Eagle-eyed viewers of Sky Sports’ coverage of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-0 win against Manchester United last Sunday will have noticed a change.
When head coach Ange Postecoglou was interviewed before
kick-off and asked about the lift of having players back from injury, he was
described as “Tottenham Hotspur Head Coach”. When the Tottenham starting XI was
displayed down the left-hand side of the screen, it said “Spurs” at the top.
And when the graphics showed the team in their positions, starting with a
cutout of Postecoglou, arms crossed, the word across his chest was “Spurs”.
An email that was circulated to Premier League broadcasters
on February 10 has been seen by The Athletic. Titled “Tottenham
Hotspur Naming Update”, the email makes clear how the club wants to be
referenced.
“Tottenham Hotspur have provided clarification regarding the
club’s name. They have requested that the club are primarily known as Tottenham
Hotspur, with Spurs being the preferred short version. The club have requested
that they are not referred to as Tottenham.”
The club’s explanation for this is simple: Tottenham is the
name of the area, but not the name of the club. It is long-standing club policy
not to refer to themselves as ‘Tottenham’. There is nothing new about this, it
has been the club’s position going back to 2011.
What specifically changed is that in November last year, the
club unveiled a “remastered brand identity”, which was “rolled out across all
the Club’s physical and digital touchpoints”. This came with a “Brand
Playbook”, which explains in comprehensive detail what the new brand identity
means.
“In a world full of Uniteds, Citys and Rovers, there is only
one Hotspur, Tottenham Hotspur. When referring to the team or the brand, please
use ‘Tottenham Hotspur’, ‘Tottenham Hotspur Football Club’ or ‘THFC’. Never
refer to our Club as ‘Tottenham’, ‘Tottenham Hotspur FC’ or ‘TH’.”
This month’s fresh guidance to broadcasters is an apparent
attempt to underline this, and to make sure that ‘Spurs’ rather than
‘Tottenham’ becomes the common shorthand when ‘Tottenham Hotspur’ does not fit.
On the one hand, there certainly is an argument to be made
that ‘Tottenham’ is just the name of the local area, and not the name of the
club itself. There are plenty of Premier League clubs for whom no one would
just use the first geographical part of the name.
You would get some strange looks turning up at Villa Park
saying you were looking forward to watching ‘Aston’ play. Very few would refer
to the side who play at Molineux simply as ‘Wolverhampton’, or at the City
Ground as ‘Nottingham’. A
‘Hotspur’ is certainly unique and indispensable heritage.
The name comes from when a new football club was established in the area in
1882, and two brothers, Hamilton and Lindsay Casey, were searching for a brand
identity of their own. They named their club after Henry Percy, the box-office
medieval knight who tried to overthrow Henry IV and was killed at the Battle of
Shrewsbury in 1403. His nickname was ‘Hotspur’, hence the name of the club, and
hence the club’s logo too. This is history worth clinging to.
If clubs had to be named after their home boroughs Tottenham
would become Haringey (except that name has been claimed by a non-league club);
Arsenal would be Islington; Manchester United would be Salford; and Crystal Palace
would be Croydon. Bit of a problem for
QPR and Fulham though.
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