A People's History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

Drawing on social history, contemporary press reports and first-hand interviews with the fans themselves, authors Martin Cloake and Alan Fisher trace the club's development from being the team of the suburbs and the rising south, through the glory years and the arrival of mass, popular culture, and into the modern era of the game. It is not a tale of trophies won and lost, of players bought and sold. Instead, it is the story of how one of the game's oldest and most famous teams was formed and established by its fans and how its identity was created by them. It evaluates how the fans' relationship with the club has evolved, as the game has changed: from those bygone days, when a club was at the heart of a local community, to the modern era, where the world's leading football clubs have to compete as multinational "brands," appealing to fans on a global scale, stretching much further and wider than the north London footprint than the club's founders would have ever imagined.

Martin Cloake is a writer, editor and Tottenham Hotspur season-ticket holder who has watched the team regularly since 1978. He was co-author of the award-winning book 61: The Spurs Double, consultant editor of the Tottenham Hotspur Opus. Alan Fisher was spellbound by flickering black and white television images of Spurs in Europe in the early 60s. He's also a season-ticket holder. He writes the well-respected blog Tottenham On My Mind. He's also written for When Saturday Comes, The Guardian and Thin White Line.