A Rivalry Like No Other?

Two Spurs fans, Dave Puckridge and Rachel Cohen, provide their perspectives on our rivalry with Arsenal ahead of the North London Derby.

One View: Dave

At the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the long delayed match with Manchester United, the advertising screens frequently called the crowd’s attention to the Women’s North London Derby with the dramatic slogan: A Rivalry Like No Other…

Is it though?

Well maybe if you count the fact it’s being played at Brisbane Road as the stadium is hosting a rugby match that weekend, though maybe that’s me being churlish that the club aren’t prioritising the women’s team (I am definitely being churlish).

But given their very different conceptions and developments, histories and level of investment from the parent club, does the traditional rivalry between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal really apply in the women’s game? And should it given how frequently unhealthy such rivalries often become? Is it even useful beyond marketing?

At the Emirates for the reverse fixture there was a distinct difference between the atmosphere amongst the crowd and on the pitch: even taking into account the more family friendly atmosphere of WSL matches, there was no escaping the very vocal nature of each club’s set of fans absolutely despising each other.

On the pitch however, even with the complete commitment of Spurs players, there was no escaping the gulf between the sides. Even taking long term absentees into account, it was clear that Arsenal benefited from the years and years and years of time and resources the club had invested in the women’s game far in advance of Tottenham’s belated embrace of women’s football. Arsenal swatted us aside 4-0 and made it look routine. 

Because we’re not really their rivals; Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are. But if Spurs keep investing like they have with the vital addition of The Great Bethany England (from other traditional Spurs rivals Chelsea) then we can close that gap. Besides which Arsenal have done us a tremendous favour in loaning us Mana Iwabuchi who has improved us greatly – unthinkable in the men’s game but reinforcing that they don’t consider us a threat. Yet. 

It’s fascinating that in almost every interview with Spurs players I’ve read or listened to from such excellent podcasts as N17 Women, that our team don’t pick out the traditional rivalries as the games they most anticipate, it’s usually coming up against the best players in the world that motivates them. And that’s a good thing. Hell, that’s a great thing! It frees up Spurs Women to create their own history and their own rivalries. Their own story, not a reflection of some ancient history in which one club moved a bit too close to another club.

I want them to win against Arsenal because I want them to win against everyone (& we really need to points right now). And if we can beat Arsenal at Brisbane Road – even an out of form Arsenal missing the games two most potent strikers and struggling to find the net – it will show our true potential and possibilities.

Stand up if you hate Arsenal? Not for me thanks. Besides how can you really hate a club where the prolific strike partnership have so sweetly redefined Relationship Goals?

Another view: Rachel

Last week a women I host the N17Women podcast with corrected me: ‘You support Spurs, you don’t oppose Arsenal’. I had posited a ‘would you rather’ scenario: Would you sacrifice Top 4 in the Premier League if it meant Arsenal didn’t win the title? She wouldn’t; I would (this year at least).

I grew up in Camden, on the borders of Islington. I had friends who supported Spurs in primary and at the start of secondary school. But by the time I was 16 most of my friends were Arsenal. My sister was Arsenal. In the years since I have had partners who support Arsenal, family members, colleagues, and more friends. At times I feel like the racist excusing his racism: ‘some of my best friends are [insert nationality or in my case Arsenal].’ But unlike the racist, I’m not even pretending that this proximity has brought empathy. It hasn’t.

It’s intensely personal and massively selfish, but my life will be better if Arsenal do worse. The smugness at social events will reduce. I’ll get fewer annoying WhatsApp memes. Have to shrug it off less. They don’t have to be relegated (although never say never), but the worse they do the better. That is not to say that I don’t want Tottenham to win. Of course, I do. Spurs winning the league and winning trophies – that is the dream. But let’s face it. It has been a rarity in my lifetime (in most of our lifetimes). And if it’s not going to happen, I’ll take us doing better than Arsenal. Or, if it comes to it, just Arsenal doing worse.

‘But that’s the men’ you say. The women are ‘less tribal’.

First off, really? Why? Let’s start by ignoring any sexist tropes around feminine niceness which are ridiculous (Suella Braverman anyone?). Instead, let’s recognise that all sport fandom is ultimately both trivial and irrational and that there is joy in this. And that as histories develop, as teams are more widely supported and loyalties emerge or get carried over from the men’s game, intense rivalries make sense of otherwise meaningless games.

So, yes, of course. It started with the men. But we’re not suddenly in another universe. And my Spurs fandom defined the ways that I engaged – or didn’t engage – with the early days of women’s football. It meant I mostly tuned out during the long period of the 90s and early 2000s, when Arsenal women dominated and the one televised game of the year (the FA Cup final) showed players in red and white lifting a trophy. I could admire Arsenal’s investment, be jealous of what the club was doing in the women’s game, but that only went so far. When it came to what was happening on the pitch I was out.

The fact that Spurs are now in the same league, albeit not yet competing for trophies, is massive.

It’s also massive that last season Arsenal ‘dropped points’ against us. That game, a hard-fought 1-1 draw in which we went ahead as Rachel Williams bundled the ball over the line before they equalised in the closing minutes, marked our first points won in any NLD. It was so very very nearly all three.

Yet those two lost points cost Arsenal a title. Okay, there was their defeat to Birmingham City as well, but the draw against us was the first chink in the armour and when the title race goes down to a single point, dropping two matters. How much it hurt was reflected Arsenal Manager, Jonas Eidevall’s mealy-mouthed statements about Spurs later in the season. Did that make me happy? You bet it did.

If we’re going to be optimistic tomorrow’s game comes at a good time. Our heads are higher after our first win in four and a half months. It also comes after Arsenal failed to score in their Champions League first leg (losing 1-0 to Bayern Munich).

But if those two games impact the run-in they also epitimise the persistent gulf between these teams’ ambitions, or at least their ability to realise those ambitions: a relegation battle versus European Quarter Finals. Given that gulf, there are teams against whom Spurs Women have recently had more niggly games (yup, I’m thinking about you Manchester United). Likewise, over the last decade Arsenal’s rivalry with Chelsea has defined the WSL. And sure, I’ve heard plenty of Arsenal fans who say they don’t care about Spurs. They can point to their history in women’s game and that the balance of power is unlikely to change soon.

Yet the games that fill their stadium, just like the games that fill our stadium, remain the North London Derbies (accounting for the top two WSL attendances ever). And sure, it may not remain that way. But if we are pushing Spurs to have a #oneclub perspective, then surely that goes for rivalries as well. And you know what, assuming we stay up and the club keeps investing in the team, there will be a day when we win one of these games. It may not be tomorrow, but it is going to happen. And it is going to be bloody lovely.

Till then, I will be happy if Bethany England takes her chances on Saturday. It will be a bonus if Mana Iwabuchi gets to show Eidevell what he missed out on by refusing to play her.

As for me. I won’t chant about a long-retired ‘Judas’ nor any other men’s players. But, Stand up if you hate Arsenal. Sure. Why not?

And I will relish every point we get and every point they drop and, come the end of the season, will chuckle if the squad Eidevall has built of hardy Northern European and Australian internationals miss out on Champions League football. Because it’s fun to dislike a football team and because, for me, supporting Spurs is about opposing Arsenal.

With the exception of Lotte Wuben-Moy, who is too damn saintly for anyone to dislike or hope bad things for. 

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Find Rachel on twitter at @spurswomenblog and David on @DavidPuckridge

Other blogs by them are at: @rachellaracohen and @davidpuckridge