(* For the uninitiated #COYS means Come On You Spurs)
With Tottenham Hotspur contesting The Champions' League Final against Liverpool in Madrid tonight, I'm reposting a couple of Spurs-flavoured blogs from the archive.
This one is from November 2016…
I am seldom, if ever, speechless.
Until last Thursday night…
It's a long story…
Last Thursday I led the Jack the Ripper walking tour. As usual, between stops I chatted to my London Walkers as we went along. And as usual, they were a nice bunch of people and they came from far-and-wide.
Quite a few of them were here to watch the Washington Redskins take on Cincinnati Bengals at Wembley in the last London NFL game of 2016.
I get a lot of NFL fans joining my London Walks tours. Indeed, the Miami Dolphins themselves came on a London Walks Along the Thames tour a couple of years back.
I have even had the privilege of being a guest of the Miami Dolphins at Wembley on two occasions.
I was chatting about the experience (and the VERY posh tickets, see above!) last Thursday with a guy called Nick, a sports journalist from Florida. He's a big Giants fan and had been to Twickenham to see his team beat the L.A Rams the previous weekend.
We got on to the topic of London getting its own NFL franchise, and I told him about how White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur's home ground, was being rebuilt and relocated and how the new stadium will be capable of hosting NFL games.
"You're a Spurs fan?" he asked.
"I am."
"Wow," he replied, "I can't wait to tell my wife and my sister."
At the end of the tour, Nick and his wife and sister stuck around to have a chat after the walk was done.
"Our friend back home," Nick said, "is a massive Spurs fan and he gave us a ticket to deliver to a friend of his here in London.
"Unfortunately the arrangements fell through and we couldn't hook up with the guy. We called our friend back home to ask him what we should do with the ticket, and he said, 'Give it to some one who deserves it'.
So here ya go…"
And with that, his wife brandished a ticket to see Spurs take on German side Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley from her handbag and Nick handed over to me.
As I stated at the top of this post, I am seldom speechless.
But I was speechless.
The experience was made all the more odd by my first job of today – leading a walking tour in Covent Garden for a group of sponsors, associates, supporters and family members from… the Bayer Leverkusen football team. Spurs' opponents tonight!
Here's their bus (check out the "destination" sign)…
They were a lovely bunch and, at the end our tour in Trafalgar Square I was able to say that I hoped they enjoyed MOST of the rest of their day in London!
Thanks to Nick and family from Florida for the ticket!
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