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A very 'memeable' frame of Mauricio Pochettino from an interview in 2016

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Tottenham Hotspur Football Club are soccer team based out of London, England, and primarily compete in the English Premier League. The club has a storied history, originally being founded in 1882. My personal history and relationship with the team and organization begins in 2015, a year after the appointing of current Paris Saint-Germain manager, Mauricio Pochettino.

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Tottenham Hotspur in the blue away kit, MLS All-Stars in the white

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In the summer of 2015, after developing a newfound appreciation for soccer over the previous year, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the MLS All-Star Game in Denver. I had only been to one professional soccer match previously and was incredibly excited to watch the MLS All-Star Team vs the young and up-and-coming Tottenham. The match was a blast. MLS won 2-1, with Brazilian legend, Kaká, scoring a penalty for MLS and Tottenham striker, Harry Kane, belting a dynamite shot from outside the 18-yard box for Tottenham’s lone strike.

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While I didn’t leave the match with any affirmations about who I would support, I slowly grew to love Tottenham over the next year and by the following summer was a full-blown ‘yid.’ This term which is a colloquial term for diehard Tottenham fans, is also a derogatory slur towards Jewish people or people of Jewish decent. I am Jewish and was raised so, with the bar-mitzvah to boot, and find it quite interesting how this group is attempting to repossess the meaning of a word that had historically been vitriol. There are non-Jewish fans that also use this word in an endearing way to show support. In contrast, of course there is also antisemitism, with major instances having happened since I started supporting in 2015/16. It is an interesting topic that has interesting connotations in regard to the idea of ‘repossessing meaning’ of a word like that.

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There was never a warning more certain to backfire than the one issued by the Football Association (FA) to Tottenham Hotspur supporters last week.

The FA, English soccer's governing body, was fed up - fed up! - with Tottenham fans using the term "Yid" in their songs and chants during games, and warned them that any continuing use of the word could result in criminal charges.

What those criminal charges would be, and how exactly police intended to simultaneously arrest thousands of singing fans during a soccer game, wasn't exactly clear.

Guess what? The warning didn't work.

During Tottenham's home game against Norwich City on Saturday, the chants rained down from the terraces of White Hart Lane.

We're Tottenham Hotspur, we sing what we want!

Yid Army! Yid Army! Yid Army!

Yiddos! Yiddos! Yiddos!

To be fair, it's not like the FA had the wrong idea when issuing its warning. The term "Yid" has been used as an epithet against Jews for more than 100 years, and Tottenham's continuing identification with the word has caused numerous problems just over the past year alone.

The problem is, Tottenham's fans are the Yid Army. They just are, and they always will be, and no FA decree or threat of arrest is going to change that simple fact. Even though most of them aren't even, well, Yids.

Tottenham Hospur (or just Spurs) has been known as England's "Jewish club" since the early 20 th century, but the story of just how that happened is rather nebulous. The club is located in North London, home to a large Orthodox population, but most black hatters don't have time for soccer, and there is little evidence of the club having any sort of Orthodox following.

Instead, according to club folklore, the actual reason behind the team's Jewish identification has to do with public transportation, including London's now-defunct electric tram system.

In the early 20 th century, much of London's Jewish population lived in the East End, and Tottenham's stadium White Hart Lane was easily accessible from that area via tram or bus. Therefore, it became a Sabbath tradition to take the tram or the bus up the A10 to Tottenham matches, cementing the club as "God's chosen team."

Today, the club's supporters continue to cling onto their status as the Yid Army, and use the term with pride, despite the fact that most of them aren't even Jewish. The UK is only about point-five percent Jewish, and it's been estimated that only five to 10 percent of Tottenham's supporters are actually Jews. In fact, the team's arch-rival Arsenal is said to have a larger percentage of Jewish fans.

Soccer fans in Europe, as you may have heard, can tend to be a nasty bunch, and so a club that so closely identities itself with a religion - especially one that's been targeted as frequently as Judaism - can be setting itself up for trouble.

And trouble has indeed found the Yid Army: Just this spring, the team's fans were attacked by a group of Neo-Nazis in Lyon, France. A few months earlier, several Spurs fans were injured after traveling to Rome to see Tottenham in an away match. Their attackers screamed "Jews" before descending upon them with knives and clubs.

Last season, fans of city rival West Ham United (you might remember this delightful bunch from the movie "Green Street Hooligans") engaged in Hitler chants, Nazi salutes and hissing noises to mimic gas chambers during the teams' match.

It should be mentioned the aforementioned fans are an extreme minority (and the French group wasn't affiliated with any team at all), but amidst this backdrop, it's easy to see why the FA would rather the Yid mantra be retired.

But it's probably never going to happen.

Soccer is a tribal sport, and fans are fiercely devoted to their tribes (of Israel or otherwise). The fact that most members of the Yid Army aren't even Jewish is irrelevant; what matters is that they are Tottenham fans. If you support Spurs, you can be baptized, read the Qur'an, worship Ganesha, or be an atheist. At the end of the day, you're a still a Yid.

There's not much the FA, or any hooligans can do about that. The Yid Army will just keep on singing.

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There was never a warning more certain to backfire than the one issued by the Football Association (FA) to Tottenham Hotspur supporters last week. The FA, English soccer's governing body, was fed up - fed up!

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By the fall of 2016 I had started to really dive into the history of the club, subsequently discovering the strong contingent of Jews that support Tottenham. In pre-Covid times, on match days there would be a rabbi who would chant and lead a procession from one of the local pubs to the stadium for the match. I knew none of this before I began to love Spurs, but the more I learned the more I identified with the culture surrounding Tottenham—the team and also Tottenham—the fans.

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tottenham hotspur condemns new dictionary definition of 'yid' - cnn

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Controversial football chant is now a dictionary definition

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Tottenham Hotspur FC have released a statement criticising the expanded definition in the Oxford English Dictionary of the word 'yid'.

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Spurs Champions League Semi-Final Comeback

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I had previously been flirting with the idea of supporting Tottenham as I didn’t have an allegiance to any team. They were a well-run organization that was growing and had a very active and respectable fanbase that I felt that I could maybe associate with. Mauricio Pochettino was the current manager of Tottenham, having being appointed in 2014, after previously managing EPL side, Southampton. He is an Argentine who likes his sides to play a press heavy (regain possession as high-up the pitch as possible), possession-based game, with intricate passing around the opponents final third. It is very exciting soccer when done well, but takes an incredibly high level of fitness from the squad that must be drilled and developed. While it can be fun, it is taxing and can become difficult for players to remain motivated after many years of this type of demanding training.

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Lucas Moura (Tottenham) Champions League HAT-TRICK vs. Ajax | INSANE COMEBACK!

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"He's Magic, You Know, Mauricio Pochettino"

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"He's Magic, You Know, Mauricio Pochettino"

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Tottenham, which is a tightly run financial operation, moreso than many clubs (e.g. Manchester City, Chelsea), opened up a new world-class, state-of-the-art stadium during Poch’s tenure, while also managing to neglect the team having signed no new players for a full calendar year, something which had never been done in the EPL before. It was truly a miracle that Pochettino made the team work as hard and well as it did, for as long as he did with the resources available. While achieving many emotional highs, but no trophies during his tenure, it eventually came to an end as all things do; and a short 5 months after reaching the Champions League Final, the second largest sporting event after the World Cup Final, he was sacked in November of 2019

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Mousa Dembélé, "Moose," can't be contained

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If you get anything from this presentation, please watch this last video, it always brings me a smile :)

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If you get anything from this presentation, please watch this last video, it always brings me a smile :)

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In conclusion, I could discuss Tottenham, the club, the history, the fans, the current squad, my personal connection, and what it all means to me, ALL DAY. I wake up at 7 AM just to watch them on some days, and oh golly, does that stink when it’s a nil-nil “snoozefest” (there are action packed 0-0 too, contrary to what haters may say). I’m going to link a video of one of my favorite players, Mousa Dembélé, a Belgian midfielder that played for Spurs from 2012 until 2019. He was a unicorn of a player who was big and strong at 6”1,’ but had “dancin’ feet” and had the ability to shrug off and glide past players with ease. The way he played is commonly known as the “drunken sailor.” Due to his center of mass having to be so low, that to shift his weight effectively makes it look as though he is waddling around with a pegleg or the like. He never quite had a scoring touch, but he was such a joy to watch.

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Streets Won't Forget Mousa Dembélé at Spurs..