STAND AND DELIVER
There are 223 steps to the top of the South Bank at Spurs amazing new stadium... Poch hopes it will be their STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
THERE are 223 steps from pitch level to the top of the sprawling south bank at Tottenham’s new stadium.
As the mother spaceship which has docked in N17 opened its doors to paying customers for the first time, the early evidence suggests it will become Spurs’ stairway to heaven.
Amid the urban deprivation of a land Brexit forgot, Spurs’ shiny new home looks like a refugee from Cape Kennedy in an area needing caped crusaders, not the austerity of a clueless government. But when Tottenham called for occupants of an interplanetary craft to test the features of their space-age home, 28,987 of them rolled up.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino was among those at the baptism and, at half-time, he addressed his flock with the optimism of a space cadet expecting to find aliens on Mars.
Poch Spice, whose son Maurizio was given a raucous cheer for his 14-minute cameo as sub, said: “I got the same feeling when we left White Hart Lane and we were crying. Now we are here, the first day in our new stadium, we feel the same emotions – we are crying again because our dreams have come true.”
The christening was 218 days later than billed – a delay familiar to commuters on the Northern Line – while builders put the finishing touches to the 62,062-capacity citadel next door to the kingdom Bill Nicholson built.
But all good things come to those who wait, and make no mistake: this is an impressive place, from the carpets to the retractible pitch, with its synthetic NFL cousin lying 6ft beneath the real grass. With “Welcome Home” T-shirts and scarves attracting brisk trade outside, everything about The Lane 2.0 reeks of 21st-century opulence.
Among Tottenham’s proud boasts is the 65-metre Goal Line Bar, the longest in Europe, and English football’s first cashless society.
Don’t offer to pay for £8.95 harissa lamb pizza or £6.95 piri-piri wings and fries with banknotes or coins – they don’t take cash at the concourse bars or cafes.
That won’t trouble adults with contactless bank cards, but it might embarrass teenagers trying
to buy a hot dog with their pocket money.
And if things go wrong on the pitch – which is inevitable at some point – critics will be able to dust down that one-liner about organising a p**s-up in a brewery with devastating accuracy.
The stadium even has its own microbrewery, serving proper beer from local purveyors of ale, Beavertown. In the football itself, Tottenham’s Under-18s beat Southampton 3-1, and winger J’neil Bennett will savour his footnote in history as scorer of the first goal in Spurs’ new home.
“He’s one of our own,” crowed the Park Lane choir in that massive south stand kop, a nice touch if you overlook Bennett’s previous incarnation at QPR.
The occupants of interplanetary craft must come back next Saturday – 45,000 of them – for Tottenham’s final dress rehearsal, a legends exhibition against Inter Milan, before the safety certificate can be framed in chairman Daniel Levy’s office. Then comes the real thing, against Crystal Palace in the Premier League on April 3.
Never mind that retractible pitch: the noise cascading down those 223 steps alone will be enough to make the earth move.