Bliss, despair, fear, rage: last week, Tottenham Hotspur covered all bases. Between two home matches in three days against Manchester United and Liverpool, Spurs scored seven goals, conceded nine, won once and lost once, delivering the complete emotional package. The vibes rollercoaster has never gone higher and lower within such a small timeframe. And many people are desperate to just be there, to get a ticket for the ride, or just to try to will things their way.
But what if you were not in London’s N17 postcode last week, but 3,500 miles away? Was there any way to find that sense of community, of solidarity, of pooled emotion? Can you recreate the crowd experience?
An ocean away from the story, I decided to try to find it in Flannery’s, an Irish pub in downtown Manhattan. This is the home of the NY Spurs, arguably the biggest and best-established of all the Tottenham supporters groups in the United States. They have roughly 250 paying members and attract a similar number for every Tottenham game, all shown here. For September’s north London derby, there was a queue around the block hours before kick-off. For the 2019 Champions League final, which Tottenham lost to Liverpool, Flannery’s had to annex three other bars on West 14th Street to house all the Spurs fans (estimated at more than 1,000) who wanted to watch.
Beyond the Tottenham stadium itself, and the surrounding area, this bar may be the most Spurs place in all of global Spursdom.
Watching English football in the U.S. is nothing new. This has been a widespread activity, on weekend mornings and weekday afternoons, for more than a decade, and a niche pursuit for far longer than that.
But what stands out about Flannery’s is how proudly and permanently Tottenham it is. At other bars, the flags and scarves are taken down from game to game, the bar reverting to neutrality before the next fixture. Not here. It became New York’s main Tottenham bar almost 10 years ago, thanks to its head bartender, an Irish Spurs fan known as ‘Mush’, and now its walls are covered in Tottenham displays. If you show up here trying to support a different team, you will be asked to leave. This place is as ‘fully COYS’ as you can get on the northern edge of Greenwich Village.
Members of NY Spurs at Flannery’s earlier this year (NY Spurs/Instagram)
There is a golden Nike Hypervenom boot, signed by Harry Kane himself. There is a commemorative flag from Spurs’ 1982-83 centenary season. There is a photograph of an NY Spurs member presenting Vlad Chiriches with a man-of-the-match award from January 2014, back in the optimistic early days of the Tim Sherwood era. There is a certificate signed by Daniel Levy marking this as the home of an official supporters club branch. The biggest flag of all — ‘Can’t Smile Without You, NY Spurs’ — obscures the plaques marking this bar’s pre-Spurs sporting history, as the home of teams who competed in the New York Dart League.
The Manchester United game kicked off at 3pm EST on Thursday afternoon. Not everyone’s work schedule allowed them to get there early. I arrived one hour before kick-off. Standing by myself in the middle of the bar, surrounded by screens showing CBS’ build-up to the game, felt like being in a Geoff Shreeves panopticon. But the bar soon filled up and by kick-off, there were more than 100 people in there.
Perhaps I went in expecting something different from what you would get with 100 Spurs fans in a pub in London. Frankly, there were more British and Irish Spurs fans at Flannery’s than I was counting on, too. But the most striking thing — and maybe this should not have been — was how familiar it all felt. And not just because the game was Spurs’ season in microcosm: thrilling start, ludicrous attempt to throw it all away, painfully nervy end.
But put everything together and this felt like a Spurs home crowd, rather than a simulacrum of one. They dressed the same: there was a 1991 FA Cup final shirt, a current-season away shirt, and a 2012-13 black and grey third shirt, worn by a man known as ‘Brooklyn James’, one of the regulars of the group. Perhaps it is the fact that, as the crowd at the stadium becomes more international, a specifically international Spurs crowd like this one feels more familiar.
David Rosenberg is a Spurs fan who grew up in Essex but moved to New York 10 years ago. When I spoke to him on the phone about the experience of supporting Spurs in his new home, he said: “I realised very quickly these were very, very real Spurs fans. I was hearing better takes in Brooklyn than I heard at the Lane.”
The fans booed when the TV coverage showed Antonio Conte in the build-up. They applauded when the cameras showed Pat Jennings in the crowd, then booed when the cameras showed Levy, and started singing the new terrace song about caring more about Dejan Kulusevski than the Spurs chairman. At half-time, the bar turned down the TV sound and played Chas and Dave. At full time, it was Can’t Smile Without You. Some fans lingered for hours afterwards, soaking up the good atmosphere after such an exhausting win. It is still only 5pm. There is plenty of time left in the day.
Fans watched the 4-3 win over Man Utd right across America (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Some fans have travelled from far and wide to get here, in from New Jersey, in from the Hudson River Valley. In truth, this is not even the full extent of organised Spursdom in New York. There are branches all over: Hoboken, Queens, Long Island, Brooklyn and so on. But this is more than just a New York thing.
Flannery’s is decorated with scarves from other branches of Spurs supporters clubs from across the U.S: Colorado, Dallas, Toronto, Cleveland, Minneapolis, South Florida, Milwaukee, Sacramento, San Francisco, Chicago, Arizona, Boston, Maine. There are 146 official Spurs supporters clubs across the U.S., more than any other Premier League club. Each one of those scarves stands for its own branch, its own community, with its own version of Flannery’s at the heart of it.
This group in New York is one of the oldest and biggest in the U.S., along with Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago. DC Spurs meet a bar called the Irish Channel in downtown DC. According to Eric Kmetz from DC Spurs, they average “between 100 to upwards of 175 people” for every Spurs game, while getting even more for the biggest games. When Spurs hosted Fulham last month, it kicked off at 8.30am on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Kmetz was not expecting a big crowd. He was shocked to still get “60-70” people attending, watching Spurs struggle to a 1-1 draw.
The big development over the last 10 years has been a new generation of fans getting into Spurs, and new fan groups springing up all over the U.S. to cater to that need. Chuck Hoffman, of Austin Spurs, describes this as the “second wave”. The Austin group set up in 2012 and have always met at a bar called Mister Tramps. (It helps that the head bartender Travis is a founding member of Austin Spurs.) For a normal Spurs game, they will get “50-100” people, Hoffman says. For January’s north London derby, they expect 250. For the 2019 Champions League final, they were at full capacity — 350 — two hours before kick-off.
There is a similar story in Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Boston, Minneapolis and Colorado, all of them set up soon after Austin. Now you can go to any medium-sized or even small city in the U.S. and find a ready-made community of Tottenham fans to walk straight into. These are all growing groups of their own, like those found at No Quarter in Nashville or Gritty’s in Portland, Maine, decked out in its own array of Tottenham memorabilia.
Astead Herndon is a Spurs fan and politics reporter for the New York Times. When he was at Marquette University, he was involved in setting up Milwaukee Spurs. They found the perfect pub but with one problem: it was called The Highbury. They moved to a bar called Upper 90 instead. While Herndon was on the campaign trail this year, he found Spurs a “helpful grounding in a pretty chaotic life”, catching every Spurs game he could with the local group of fans. Last season, he watched them not just in New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, but even in Columbia, South Carolina too.
Members of DC Spurs queue to watch a match (Eric Kmetz/DC Spurs)
Brendan O’Connor, a Spurs fan from New York, was in New Orleans in December 2023 when Spurs were playing at Manchester City. He wanted to watch the game and, given the New Orleans Saints were playing at the same time, he was not optimistic. But he found out that New Orleans Spurs fans met at a bar called Finn McCool’s. Spurs fought to a 3-3 draw.
“I was expecting nobody to be at this bar,” he says. “And there were 20 people, which was totally shocking. And we had this incredible time. You’re in an unfamiliar place but able to find and connect with these fellow Tottenham supporters who I’ll never see again. I don’t know any of their names but we had this incredible shared experience.”
This is one of the most striking differences between the U.S. and UK fanbase. While the British support trends towards London, the American support is genuinely national. British-based supporters cannot walk into any new city and easily find a bar full of Spurs fans to watch a game — but American Spurs fans can. The growth of these new branches makes you wonder whether Tottenham is not just a club in the conventional sense, but a society, spread across the country and with no central focal point.
With support growing across the U.S., Hoffman is committed to helping every new community of Spurs fans coalesce into an organised group. “My other biggest passion is growing supporters groups in the United States,” Hoffman says. He was elected onto Tottenham’s fan advisory board in 2023 as the representative of international official supporters clubs. He works with Spurs to help new groups set up, advising them on best practices to get established. “My vision is that you don’t have to travel more than 30 minutes to watch Tottenham with your friends. It’s just like the punk rock ethos: it’s not that complicated, you can just do it yourself.”
Hoffman sees NY Spurs based at Flannery’s as the “gold star”, but knows that not every group has the advantage of having a catchment area of 12 million. “If you just have 25 people that show up religiously to the bar, that’s cool,” Hoffman says. He proudly points to the example of Delmarva Spurs, based on the Delmarva peninsula, containing parts of Delaware (Del), Maryland (mar) and Virginia (va). “They’re in a very remote place,” Hoffman says, “but the bar opens, 20 to 30 people in the pictures. That’s amazing, right?”
Members of DC Spurs take in a recent game (Eric Kmetz/DC Spurs)
This leads us to the question of precisely how popular Spurs are in the U.S. While researching this story, The Athletic heard estimates that put them anywhere between the fourth- and sixth-most popular Premier League club, although Spurs’ American fanbase is so engaged — and so visible — that it can appear larger.
Spurs’ support in the U.S. has risen exponentially over the last 12 years: the flowering of new fan groups, the packed bars., the changing tone of the online discourse, the new fans attending games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. During that time, there has been an equivalent rise in American interest in the Premier League. Assessing whether Spurs are relatively more popular in the U.S. compared to their rivals is difficult. But it is also ultimately besides the point. When you are in a bar packed full of Spurs fans who are celebrating a goal, and you have been soaked by someone else’s pint of Big Wave, it barely matters whether they are fourth, fifth or sixth.
So what is it that brings people together to support this team? Every fan spoken to for this article has their own unique journey into Spurs. Meeting a White Hart Lane season ticket holder at a family wedding. Watching Spurs play on TV in a pub in Ireland while studying there. Picking them because of Luka Modric. Cheering for Belgium at the 2014 World Cup and noticing that Jan Vertonghen, Mousa Dembele and Nacer Chadli all played for Spurs. Playing with Spurs on a video game and going from there. Identifying with Spurs’ Jewish heritage, as some fans mentioned. Or Korean American fans supporting them because of Son Heung-min. Or simply having friends or family who supported Spurs and picking it up from them.
But there are also some common touchpoints that helped to encourage people along the way. A famous Bill Simmons ESPN blog post from 2006 explaining why Spurs would be his choice of team. Kasey Keller playing for Spurs in the early 2000s, then Brad Friedel and Clint Dempsey in the early 2010s, just when American Premier League interest was about to explode. Gareth Bale was Spurs’ first global superstar of the 21st century, and when NBC took over the Premier League coverage in 2013, it was Bale who it had on its huge billboard in Times Square. (Although for some American fans, this marked the moment that Spurs no longer felt like a niche, underground activity and went too mainstream.)
Gareth Bale, as seen in Times Square, summer 2013 (D Dipasupil/Getty Images)
Bale left at the end of that summer but one year later, Spurs were launched in a new direction under Mauricio Pochettino. Within five years, they were in the Champions League final. “Premier League popularity in the U.S. really took off in 2015,” explains Joel Wertheimer. “A lot of us got hooked on Pochettino and Dele Alli. You’re picking a team that was young, fun and exciting.”
No one knows more about the popularity of the Premier League in the U.S. than Charlie Stillitano, the sports executive who has worked with leading Premier League clubs in their American endeavours. “In a special way, Spurs have captured the imagination of a lot of people,” he says, in a telephone interview. “This is because of their DNA, how they have a team that likes to play on the front foot, exciting football.”
There is something else particular about supporting Spurs, a special quality that does not exist for their ‘big six’ rivals — a sense of quest. As everyone reading this piece will know, Spurs have not won a trophy since 2008. They have not won the FA Cup since 1991. They have not won a European trophy since 1984. They have not won the league since 1961. This imbues their efforts with a special sense of purpose, as they try, fail and try again to do something that is routine for some of their rivals.
“Spurs were the club for a free agent fan that wanted a club with some verve and tradition, but very little recent success,” says Gregory Krieg, a Spurs supporter from New York, via email. “It’s been more than 60 years since any new Spurs fan was called a ‘glory chaser’. Added to the numbers, that gave the fanbase a masochistic identity.”
Tottenham have not won a trophy since 2008 — you may have heard about it (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
This yearning for long-anticipated success is universal, but it does have a special resonance with American sports. Think of the Chicago Cubs, who had to wait 108 years between the 1908 and 2016 World Series. Or the Boston Red Sox, who waited 86 years between 1918 and 2004. Or for more current examples, the New York Knicks (no NBA title since 1973) or the Buffalo Bills (who have never won the Super Bowl). To many fans, this is a reason to go for Spurs, rather than to stay away.
Of course, some people will say here that Spurs have no more claim to be underdogs than, say, Brentford or Fulham or Crystal Palace, none of whom have ever won any of the major trophies in English (or European) football. Surely their sense of quest and yearning beats Spurs?
Well, yes and no. What Spurs offer is a sweet spot, a best-of-both-worlds situation. Of all the big established clubs who routinely finish at the top end of the table, play in the Champions League, and have the best players and managers, Spurs are the least decorated. Of all the teams who feel as if they have their faces pressed up against the glass, watching their richer rivals win things, Spurs are the best and most glamorous. They allow their fans to feel like underdogs, but underdogs who play in a shiny new stadium and routinely demolish Manchester City or Manchester United.
So for many of Spurs’ fans in the U.S., supporting Tottenham feels very clearly in the tradition of supporting a less successful American sports franchise, with all that that entails. Especially given that choosing, say, Manchester City or Liverpool or Chelsea, feels too much like choosing to support the New York Yankees or New England Patriots or, for that matter, one of the tech giants.
Hoffman grew up in New Jersey and his teams are the Mets, the Jets, the Knicks and the Rangers. In his lifetime, he has only seen two titles: the Rangers in 1994 and the Mets in 1986, when he was only six.
Michael Caley grew up as a huge Red Sox fan, and his life changed when they ended their long wait. “That feeling of them winning the World Series in 2004 has not just stayed with me, but I feel I am somewhat different since then,” he says. Caley got into Spurs in the 2000s and sees the attraction of Spurs trying to break their curse. “There’s something fun about signing on for the chase,” he says. “Even if it mostly means you’re going to suffer.”
In 2004, the Boston Red Sox ended their 86-year wait for glory (Ron Vesely/Getty Images)
Wertheimer, who also grew up with the Red Sox, recognises the same dynamic. “The pain of losing and losing and losing and then winning,” he says, “the joy of that win is basically unparalleled in sports fandom.”
Stillitano knows more than anyone about the attraction of the Premier League in the U.S., and he makes the same connection. “We have the old ‘lovable losers’, the Chicago Cubs used to be this, the Boston Red Sox used to be this,” he says. “Everyone is waiting for the team to be successful. In some cases, you wait 100 years. In the case of Spurs, you wait since 1961. That idea of supporting the underdog, it’s a big deal in our country. They ruined it: the Red Sox won the World Series, the Cubs won the World Series. But along the way, they got an incredible fanbase of people. I hear it all the time on the radio. ‘I’m a Spurs fan, I’m just used to it, and I’m going to do it again’.”
But O’Connor raises a question that is increasingly on the mind of Spurs fans. “There’s a romance to Tottenham always being on the verge and supporting them now, as they struggle to break through, will heighten the joy when it does actually happen,” he says. “Although as many supporters’ conversations have lately been revolving around, there’s a question of: what if it never happened?”
This is the reality that this elective community now has to confront. Although there is at least no sense that these fans have been let down. On the contrary, the long wait only increases the emotional pay-off when Spurs do win something.
Looking to the next few years, you wonder what power this new community of Spurs fans will wield. They are an increasingly vocal voice on club matters. “They’re adding to the quality of the discourse,” Rosenberg says, “especially online.”
DC Spurs go through the wringer as much as fans in the stadium (Eric Kmetz/DC Spurs)
And it would be easy to assume that this growing American Spurs fanbase effectively demands that Tottenham start playing there more often. While the U.S. — alongside South Korea — is one of Spurs’ target markets, Tottenham have not been to the U.S. to play since 2018. They have gone to South Korea for the last three consecutive summers. They went to Australia (another target market) at both the start and end of last season too. (Tottenham do engage in plenty of promotional and fan engagement in the U.S., however. Ledley King visited Spurs fans in Minnesota, Chicago and Nashville earlier this year.)
But plenty of the fans spoken to for this story are relaxed about it. They like the simplicity and authenticity of the current calendar and do not want to see it overly disrupted to bring it across the pond. “I’m not much of a fan of the globalised matchday,” says Herndon. “It feels a little Super League-y. I really enjoy the neighbourhood-ness of it, and feel like something might be lost. I don’t think the Premier League has a responsibility to cater to me as an American fan.” One fan grumbles in Flannery’s that Tottenham should come back to New York next summer. Mainly they just want the team to win.
Three days after the United game, Spurs hosted Liverpool in the Premier League. I was still an ocean away from the story. I decided against making the journey down to Flannery’s, trying a different sports bar instead. I went just before kick-off, hoping to find a seat or at least standing room. Instead, I walked into an empty bar, where puzzled-looking staff told me they were still opening up. By the time they had opened, Spurs were 3-1 down.
(Top photo: Members of NY Spurs at Flannery’s – NY Spurs/Instagram)
