I have always considered the University of Westminster a venerable institution.

Spurs score a spectacular own goal

Steven Barnett
Monday September 3, 2007
Guardian

An open letter to Daniel Levy, chairman of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club:

Dear Mr Levy

So now you have banned the Evening Standard from home matches and press conferences because that horrid columnist Matthew Norman has been nasty to you. Congratulations on another spectacular PR blunder. This particular decision follows a fortnight during which the club has managed publicly to insult its fans, its players and its manager with a combination of half-truths, barely concealed threats and embarrassing climbdowns. Your string of public relations own-goals makes Paul Robinson’s England performances look like Gordon Banks in his prime.

I confess to both a personal and professional interest. I was eight years old when Spurs did the double and have followed them for the last 45 years. But – and this is the point that should worry you – I spent nothing on the team for 30 years until last season. Then, thanks to manager Martin Jol’s success and Spurs’ emergence as a team worth watching, I started to spend money again. I went to White Hart Lane for the Uefa cup quarter final, I became a member, I even bought a ticket for next month’s game against Aston Villa.

Well from now on, you can stuff it. I will be giving away the Villa ticket. I won’t be renewing my membership. I don’t even care – and this is the ultimate act of heresy – if you lose against Arsenal in two weeks’ time. For me and many like me, your grasping, disloyal, short-term, ungrateful cynicism is the Spurs Ratner moment. It is the fatal inability to understand that even the most loyal brand values have a threshhold, and once it is crossed you start to lose not just credibility but ultimately money.

You may think you are simply following a trend. After all, Sir Alex Ferguson is notorious for banishing journalists who have offended him, and will still have nothing to do with the BBC after its unflattering documentary on his son Jason, a former football agent. Sam Allardyce, now of Newcastle, also won’t touch the Beeb after accusations made in last September’s Panorama about soccer bungs. The legendary manager Tommy Docherty spoke for many of his peers when he said: “There’s a place for the press in football, but they haven’t dug it yet.”

The difference is that these are football managers, not owners, who are loved and respected by their fans. They may not have an undying respect for a free press, but they can be forgiven because they speak with the authority of their club’s fan-base. You do not. The closest analogy to your petty censorship is the decision by Alexandre Gaydamak, the owner of Portsmouth, to ban the local paper after it reflected local concerns about the building of a new £600m stadium. It’s called journalism.

I understand that you have a communications director who spends her time redlining Jol’s programme notes. Perhaps she should be spending a little more time understanding the importance of free speech, half-decent PR, and customer loyalty.

It might also be worth looking at some case studies of crisis management: the likes of Perrier, Coca-Cola and Cadbury can instantly recognise a public relations disaster and the real financial damage it can inflict. You don’t seem to have a clue. And if your primary concern is – as some are suggesting – fattening up the club to maximise the sale value, the fans know how to hit you where it hurts.

I will be doing my bit and voluntarily excluding myself from White Hart Lane. With any luck, there will be hundreds of other long-suffering fans who choose to do the same. In the meantime, if you would like some free advice on how to manage the club’s public face, I have several students who could help. You might start by being a touch less sensitive to public criticism: you deserve every word.

Yours,
Steven Barnett
Professor of Communications,
University of Westminster

Mind you, Matthew Norman is a dick…