Yorkshire Spurs: "It's gone crazy - we're doing all sorts!"
Meet our Official Supporters' Clubs - Yorkshire Spurs
Thu 23 April 2020, 17:05|
Tottenham Hotspur
For a club last seen cruising into Burnley via the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, chairman Paul Pavlou admits Yorkshire Spurs had to go through some choppy waters before arriving at the flourishing organisation we all see today.
Yorkshire members took the trip to Burnley by barge for our Premier League match on 7 March, disembarking a Hugo Lloris goal-kick away from Turf Moor, floodlights in the distance. Talk about arriving in style!
It’s a far cry from what Paul sees as a turning point for the club three years ago.
He told us: “I used to drive down, meet a mate who had a Season Ticket, stay at his overnight and drive back. That was my routine. I then had kids, dived out of it for a couple of years and then three years ago, one of my friends, Alex, set up Yorkshire Spurs, and got the club affiliated.
“Unfortunately, a couple of months down the line, it wasn’t really going anywhere. Alex was really busy at work, but at the same time, we could see the Facebook group growing and growing. In the end, myself and a couple of others on the board basically asked, ‘shall we just leave it, or grab it by the scruff of the neck?’.
“That was three years ago. That was D-Day, if you like. It could have gone either way, but we decided to carry on, and it’s gone crazy! Now we’re doing all sorts!”
Three years on, Yorkshire Spurs have 250 ‘core members’, plus thousands following online. If you hadn’t seen members on the canal at Burnley, you may well have seen them taking over train carriages from Leeds to King’s Cross on home matchdays, taken part in their now annual five-a-side tournament - won by Lancashire Spurs last year, and visited by legendary midfielder David Howells - and certainly, in this time of lockdown as we fight the coronavirus, seen co-chairperson Ro Huntriss’ piano medley – over 13,000 views on Twitter – and maybe taken part in their online quiz.
“We do well,” added Paul, modestly. “We’re proactive. We’re up to 250 core members now – over 1,300 on our Facebook page, same on Twitter. We’ve a good following.
“Ro, who runs Yorkshire Spurs with me, usually does a piano medley at the yearly social to kick things off. Unfortunately, it was postponed in March, but we thought we’d do the piano medley on social media anyway!
🎶🎹 A member of @YorkshireSpurs providing the soundtrack to your afternoon! 👏#SpursAtHome ⚪️ #COYS pic.twitter.com/rSXsE315K8
— Tottenham Hotspur (at 🏡) (@SpursOfficial) April 1, 2020
"We’re also running a quiz and we’ve got 18 supporters’ clubs involved. The third of three rounds is on Friday (24 April), the final on Saturday night. We’re trying to do things. It’s tough without the football, it brings people together and is a huge part of everyone’s life.”
Spurs has been part of Paul’s life since the 1980s. “I was born and raised in Enfield,” he said. “I moved up here to university when I was 18, 19. My first game was when I was 10 in 1988, so I had quite a few years of travelling to Spurs games before I actually moved up north. I thought I'd do my two years at uni and get back down to London. But I met my wife, had kids, started my own business and 20-odd years later, I’m still here!
“Everyone here has a link with Spurs. People like myself, first-generation fans, southeners who have moved up north, people with parents who supported Spurs, maybe born in Yorkshire but with that family influence, some just grew up watching Gazza and fell in love with Spurs that way. The core of support has always been here, it was just a case of picking them out - and social media has made that a lot easier.
“Yorkshire is massive! You can’t have one hub here, so we’ve one in Leeds, one in Doncaster, sometimes we show games in Sheffield. We tend to get a train down. We’ve had some cracking trips, taken over carriages. The train from Leeds to King’s Cross stops at Doncaster, so we all pre-book, brilliant. Travelling to Burnley was hilarious. You could see Turf Moor where we were dropped off. Everyone was there, members, kids, it was another great day. Hopefully we’ll have some more soon.”
Paul would like to thank Ro, fellow board members Steve Jones and Jay Fieldhouse and Matt Zina, for his work on the worldwide quiz.
