Memory Lane: By the Spurs Fans for the Spurs Fans

Memory Lane is a documentary about our dear White Hart Lane, a kind of hommage to all the ups and downs Spurs, both on the pitch and on the stands, lived through for many, many years since that greedy pub landlord let us in his backyard. And yes, this is a must see for every Spurs fan: an honest, pure and a bit sentimental work of the local fans with many interesting stories, anecdotes and the one and only Micky Hazard.

Don’t be put off by the cheese music, Micky doesn’t deserve it!!!

The music is the worst part of the film, sometimes it even fights against the noble and beautiful emotions people put in words for Tottenham (subtitles would substantiate, especially taking into consideration that our club is a global phenomenom, supported worldwide). But we’ll be tolerant to the minuses, in hommage to a greater Tottenham spirit. For some of the fans, younger or less informed, it’ll be a pleasing experience of discovering the most unusual anecdotes, as for example: our first president was a Bible teacher and Tottenham was the first top division English club to play a black footballer on the pitch.

But even if you have heard these stories a million times, you can hear them one more time, with the author underlining it with a good amount of melancholy and pride. The part about the horrid Olympic Stadium idea almost made me cry (and would have done if it hadn’t been for that suggestive, attention whore music).

Unlike the music, and I promise not to mention it again, it was a real treat hearing the narrator filled with awe and love, the voice of a true Spurs’ child. I have to praise the beginning, the audacious beginning, where the narrator was at the true test to keep his measure and not dwell in the abyss of pathetics. It was a beautiful beginning, reciting the poem O Tottenham, My Tottenham!, paraphrasing Whitman’s O Captain, My Captain! An absolutely artistic beginning that can be the only correct way to describe the feeling a Spurs fan gets when reminiscing over his Tottenham memories and a great loosing up of the mindcells for the Memory Lane travel through the historic footage, and days of pride (and some days of woe.)

It was an interesting, and a brave solution not to include any video footage, but I applaud the decision, because memories are more vivid, the less images you show ofthem. I’m only sorry that other legends licky Micky didn’t participate in this documentary. His part was the best; his stories, his emotions had a live screening on his face.

And as I was impressed with the beginning of the documentary, I was impressed with the end (except the last photo – really, you could have found a better EWS). The last narrator’s speech was one of a dignified poor noble with a great heritage, something Tottenham was more than often in the last decades. I will end my review with those words, and you will hopefully be impressed with my ending as I was with Memory Lane’s: ‘in this part of North London, football was about daring to do the right thing, daring to do it with grace, daring to do it in style; for then and only then could there ever be real glory.’ Up the Spurs!