were susceptible to protests and chants.
“Up the Spurs, I say. Sing about the players and the club. If you don’t care about Levy, why are you singing about him in the middle of a football match while the players are giving everything on the pitch?”
Rumours of a potential Qatari takeover have persisted but have typically been thin on detail and have not come to fruition. The new stadium, Levy’s most concrete and valuable legacy, has helped Spurs’ value rocket above the £1bn mark.
On the pitch, however, the near misses of the Mauricio Pochettino years look increasingly like the exception, not the rule.
“They didn’t recognise the generational opportunity of the Pochettino era,” says Tottenham fan and writer Martin Cloake, who believes the Argentine was seen as being too “successful, too quickly”.
“We’ve had lots of different sorts of managers, and they haven’t succeeded. What is it about the culture of the club that’s not working?”
Ange Postecoglou has repeatedly pointed to injuries as the source of Spurs’ woes – at various points they have been without a first-choice goalkeeper, three centre-backs, a left-back and three forwards, and have faced pivotal Premier League games with 10 senior members of the squad out.
“I have a lot of sympathy and a lot of time for Ange, and for the players as well, because I just don’t think there’s any tactical magic that can account for such a depleted and tired squad,” Hanlon adds.
Trophies have become a stick with which to beat Levy but are far from the only friction – the Super League, the 15 sacked managers, the wages to turnover ratio at just 42 per cent at the ninth richest club in the world. That is down three per cent from the previous year, making it harder to compete for players.
At the same time, Tottenham fans pay the second highest season-ticket prices in Europe, behind neighbours Arsenal.
Cloake and Fisher, co-authors of A People’s History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, have both been involved in the “Save Our Seniors” campaign against the decision to reduce concession tickets for over-65s.
“That isn’t just about old people,” Fisher points out. “That’s about everybody, because it reveals what the club think about the most loyal supporters. I’ve been going since 1967. They don’t care who sits in those seats, they would prefer somebody who pays full price.”
For supporters with long memories – and that is almost an entry-level requirement at Tottenham – the Sugar era had its own problems. So the crux of the problem, even if Enic eventually sell, is what comes next.
“Some people are Levy-out at any cost,” Cloake says. “There needs to be an alternative. The suspicion is you have to be owned by a Gulf state or a hedge fund… if the Saudis took over, that would be the severing of ties [for me].
“It hasn’t been the football club I grew up supporting for a long time. What Tottenham Hotspur stands for has changed, possibly forever.”
“I suppose I am sort of ‘Levy Out, provided I know what the alternative is,’” Fisher surmises.
“Or, Levy if you want to change the way you manage the club, that’s fine by me. Which isn’t a catchy slogan, but there’s a lot of people with a similar view that are absolutely pig sick of what’s going on. This has been going on for so long that any residual sympathy I had for Levy and the board has disappeared.”
The cultures of football clubs are formed over decades – the one at Spurs, Cloake insists, is “terrible”. The exception to that is on the terraces, for which there remains a waiting list of tens of thousands.
They are waiting for the light at the end of a transitional period that sometimes feels eternal. Sunday’s protest is another collective cry into that void.