White Hart Lane - History

History

Tottenham Hotspur moved to White Hart Lane in 1899, renovating it from a disused nursery owned by the brewery chain Charringtons, with the help of local groundsman, John Over, into a substandard football pitch. The first game at White Hart Lane resulted in a 4–1 home win against Notts County with around 5,000 supporters attending and witnessing the first game and first victory at the new ground, although referred to at the time as either High Road ground or White Hart Lane.

White Hart Lane underwent redevelopment in the early 20th century with stadium developer, Archibald Leitch, designing a mainly square stadium seating 15,300 and incorporating a standing paddock for another 700 fans along with the famous cockerel being placed on the mock-Tudor apex at the end of the 1909–1910 season. Redevelopments continued in the 1910s, with the wooden eastern stand replaced with an enlarged concrete stadium, vastly increasing the stadium capacity to over 50,000. The ground continued to be renovated and in 1925, thanks to the FA Cup win in 1921, both the Paxton Road Stand and Park Lane Stand were enlarged and mostly covered from the elements.

The pitch was overlooked by a bronze fighting cock (the club mascot) that still keeps an eye on proceedings from the roof of the West Stand.

In the 1930s, football had a popular following, and despite Tottenham's lack of success, at the time, 75,038 spectators squeezed into White Hart Lane in March 1938 to see Spurs' performance against Sunderland in the FA Cup. The venue hosted some of the football preliminaries for the 1948 Summer Olympics. 1953 saw the introduction of floodlights with their first use being a friendly against Racing Club de Paris in September of that year. These were renovated again in the 1970s and steadily replaced with new technology since. By this stage, Tottenham were firmly established as one of England's best clubs which attracted some of the highest attendances in the country on a regular basis. Between 1908 and 1972, White Hart Lane was one of very few British football grounds that featured no advertising hoardings at all.

Perimeter fencing was erected between the stands and the pitch during the 1970s to combat the threat of pitch invasions from hooligans; however this was removed on 18 April 1989 for safety reasons in reaction to the Hillsborough disaster three days earlier, in which 96 Liverpool fans were fatally injured, most of them crushed to death against the perimeter fencing in an overcrowded standing area.

The West Stand was again renovated in the early 1980s, however the project took over 15 months to be completed with cost overruns having severe financial implications. This West Stand is parallel with Tottenham High Road and is connected to it by Bill Nicholson Way.

The early 1990s saw the completion of the South Stand (on Park Lane) and the introduction of the first Jumbotron video screen, of which there are now two, one above each penalty area. The renovation of the Members' (North) Stand which is reached via Paxton Road was completed in 1998, leaving the ground in its present form. At the turn of the millennium, after falling behind in stadium capacity, talks began over the future of White Hart Lane and Tottenham Hotspur's home. Over the years, many stadium designs and ideas were rumoured in the media. Most recently a move to Wembley Stadium was ruled out by the club, as was talk of moving to the future stadium of the 2012 Olympic Games. However, ostensibly as back-up planning to the plans for a new stadium (see below), Tottenham registered interest in making use of the Olympic Stadium in conjunction with AEG, owners and operators of The O₂ in London's Greenwich, formerly known as the Millennium Dome.