3pm Saturday afternoon kick offs are like the buses, you wait ages for one and then two come along at once. This time we’re off to the shiny new Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
To get there by car you need to leave the M25 at Junction 25 and take the A10 towards Enfield. Continue on the A10 through Enfield and at the roundabout with the Northern Circular (A406), turn left onto the A406 (Sterling Way). Turn right into Fore Road (the A1010) which becomes the High Road and you will come to the stadium on your left.
There is no parking available at the stadium itself for supporters and a Controlled Parking Zone for local residents only is in operation on matchdays, which extends up to a mile away from the ground. So if you park in the streets make sure you look at the signs on the lampposts to make sure you’re outside the zones, otherwise you might get towed away. There are private car parks, but they cost up to £20. That’s London for you.
Generally they are trying to discourage fans from driving, but one option is to park at or near Waltham Cross station, which is about 1 and half miles from M25 junction 25 and has three trains an hour to Northumberland Park. Outside the station you need to walk down Park Lane, then turn right when you reach the stadium.
Northumberland Park is the recommended station for away fans, as it’s on the side of the stadium that has the away turnstiles. It is served by local trains from Stratford to Bishops Stortford or Hertford, but from Kings Cross you can get the Victoria line to Tottenham Hale and catch an Overground train from there.
Most pubs near the stadium are for home fans only, but the Haringey Irish Centre opposite White Hart Lane station has a large hall set aside for away fans, and the CAMRA listed Antwerp Arms on Church Road normally has a good mixture of home and away fans. Otherwise you need to head for the microbreweries of the Compass Industrial Estate.
These include the 3 craft breweries of the Tottenham Brewing Company on Tariff Road, the One Mile End Brewery on West Road, and the Redemption Brewery and the Bohem Brewery just round the corner from there. Other options a little further away are the Hamilton Hall Wetherspoons on Liverpool Street station and the CAMRA listed Pembury Tavern on Amhurst Road near Hackney Downs station.
The stadium was late opening, came in over budget, and not long after it opened they had to shut down due to the pandemic, which hampered their efforts to recoup all the money they paid to build it. But it does have to be said that the facilities inside are fantastic. One of the specifications was that it had to have a larger capacity than Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, and the resulting 62,303 it is the second largest in the Premier League.
The stadium is designed like a concert hall with good acoustics in mind to give a great atmosphere on match day. The other features include Goal Line Bar, which at 65m is the longest in Europe, an in-house bakery and the world's first microbrewery in a stadium, which can produce one million pints of craft beer a year and deliver up to 10,000 pints a minute, and even an art gallery. And of course the important corporate stuff like a banquet hall and Michelin star level dining.
The away section is 3,038 seats in the lower tier of the North East corner, though 9,000 can be made available for cup ties. You have to go through airport-style security to get in, with no large bags allowed, but once inside you’ll find that the legroom and views are very good. A good selection of beers and pies is available, at the usual excessive football prices. But the stewards can be a bit zealous in asking fans to sit down, which might make for some fun when we’re in town.
The Leeds allocation has of course sold out, and thanks to Premier League rules they cost £30 for adults, with concessions from £17 to £22.50. Tickets for the home stands are only being sold to ‘One Hotspur’ members, unless you want to fork out around £300 for a Premium Seat, which are at least padded and "in a prime location on the West or East touchline”.
All in all this sounds like quite a good day out, albeit a rather expensive one.
Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com