Levy, Trophies and more money for the team; don’t expect too much yet.

  

Levy, Trophies and more money for the team; don’t expect too much yet.

By Peter J Arnold

In an article by Don Scully, he said, and I quote, “If Harry Kane wants to win trophies, then he is wasting his time at Spurs.” He then goes on and says, “If he is unsure, all he needs to do is ask the players who walked away and into glory.  For example: Luka Modric won 17 titles at Real Madrid, and he is just the tip of the iceberg.” Click on the link "HERE" to read more of his article.

Don Scully basically says that if people like Kane, Bale, etc., want to win trophies, they have to leave. First of all, nobody knows if one will win a trophy before the season starts or not. It is basically the luck of the draw. Granted, Daniel Levy, who picks the manager, doesn’t know that he has the right one or not until that manager starts working for him. Just ask City, Chelsea, United and even Arsenal, or any other club on this planet. They have all gone through dud managers.

I accept that he has not been splashing the cash, as Don Scully so elegantly pointed out, but remember where Daniel Levy and Joe Lewis started from; a club just saved from bankruptcy and inherited a dilapidated old building that was not fit for the 21^st century. It had outlived its usefulness. When it was built, it was the state of the art stadium. With age, the then modernity starts to crumble and gets outdated, then it is time to renew.

In modernising the club, the first step was not the team but the construction of a showground that is fit for the modern era. Projects like that were not going to be achieved instantaneously. No, it will take decades, and then once your money machine starts to make profits, the next step will be to build that invincible team that is fit for such a theatre of dreams. By my reckoning, in the next 10 or so years, we will start to see the fruits of Levy’s empire unfold. And it will not stop just with our magnificent Arena and a team to go with it; then there is also the surrounding area, which will have to be gentrified and brought up to the standards of stylish Chelsea or Westminister. You can not have a Rolls Royce sitting in a Robin Reliant showroom.

Years of no league titles or European Champions trophies has upset the fans, while others laughed, but, when was the last time Tottenham won a league title, anyway? Never a Premier League title, and the last time we won the League (the old Division One), well, we have to go back 60 years (1961) and for our first League title (we have only won two), even further back (70 years) to 1951. And as for the European Champions League, never… the closest the old players (60s) got to it was way back in 1962 with that famous team everybody goes on about, but who could only manage to get to the semi-finals. Fast forward 58 years, and under Daniel Levy’s direction, we actually managed to get to the final. Not even the likes of Greaves, White, Jones, Blanchflower, Allan and the rest of the legends managed to do that. There were other Cup finals we got to under Levy but just missed out on lifting that trophy. But Levy’s direction and heart is in the right place.

The critics, like Don Scully, are out to get him without looking at the bigger picture. To create great wine, you have to wait until it matures, and that is what the fans must do, wait and be patient.

Our Magnificent stadium

Football is also no longer the preserve of the working class. And most of the poor working class have morphed into healthier and prosperous people. Changes in society (with more affluent workers) demands a better return for one’s money (better stadiums, better food, better-sitting facilities etc.). Which in return means a better environment, better housing and more affluent surroundings/ area.

People with money are claiming their places in stadium’s like the Tottenham Stadium, and those that can not or will not keep up will be moved even closer to the exit sign. For somebody like myself who came from a council estate and whose parents were working-class, this might sound unkind, but go back to 1900 when the Labour party came into existence, the working man has gradually improved from that date, over the years (like myself) and moved up the ladder, while the Labour party has stood still. And for that, they have been decimated in Scotland, the South of England and now the north (or a large chunk of it). Now places like London N17 will follow suit with the help of the likes of Daniel Levy and Lewis.

People like Daniel Levy are the future, while John Ripsher, Bobby Buckle, Charles Robert, the Wale family, Richardson and the Bearman families (all once Directors) just become a dwindling light to a forgotten past.

The future is for magnificent Arena’s, like the Tottenham stadium with luxuries abundant. The past is irrelevant to the majority, especially the young, but the now and tomorrow and what it can bring is what it is all about.

Some will violently disagree… and while they stand still debating it, society progresses and the likes of Daniel Levy, Lewis, Abramovich, The Glaziers, John W Henry, David Sullivan/ Karen Brady etc., bulldoze down the old and replace it with the new and well-heeled. Think future, Not the past.

 

By Peter J Arnold.