Is Wembley The Best Option For Spurs?

The new Wembley mightn’t carry the same weight of history in its steel and concrete bones as its famous twin-towered ancestor, but in recent years, the house that Australian contractors built, has started to fashion some significant memories of its own.

Naturally, not all of them are memories to be proud of. Big Alan Pardew will look back at his pre-emptive touchline bogle a fortnight ago and admit there’s a time and a place for that sort of thing. Then again, Pards is a law unto himself and his only regret might be that he didn’t take his trousers off.

Elsewhere, half-man-half-aircraft-carrier, Adebayo Akinfenwa’s penalty-nabbing antics in the League Two Play-off yesterday were somewhat of a bitter footnote in an otherwise touching story for AFC Wimbledon. But, as many remarked on Twitter during the impassioned exchange; would you argue with him? The man could punch a tree in half.

Not wishing to miss out on the action, then, Spurs will have at least three opportunities to add their own chapter to the history of Wembley 2.0 next season. Daniel Levy and the F.A have finalised a deal which will see the North London club take temporary residence in the national stadium, for the home fixtures of their Champions League campaign. Spurs, in a very real sense, are on their way to Wembley.

There’s a precedent here, of course. In the late 1990s, in a rumoured attempt to satisfy potential Emirates financers, that they could attract 60,000+ fans each week, Arsenal experimented with using Wembley as their Champions League base. On the pitch, it was an experiment with underwhelming results, winning only two of the six games played there in the 1998/99 season.

You might remember Fiorentina, purple Toyota kits and a Gabriel Batistuta pile-driver knocking them out of the Group stages in the Autumn of ‘99.

As a dress rehearsal for occupancy in a much larger stadium, however, it was certainly encouraging. Attendances easily tipped over the 70,000 mark in every home fixture.

It’s seems like a logical move for Tottenham. The task, and, I guess, the worry, will be how they can transfer some of that close-knit, high-intensity White Hart Lane atmosphere to their new adoptive home. No straightforward undertaking in a stadium not far short of triple the capacity and one just as easily converted into a music venue as it is an elite football ground.

Spurs may’ve only enjoyed one season in the Champions League, but in fewer places was the environment so magnetised on European nights. Bale and Van der Vaart tearing Internazionale apart, that fraught but highly entertaining stalemate with their City rivals in the last-sixteen; it will take some effort to replicate those famous evenings under the lights.

Let’s hope the men upstairs have given all this consideration and not just looked at it from a purely financial point of view, when other, Stadium mk-shaped options might’ve been available.