This is the cover of the 1957 Stanley Matthews Football Year Book. It is from the year I was born. Three years later, it was the book my Dad used to get me to select which football team I was going to support. He gave me an open choice, although he was hoping I would choose Stoke City because Stanley played for them or Chelsea because they were Dad’s local favourites in London. Even at an early age, I had a questioning nature and an independent streak.  I wanted a team for me and one that I would be able to go and see.  

I am drafting this piece on 28 Feb 2013. By coincidence, the team I chose as a child, Tottenham Hotspur were in the second division in 1957 and next to them in the list of clubs were the same teams we are currently playing in a run of Premier League Fixtures; Swansea, West Ham, Southampton…I chose Spurs because they played at White Hart Lane. We lived in Barnes, South London at the time, down near the finish line to the Oxford / Cambridge University Boat Race. The main Road at the end of Charles Street where we lived was called White Hart Lane. At that tender age, I did not know that there could be more than one White Hart Lane in London. Imagine my surprise years later when I realised I could not have walked to the end of the street to watch my team and in fact Tottenham’s White Hart Lane was on the other side of London! By then we had moved to West London anyway. It was too late to change  then.  I was already a Spurs fan for life. Incidentally, the crowd capacity was 75,058 at the time. I’ve been to matches there with over 50,000 attending. What a difference all-seater stadiums made, dropping it to 36,000. No wonder we need a new ground now to give a decent income stream. There were a few other interesting references to Spurs in Stanley’s book