Y-word Focus Group 3

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

I’m not Jewish but I haven’t said Y*d at any Spurs games for years now, about five years maybe. I do think it’s offensive. I’m just not really sure that’s how we should be describing our Club. There’s got to be a better way as opposed to just the faith of some of our supporters. I get the reclaiming it as one of our own but, it’s offensive and not something that we should be shouting about.

Jewish male, aged 75+.

I’ve been going to Tottenham for 70 years.  I’ve seen the very, very good times and the bad times. I don’t believe that we should be using the Y-word. I’m Jewish and most of my Jewish friends… we accept it and I think most of the people that use it do not treat it as a racist term. They just think we’re the Y*ds, the Y*ddos. That’s the term for Spurs supporters. I don’t agree with it and I think if we could get rid of it, it would be wonderful. We don’t use other words which would be derogatory, it’s just the Y-word and I would like to see it got rid of.

Jewish male, aged 65-74.

I also speak as a Jewish man and I have to say I have loved it. I think it’s an anti-racist anthem. It’s a response to some of the most hideous racist chants by other fans. I particularly love it that non-Jewish people celebrate us being the Y*d Army. It takes me back to when the dockers stood shoulder to shoulder with the Jews of the East End in the 1930s facing the fascists of Mosley, it evokes that kind of spirit for me.

Having said that, I too think we should probably be working towards the fans no longer wanting to identify in that kind of way, but I think that will require the Club to take a different view of its relationship to the Jewish community. I don’t think the Club has done anything like enough to celebrate that and to promote it. It’s not enough to say that the Club is against racism. I think the Y*d Army, the Y-word at its best is Jews and non-Jews singing together and celebrating our relationship with the Jewish community, which goes back a very long way

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

I’m not Jewish but I think the way that the fans are using the word, they’re trying to use it in a positive way. I know it’s previously been historically a negative word against the Jewish community, but I think us singing it and using it positively is an improvement. I think in wider football, there should be more done against racism, and I think our supporters using the Y-word in a positive way, we get worse treatment from the FA and stuff for using it when we’re trying to turn it round positively.

Non-Jewish female, aged 55-65.

I’m also not Jewish. I’ve had a Season Ticket for many years and go to football with my husband and a friend of ours who’s Jewish. I’m actually anti the word and I don’t like it at all. If Spurs had a better theme tune, like some other clubs do, maybe that would get people away from using the Y-word and get them into singing a better song. For example, Liverpool have You’ll Never Walk Alone and if we had something like that, it would stop people maybe singing the types of songs that we’ve historically sung.

Jewish male, aged 25-34.

I’m Jewish and I’m not saying that counts for more than someone who’s not Jewish, but I believe the issue is whether it’s antisemitic or not. I don’t believe someone who’s not Jewish can claim that it is antisemitic. It’s contextual and it’s if that group finds it offensive. I don’t believe it’s in someone else’s power to deem whether or not something is racist if they don’t fit within that group. It’s contextual and if you use that word outside of the context that we’re speaking of then yeah, it is antisemitic and it always has been, but I think the way it’s used at Spurs is a positive thing and I think that it has been taken on as a badge of honour. You can’t just delete, remove, ignore history.

It was always used as a negative insult towards the Club and its fans as a derogatory term and I think that the fact that Spurs fans have taken it on and are proud of it, they’ve taken it on as an identity is admirable and I feel honoured to support the Club. I feel empowered to be amongst non-Jews at Spurs and to sing the songs and all of that. I think without that, it’s just you trying to erase something that can’t be erased.

I’m in my 20s and I’ve experienced myself, even recently at games like Chelsea and West Ham... you get the abuse and the songs and the hissing, all of that. It’s a defence. They’re not going to stop doing that because we stop using the Y-word. That’s not going to happen, that’s fantasy.

If there was an official position by the Club to say that fans stop using it, I’d stop going to games. I think that would be awful. I’ve always respected the Club’s position. I don’t know if it’s changed, but it has always been they’ve always defended the fans and fans using the term and I think that’s brave and admirable considering the current climate of everyone being offended by everything. It’s worked and I’d stop going to games if they started reprimanding the fans for using the word. I think that would be ridiculous.

Jewish male, aged 55-64.

I was brought up Jewish, but I don’t practice, but I do get the offence point. I think everyone agrees that outside of Tottenham Hotspur Football Ground, it’s offensive. You can’t use that anywhere else without being offensive, maybe unless it’s just among Jews, right?

It perpetuates the use of an offensive term and I for one am very, very uncomfortable when it’s used in the ground. I love singing along to all the songs, but when it comes to songs or chants that use the word Y*d, I can’t join in because I find it very uncomfortable. I have relatives and friends who would find it very offensive, some of whom go to some of the games.

I don’t think its anyone’s intention, when using it, to be offensive. I get that and I find it difficult, because I love it when, for instance, Aaron Lennon comes back to the Club, the crowd shouts Y*ddo and I want to shout that too, because it’s really affectionate, saying he’s one of us. But I can’t join in, because I find it an offensive term. There will be a lot of people like me who don’t join in. Wouldn’t it be much better if we were all singing the songs? It would be much more powerful, it would be much more cohesive and have much greater impact on our players.

I think it’s a shame we have this term that causes offence to some people. It’s also anachronistic. I do get the history and the background and I totally respect it. My father was fighting in those streets against Mosley. I totally get it, but we have to move on. A lot of our fans these days come from places like South Korea, they probably have no idea what’s going on with the word Y*d.

I do understand the comment that people will still be racist towards us. They will, because there are awful people out there. But I think it invites it to some degree, because we keep associating ourselves with it. We’re inviting that sort of racist slur on us and I think we just need to move on and not offend some of the people who are being offended by it and just sing things that we can all get behind.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

I sat in the old West Stand, next to many Jewish friends. I’m not Jewish myself. When it first became a discussion issue, around about 2000 I think it was, I asked them what their view on it was and canvased opinion locally. The majority of Jewish fans that I spoke to accepted it as a badge of honour and acceptance by a non-Jewish – mainly – supporting club.

Times do change though. I personally don’t use that chant in any context and I can understand why, in the current climate it is becoming much more of an issue. Some people see it as an acceptance of our Jewish friends. Some see it as phrase that in modern parlance, should not be used in whatever climate. So, there is a balance of opinion.

Personally, I think we ought to be looking to reduce its usage. I think any sort of ban or back to the situation we had before, where people who used it were arrested inside of the football stadium, in our context would not be a positive way to go. Possibly education, but I’m sure we’ll come on to discuss how we could approach reducing and maybe one day getting rid of the terminology.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

I’m also not Jewish, but I don’t use the term. I think the use of the word ‘offensive’ is actually a diversion because if you say something’s offensive, you put the onus on the person from within that community. I think that you’ve got a term that’s unacceptable.

I appreciate that we’ve got this historical context. However, a lot of that historical context is now lost. If you look at the use of it on social media for example, there are plenty of people all over the world who use the term as an identity point, but have no idea what its historical context is. That’s important, because it’s out there in the world and associated with us. I get the point about it being okay for us to use it in the ground. However, it’s used by us elsewhere, not just in the ground. So, I think the reclaim, anti-racist point is a very good one, but I think it’s one that’s lost.

I don’t use it. I’ve only used it once in the last 30 years or whatever. That was away at West Ham, when we were being so antisemitically abused, particularly because I was right by the home fans. That really was just sort of saying, ‘Okay, well you’re getting at us for this, but we’re proud of it’. That was very confusing for me, as somebody who doesn’t use the term.

Context is everything and when it is used within our ground, it’s certainly not something for the police to be taken up on. However, we haven’t always used it. I don’t think you can enforce something, because it’s got to be authentic. There’s something about a cultural change programme that also takes on board our identity and what that tribalism is. We know that’s what football is, so in that context where we’re getting that abuse from opposition fans, you revert to that identity, so it’s about how do we maintain our identity without using an unacceptable term?

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

I’ve had my Season Ticket since about 1995 and I also have an away Season Ticket so I’ve been to a fair number of away games in the last ten years or so. I don’t use the word. I’m not Jewish. I understand the points about reclaiming it, but I would generally like Spurs to move way from using the term if they can. I don’t really like religious connotations with football, essentially. I think they should be separate. I don’t really want Spurs being perceived as the Jewish club or the Catholic club or whatever else, because I think football is about being inclusive and if you’re considered one particular type, I don’t think that’s great to be honest with you.

I remember when we went to Lazio for the UEFA Cup game and looking across to the home end and they had all these free Palestine banners and then there was the guy I think, who got stabbed and it was quite ugly. I think the perception of Spurs as a Jewish club does, in some of the European games in particular, cause problems, which it shouldn’t do, but I think it does.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

Not as a Jewish fan, but a long time one, I don’t use the term. Unfortunately, most people don’t support Spurs and there’s a much bigger community out there and I think expressing our understanding and what we’re doing and the historical context…

I’m uncomfortable using the term and it feels to me that we have to move on. I completely get why people are doing it, I think the solidarity around it is absolutely understandable and coming at people in an aggressive or punitive way is not the way to change this. It’s much more about raising awareness and having these conversations. It would be good to see clubs working together to get messages out as well, so it doesn’t just feel that it’s coming from one direction.

It’s unacceptable and in our broader community we wouldn’t use it, so that’s why I am uncomfortable being at the games and supporting the Club and using that term.

Jewish male, aged 65-74.

It is anachronistic. I have loved it and I’ve loved it for the reasons I have set out and I accept that the history and the anti-racist and solidarity messages of it are lost and have got lost over time. We have to put this in the broader context of when this is happening, with Black Lives Matter etc. You’ve got a similar thing of Black Lives Matter having a greater impact now because there are many more white people joining in.

I think it’s going to require skilled management. It won’t be okay for the Club simply to say ‘You’ve got to stop doing this’. I think the Club itself has got to be much more proactive in celebrating its relationship with its Jewish community. I think we do have to put this in the broader context of the society hopefully moving towards a more inclusive and anti-racist basis. We have to put it in that context, but I think history is important even if it’s forgotten by a lot of people.

Another of the lessons from Black Lives Matter is to move forward you have to deal with your past. I know I’m going back a long way, back to the Mosley time but don’t forget, the Swastika flew over White Hart Lane in 1936, I think it was. The Club has got to start almost celebrating the fact that the Club, the fans, the ordinary fans have made a stand against the racist chanting, the antisemitic chanting it’s had, but then lead us towards it no longer being necessary. It could celebrate its Jewish tradition in its public pronouncements and maybe in the museum. Various ways in which the Club itself can be more positive against racism and against antisemitism.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

If it’s going to work and have a proper lasting impact, it can’t just be top down, because if it’s top down, it will feel inauthentic and some people will say ‘Well if the Club starts to dictate to me what being a fan is like, I’m off’ and we can see from the survey, there is a very broad spectrum of understanding of what the impact is.

Some people say ‘I understand it’s offensive, but I use it here, but I don’t use it there’, so it’s complicated. It needs an education piece where the Club works in conjunction with other organisations, not just in football, outside of football and that you actually have the supporters’ groups doing stuff. It has to come from the grassroots as well as in the Club and in our own image as well. If it feels like imposed in some way, it won’t feel authentic and I think one of the things that we all hanker after as football fans is that authenticity. What it feels like, what our fan identity is as Spurs fans and you don’t want that to be imposed in any way.

We haven’t always used it, it hasn’t always been in our vernacular and in fact it’s increased more recently, so, I think there’s something about education, but there’s something about working more widely both within football and in a wider context and a wider educational context.

You could imagine in London schools for example, you’d have these kinds of conversations. I go to football with my 10 year old nephew and we don’t use it, but we had a conversation about it because he doesn’t get it why it’s so joyous in the ground, because it is joyous, it’s about who we are, etc but he certainly couldn’t go to school and use it. So, I think there’s some education stuff there that could be wider than football.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

Anything you try and ban will get a kneejerk reaction and it will increase. The question that we probably don’t know is over a period of time, would that initial early noise die down and would we get somewhere close to where we want to be?

Jewish male, aged 55-64.

I agree about not enforcing it, banning people and all that. When it happened before it backfired. People aren’t trying to be offensive so that would be the wrong thing to do. It needs a gradual education programme.

I think there were comments in the survey that some people didn’t realise it was offensive or didn’t realise that people in the ground were being offended by it and I think a lot of those people will actually stop using it now, because they don’t want to offend people.

It’s interesting that more of the younger people are chanting it and I believe that’s because on average they aren’t as aware of the historical context as the older people are, naturally. If we can educate people that there are significant numbers of supporters who are uncomfortable with the term and just really back singing the songs that don’t use it, I think it’s something that we can gradually essentially eradicate.

Clearly whatever the Club’s going to do as a result of all these consultations is going to be really important. I thought they wrote really well about it last year, after the initial consultation. I thought it was very measured and I have quite a lot of faith that the Club will do a good job again and a lot of people will respond positively to that.

Jewish male, aged 25-34.

I don’t understand the motive behind using it less. I just don’t really get it. The only thing I get is Jewish fans that have a problem with it and it stops them going to games or interacting with the Club. But if that’s the case, because it’s been associated with the Club for so long, fifty plus years or whatever, then why now is it all of a sudden, a problem? You can’t avoid it, they wouldn’t be going to games.

It sounds like most of the people with the issue don’t want the Club to be associated with the Jewish history or just religion in general. You can’t erase history. I don’t know how a non-Jew can be offended. If people are offended, surely they wouldn’t be going to games as you can’t avoid it. If you go to a Spurs game home or away, you’re hearing the word. That’s always been the case.

Jewish male, aged 75+.

Having been going for many, many years, I don’t know how long this has been going on for. I would think in the 1970s or 1980s, something like that. It used to be Hoddle’s Blue Army, that sort of thing, not the Y-word. I don’t agree with the last comment. I’m not going to stop going because of that, that wouldn’t stop me going at all. I’m a Spurs supporter for many years and I’m going to continue to be a Tottenham supporter. I still object to it, I still find it a little bit offensive and so do my Jewish friends. They don’t like it and they would rather it not be sung, but it won’t stop them going to see the games at all.

Jewish male, aged 55-64.

I’ve always found it offensive, all the way through. But in answer to the question ‘Why do I go?’, I go because I love Spurs and I don’t want to be deprived of watching them try to win something. But also, I think there’s a massive difference. I don’t think I probably would go if I thought it was being used in a deliberately, intentionally offensive way. It’s not being used in that way and therefore I can put up with it, because the people who are singing it are doing it from a sort of good perspective and the context makes it easier to live with. That’s why. I think if that were not the case I wouldn’t go, because I just wouldn’t be able to put up with it.

Non-Jewish female, aged 55-65.

I will still continue to go to Spurs. I go to Spurs because I enjoy going to Spurs. I support Spurs and that’s my Club. You can’t change your Club and you don’t support the Club because of a religious reason, you join the Club because that’s the team that you support.

I don’t accept that football is a bubble. If you’re not allowing the Y-word to be used outside of football, then you can’t be allowing it to be used in football, because you can’t have that duplicity. It either is allowable or it’s not allowable.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

Those of us older ones here, we’ve gone through a lot of changes in society in our lives. That happens with every generation and the terminology that I grew up using, not just in the context of antisemitism but elsewhere, we’d never use now. We’ve changed and we’ve shifted because we’ve learned and understood that things are offensive. In the context of LGBTQ, huge changes have gone on in the period of my lifetime, so we can’t be resistant to that.

On the point about not continuing going to Spurs, we have to have solidarity. Solidarity is a topic that’s been used a lot here today. If we don’t get offended on behalf of our brothers and sisters who are being attacked on the basis of their race or religious background, cultural identity, then we haven’t got a chance of doing much about it. We have to be offended. We have to find things unacceptable in order to stop it.

Whether or not we’re doing it, or other people are doing it, that seems to me the whole point of us being so angry about what’s going on around Black Lives Matter at the moment. For those of us who are, it’s because we recognise if I’m not affected by it directly, people beside me in my community are and I have a responsibility to them to then stand with them, listen to them and to take notice and be part of it. If that involves me getting offended sometimes or upset about it, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We need more of that. If we’re actually to engender the change, we need to make things better. I do see the bigger picture, it’s not simply about someone within the Club.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

I think it has to come from Spurs fans, because if we feel like it’s being done to us, we won’t like it. That’s not to say it can’t be in conjunction with others, but I think if it feels like it’s being done to us then we won’t be up for it at all.

Jewish male, aged 65-74.

There might be a bit of a paradox here because I’ve been talking about the Club needing to act. As mentioned earlier, there are some really bad people in society. However much society moves in the right way, there are some rotten people. Unfortunately, a lot of them attach themselves to football clubs. There are some profoundly antisemitic people.

It’s a risk, but would it be appropriate for the Club to celebrate the extent to which the fans, as ordinary people, have taken it on? Look at it in the most positive way that you can, fans have taken on the worst that other clubs have got to offer in terms of antisemitism with the Y*d Army, by that celebration and that reclaiming of the word. Would that be something that the Club should do? It would be a risk, I accept, but within the context of saying that the Club actually will take on the responsibility to drive out antisemitism in football.

That would mean working with other clubs, clubs that are particularly guilty of antisemitic chanting. Whilst at the time, giving out a message, not to ban, I agree that wouldn’t work, because the song includes that, ‘They tried to stop us, look what it did…’. So not a ban, but an encouragement to move on from that and the Club will take the brunt of the responsibility for driving out antisemitism in football.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

I don’t think we can say we want to be vehemently inclusive whilst still using the term when we’re not all Jewish. If every single person that used the term was Jewish, then you could just go, okay, fair enough, because then you are really using it as a term of inclusion and identity. But we can’t go out there and say to fans of other clubs ‘Don’t use it’ because we’re not all Jewish. So, I think if we’re serious about not being antisemitic, we have to celebrate the Club’s history and grounding in the Jewish community, but we can’t use that word because we’re not all Jewish.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

If all the time that we’re using the Y-word in our chants, when opposition fans are using the Y-word against us, it’s harder to be able to prosecute those sets of fans. It’s almost not helping, because the FA or the Premier League can’t take action against fans of other clubs for saying antisemitic chants to us if we’re almost singing it back. If we weren’t singing the songs and they were chanting them at us, then the steps would be able to be taken to try to stop them from chanting that to us.

If we tried to be more inventive, somehow with writing chants and songs or whatever, for the fans to sing and almost try to phase it out as a possibility, because I do think if you said ‘We’re not saying this anymore, that’s not allowed’ I think it would just make people say it more.

Non-Jewish female, aged 55-65.

If the survey is actually saying the younger generation is saying it, maybe we should get someone who appeals to them to write a song for them to sing to get them away from the Y-word chants. I think a lot of the music we have, even the half-time music for example it is so archaic. Yes, it’s bound in the history of Spurs, but times have changed. The type of people now coming to Spurs is completely different and you have to move with the times.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

I think those young people are the people that should come up with any alternatives. I don’t know how you make that happen, because I think anything that feels like it’s not authentic and not from Spurs itself - when I say from Spurs, I don’t mean the Club - you know, from the person that makes up those songs on the terraces, that’s where this comes from. To be taken on board, it has to come from us, like those songs all do.

Jewish male, aged 25-34.

Suggesting we have someone create and contrive songs for people to sing just says to me that, we just sound so out of touch. What do we want? No atmosphere, no songs? It’s a slippery slope and we’re already going from White Hart Lane to where we are now. The atmosphere in my opinion has gotten worse and I don’t want it to become like the Emirates. Start banning songs, I don’t know, it just sounds ridiculous.

I think the only way that you would completely remove use of the term is through bans and punishment and do you really want to be doing that? What is the ground and support going to be left with? What’s the atmosphere going to be like? Who are the kind of people that are going to be left going to the games? I don’t think it’s realistic. I think that’s the only way that it would be stopped. So, unless you want to go down that route, I don’t think there is any other way.

I don’t see how education would change anything. Education is why I support it, if I didn’t know anything about it, perhaps I wouldn’t support use of the term as strongly as I do. Also, it suggests that education is going to resolve it, suggests that people are using the term without any knowledge of its place in history, which I don’t think is true. You’re not going to use a word when you have no idea what it is or what it means. I think people that go to games, everyone knows where it comes from and if you don’t, you’re not a fan of the Club because you shouldn’t need educating as it is a massive part of the Club. You can’t avoid it when you go to games, it’s everywhere.

If people in the survey are saying they don’t know the history of it, I’d say they might be a fan but are they really a supporter of the Club? Do you have to educate fans on who the top scorer of the club is, stuff like that? If you’re a supporter of the Club, you know these things because you’re investing your time into the Club.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

When I first started supporting Tottenham, I was saying Y*d. I didn’t know what it meant, I was just a kid whose dad used to take us to watch football and just enjoyed watching how Tottenham played and that’s why I supported them. So, I used to say it without knowing what it meant. I thought it was a term that represented Tottenham and that’s what it meant and that’s all I thought it meant. After about ten years someone explained to me and I kind of haven’t really said it since. I’ve put myself out there maybe to look a little bit stupid.

Jewish male, aged 25-34.

The way I was educated, the way I learnt about the word is from the abuse. When it’s sung in the context that it is against you, from supporters of other clubs. That’s my education, so I don’t see how that’s avoidable.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

Most people who are at the Club, who are Season Ticket Holders going week in, week out, they know the Club, the Club’s history and they know why they’re singing these things and why they’re trying to give a positive image to the word. I’m not Jewish, so I can’t understand how it might upset people exactly, but I understand the history and how it’s been used in a negative way. I think because I heard things that fans of other clubs have sung, I think us taking the word and trying to change it and trying to make it more positive, can help try and educate these people who are using it in a bad way. To try and stop them using it in a bad way to try and make them more positive towards people.

There are a lot of other things being sung, ‘Let’s all have a party when Sol Campbell dies’. That’s disgusting, we shouldn’t be singing that we want someone to die just because he went to play for Arsenal? There’s a lot of things around when children might just join in because everyone’s singing it, so children might sing along not realising what they’re singing, so I kind of get both ways.

Jewish male, aged 75+.

I’d love to see the end of the Y*d word. I’d like to go back to ‘Glory Glory Hallelujah’. We were quite happy with that. I’m not happy with the Y-word and I’d love it to be banned in some way. How, I don’t know.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

If we are going to reduce its usage and get rid of it over time, it’s going to take a many faceted attack. Whether it’s going to be through supporters’ groups, interest groups, the Jewish community and influencers, however you want to approach that. Whether that be through popular music or culture, but bear in mind that there are probably a few influencers out there that would take the opposite view anyway. I recall a very interesting piece by David Aaronovitch, a Spurs man and a Jew, in The Times, probably about 6-9 months ago where he spoke most eloquently for its continued usage. It will take time, whatever we do, but I think the feeling is there amongst most people that we really do need to address this.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

It’s been a really interesting conversation. I’d like it to be stopped. We want to be proud of Spurs and we want it to be known across the globe as an inclusive Club. If someone is offended by it, even a small percentage of our fanbase is offended, I think we need to move on from it, because I don’t think it reflects well on us being considered an inclusive and diverse club.

Jewish male, aged 65-74.

I would like to see the Club generously praise the terraces for taking on this mantle and to say, ‘We’ll take it from here’ and for the Club to be more high profile, specifically in the context of anti-racism, specifically addressing antisemitism in football.

Jewish male, aged 25-34.

I’d like the Club to do absolutely nothing. I’m happy that supporters still use the word and I think if you’re offended by it or it stops you going to games, then football’s not for you. It’s been used for fifty plus years and it’s not going to change. That’s who we are.

Jewish male, aged 55-64.

I think that the Club should publicise the findings, putting a lot of emphasis on the point that there are a large number of people who are saying no one’s making this up, there are large numbers of supporters who are saying that they are offended by this and they don’t like its use. That should be fed out there through all the sort of outlets; interest groups, fan clubs, podcast providers.

I’d also like to see it as part of the wider debate that’s in football about kicking out racism generally. It’s part of that. I think there’s a serious issue with anti-Black racism, really serious and that’s got to be eradicated and I think this is part of that, it’s the same sort of thing. The difference is that the Spurs fans are not using it in an offensive way, but the fact that people are offended by it means it’s got to go.

Non-Jewish female, aged 55-65.

I would like to see it gone as well. It’s a global club. Although I accept some of the views that have been expressed, I still think we should move forward and it’s got to be from within. I understand the point about not banning it because it would be difficult to enforce, but I think we should as a Club and supporters should move forward and be inclusive.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

I think a ban absolutely would not work. It’s proven before, you try and ban something, we just sing it twice as much. Chants that are coming from the crowd need to be organic and come from fans and if it’s come from there, we’re more likely to sing it, like singing ‘Harry Kane’s One of our Own’, that sort of thing. It needs to come naturally from supporters making it. You can probably phase out the Y-word but pushing it and forcing people not to use is not going to work because they’ll just fight against it.

Non-Jewish male, aged 55-64.

Although I have very strong clear views about the issue, I never thought that banning is appropriate. We’ve seen that it doesn’t work. You immediately make it a badge of honour anyway, so I’m certainly not thinking like that. It has to be an organic thing through ongoing conversations and the way people communicate with each other.

I think the Club and supporters’ groups, publicising the report and getting conversation pieces out of that will help. Maybe it’s about things that happen within the ground, messages that get sent out before the game, during the game and at half-time. Getting a conversation going often.

It seems to me, from my limited experience, that racism and antisemitism are presented as if they’re separate things and the connections need to be stronger in people’s understanding. Although education’s an ugly, clumpy sort of word, just getting the awareness there, getting the conversations going so people can make those connections and understand and are more aware of each other.

We can be very strong minded about our individual views, but the whole point of the Club is that you’re a collective of fans. We come together as a large group. If you’ve got a significant group of people within your fanbase who are upset or finding it difficult with some elements of the chanting or whatever’s been said, we have a duty as fans who really care about our Club to listen to people and to see what we can do about it.

Non-Jewish female, aged 35-44.

I would be interested to know what the players and coaching staff thought of the term being used. A lot of the time, it’s them that we’re shouting it at, so I’d be interested to know how many of them are offended by the term when we’re supposed to be supporting them. Maybe we’re actually not supporting them by shouting it. I don’t know. I want to see it phased out, somehow. But I don’t know how.

Non-Jewish female, aged 45-54.

We need some kind of a far-reaching cultural change programme, but it has to be organic. Banning it isn’t going to work for all the reasons that we’ve talked about, but something that makes the conversation happen.

What’s really important is that we definitely don’t use it in a racist way, but how do we eradicate it if we continue to use it and we’re not all Jewish? That’s all I keep coming back to myself. We can’t make the point that other people shouldn’t use it at us if we’re not all Jewish ourselves, even if we are all Spurs fans. If we’re really serious about fans of other clubs not using it, then we have to stop using it. Because as we said from the beginning of this, that anti-racist sentiment is lost and the survey shows that. So, I think there’s a lot of work to do that the Club can have some involvement in, perhaps in facilitating some stuff. But as fans, if we’re really serious about it, it’s something we have to organise ourselves, because that’s what going to really make it authentic.