In this modern era of football one cannot really be naive enough to believe that business savvy is not equally as important to big clubs as their on pitch efforts, but it strikes me that Tottenham Hotspur have a very special disregard for their supporters.
There are two things that have tipped me over the edge recently, first of which is the frankly pathetic members package I received in the post the other day. I swear it wasn't that long ago that I was paying £28 for the privilege of being able to buy a ticket before the public could, and in reward for this investment my club would send me an assortment of goodies including quality pens, scarfs, clocks and car stickers (OK, most of it was good anyway). Regardless of whether I need these things, it showed me that Tottenham Hotspur appreciated me. My Spurs clock still sits on my work desk today and the pen from a couple of years ago travelled the world with me as a prized possession. I may be a sentimental old fool but I like this crap.
This year, the price of basic membership has topped £40, and what I got for that is a bloody joke! My face was a picture of disappointment when I opened my eagerly awaited package to discover a DVD/CD ROM that looks suspiciously like the one I got with my application pack, and a poxy pin that is identical to one they sent a couple of years back (what exactly am I supposed to do with this pin?). On top of that Tottenham refuse to cap the number of members so that the benefit on purchasing early tickets gets more tenuous. I seem to have to be logged on at 10.01am on the launch day to get tickets for any opposition of reasonable quality, and God forbid I get that ticket and then Spurs change the match date a week before the game to a date I can't make - don't get me started on that one!
And so the price goes up, the deal gets worse, nobody complains (or if they do they are ignored) and Tottenham get away with it. I'm not even going to get into ticket price hikes vs on-pitch success...
The next point is this: Why do football clubs completely disregard the views of their members when it comes to transfer policy. Obviously I'm not suggesting we hold a referendum over every aspect of running the club, but I reckon if you asked 100 supporters whether we should sell Berbatov, 99 of them would say no. I can't believe the board doesn't know this.
The manager doesn't want to sell, the fans don't want him to leave and yet here we are on the brink of shipping our best player off to one of our Premiership rivals. Don't give me this doodoo about him wanting to leave and that "you can't keep an unhappy player"- utter twaddle. Somebody could easily remind him that he is under contract and that unfortunately Mr. Berbatov, you are going nowhere son.
He hardly seems to me like the type to go on strike, and so what if his value plummets by half next summer, or he eventually walks out on a free? If selling him costs us a Champions League spot it is a false economy. Berba is the perfect player to be up front on his own in Ramos' rumoured 4-2-3-1 formation. He holds a ball up brilliantly and has sublime vision with which to bring the attacking midfielders into play. I don't care who we sign, Dimitar Berbatov is irreplaceable and, having funded his original transfer, the fans have right to watch him ply his magical trade for the duration of his contract - if we so desire.
And yet the board hear the cash register ring with the quick profit of Mancunian dollars, the money burns a hole in their bank account until we panic buy someone in mid-August for a fraction of the price and the fans views continue to stand for doodoo.
I thought we were supposed to be part of a CLUB. I will support Spurs until the day I die but I want to feel like a member of that club. I want to feel like everyone who coughs up their £40 (or more) is part of Team Tottenham and together we are working towards success, that somehow we are more valued by the club than someone who's support runs to donning last seasons shirt and turning on Sky Sports One. (I'm not saying those people are worse fans, just that... well you know what I mean!).
At the moment I feel like I am a customer of Tottenham Hotspur Plc, not a member of Tottenham Hotspur FC. Why is 90% of the correspondence I get from my "club" junk mail trying to sell me stuff from credit cards to ludicrously expensive photo albums? I am not adverse to Spurs making money out of us, I just think it's about time they thought about how they could give us a little more value for it. The problem is that the board have a bigger responsibility to the shareholders than they do to the members.
I don't think it would be too much to ask to expect the following for my £40:
A return to decent gifts!
A cap of 50,000 members (exluding season tickets) - or at the very least a tiered system that allows basic members with more loyalty points access to tickets before others
FREE season ticket waiting list entry to all members who want it, with those who have more loyalty points getting priority
A complete no questions asked refund on tickets if the match date is changed
A return to an online booking system where I can choose my exact seats
FREE THTV accessible via my online account (this may even pay for itself with the extra site traffic generated)
The reality is that unlike our money, our views are not important to those in charge. They have the luxury of brand loyalty to an extent other industries can only dream of, and those running Tottenham Hotspur Plc are experts in how to exploit it. Perhaps if we got to vote for our President, like they do on the continent, Mr. Levy would give us a bit more consideration...
Here's the link:
http://spursclub.blogspot.com/2008/07/spurs-stick-two-fingers-up-at-members.htmlThis did make me laugh but its so true of every club these days 
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