Stadium Guide: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
After a difficult couple of years, Tottenham Hotspur have been rejuvenated by the arrival of the influential Australian head coach Ange Postecoglou. The former Celtic, Yokohama and Australian national team boss has introduced an attractive style of football and gained serious buy-in from the fanbase in his early months at the club. And off the pitch, Spurs have been going through a period of reinvention and redevelopment too.
Increased funds and ambitious plans from chairman Daniel Levy have seen serious investment into infrastructure at Spurs in recent years; the North London club moved into a brand new training ground in Enfield in 2017, and numerous additional features and facilities have been added to the Hotspur Way site since then. But more importantly, Tottenham have built a brand-new state-of-the-art stadium that the club hopes will help usher in a new era of domestic and European success.
In this article, we'll be giving you an in-depth guide to Tottenham Hotspur's home ground, detailing the size and capacity of the ground, its key features, its location, and how its facilities have represented an upgrade from the club's former home. By the time we're done, you'll be an expert on one of the most modern arenas in all of English football.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium: Key Facilities
It took many years for Spurs to build their new stadium, but for those at the club, it's been well worth the wait. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium hasn't yet sold off naming rights, so it still has a simple title, but it's expected that the club will name their stadium after a brand when a suitable sponsorship is agreed (the club are reportedly seeking substantial offers of over £20m annually from any sponsor).
There's a reason Spurs are holding out for big money here — the new Spurs ground is an architectural marvel, and a serious sight to behold for any sports fan. This modern arena is very different to many people's idea of a traditional football ground, but it's undeniably been designed cleverly, and is packed with a wide range of high-tech facilities. We'll dive into those features in more detail shortly, but first, here are a few key facts and figures to wrestle with.
Capacity: 62,850
Location: Tottenham, North London, United Kingdom
Built: 2019
Record Attendance: 62,027 (Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal, Premier League, 12 May 2022)
Other Facilities: The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium isn't just a footballing venue, it's also used for other high-profile sports, most notably American Football. Since an agreement was reached in 2015, the ground has been the home of the NFL in the UK, with at least two NFL games being played here each year. As a result, there are separate facilities for football and FL players (changing rooms, medical facilities, hydrotherapy pools and lounges), and different media facilities for the two sports, as well. There are also a vast number of hospitality venues across the ground, as well as the Goal Line Bar, which is the longest bar in Europe at 65 metres.
The History of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Spurs' former ground White Hart Lane was a venue steeped in history. It was opened in 1899 on the site that the new stadium sits on, and it hosted over 2,500 competitive Tottenham games during the club's 118-year spell here, with legendary players such as Jimmy Greaves, Paul Gasgoine and Ledley King all plying their trade on the White Hart turf. Transferring that rich heritage onto a brand-new stadium is an extremely difficult task, but the club's hierarchy have attempted to do so with the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
A number of heritage plaques can be found across the site, marking significant points of the old ground. Above the south stand, a sculpture of a huge golden cockerel faces east, harking back to the old structure formerly located at White Hart Lane. Parts of the old ground's concrete foundations were even mixed into the new concrete that was laid to create the floor for the modern stadium's concourse. But generally speaking, this is a brand-spanking new venue, and you can tell. 35,000 decorative tiles, 4,801 perforated metal panels and 2,505 glass panels give the stadium a sleek, shiny look from the outside. On match nights, this dazzling bowl arena (shaped as such in order to maximise hospitality space) is lit up by LED lights, creating an impressive spectacle.
Proposals for a new stadium first emerged in 2007, and the club was always keen to keep hold of the original site. Plans to have a new stadium built by 2012/13 were pushed back, with planning permission only being granted in 2011. A design team and revised project plan was announced in 2015, and construction got underway later that year. This was done in two phases so that White Hart Lane could still be used throughout 2016/17, after which Spurs temporarily moved into Wembley Stadium while the project was completed.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium eventually opened with a ceremony on 3 April 2019, just before the first competitive senior game was played at the new ground. The visitors were Crystal Palace, and Spurs ran out 2-0 winners, the first ever goal at the stadium being scored by Korean forward Son Heung-min.
What are the names of the stands at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium?
Many modern stadiums struggle when it comes to creating loud atmospheres, so this was an area of design that Spurs worked very hard on. The arena is designed like a concert hall, with plenty of emphasis placed on good acoustics; the corners are enclosed and the stands are situated close to the pitch to help maximise the noise. The roof has an aluminium soffit lining that's designed to produce cleaner, quicker sound reverberation, further contributing to this wall of sound. And while the stadium is a bowl shape, there are still four distinct stands within it.
South Stand
The single tier South Stand is the largest single-tier stand in the UK, with space for over 17,500 supporters. Inspired by the famous "Yellow Wall" of the Westfalenstadion (the home ground of German side Borussia Dortmund), it is the most vocal area of the stadium, capable of producing an impressive atmosphere during home games.
North Stand
The North Stand can be found behind the other goal end, opposite the South Stand. It stretches 35.5 metres into the sky and has three tiers, offering lofty views down onto the pitch. This stand hosts both visitors and home fans — for league matches, away supporters are allocated around 3,000 seats in the lower tier of the North East corner, but for cup matches this allocation can stretch to up to 9,000. Crucially, the away section (along with the South Stand) has offered an opportunity for Spurs to become one of the first clubs to roll out safe standing areas, following changes to regulations on safe standing at matches in 2021.
East Stand
The away corner of this bowl arena then transitions into the pitch-length East Stand, a whopping four-tier structure that has also been built with the capacity to be converted easily into safe standing. Currently, two of the four tiers here have regular seating, whereas the other two provide premium seating to corporate clients. There are around 8000 premium seats here, as well as multiple restaurants and suites with views of the pitch. In the concourse, the East Stand also includes a microbrewery sponsored by local brewery Beavertown.
West Stand
In total, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium holds around 42,000 season ticket holders, and many of those are housed in the West Stand, opposite the East end. The structure is very similar to its opposite number, standing at 33.2 metres tall, with The Dispensary bar in the concourse and a designated family area in the north west section of the stand. Just like the ground's other stands, the tiers are angled steeply upward, pushing toward the maximum permissible angle in British grounds, 35 degrees — this improves views of the pitch and helps create a boxed-in feel.
How has the stadium been redeveloped in recent years?
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is the newest ground in the Premier League, so you won't be surprised to hear that there's been no need to get stuck into any major renovations or redevelopments since 2019. That being said, the stadium has been built with a degree of flexibility in mind that allows it to adjust itself depending on the event and the situation.
For example, at the heart of the stadium's design is a multi-use pitch that features a dividing retractable grass surface — this means that NFL games, boxing events, rugby matches and music concerts can be hosted at the ground on a regular basis without the club having to worry about the football field becoming scuffed up or damaged. This multi-purpose thinking also helps the club generate revenue from a variety of different sources.
It's also worth mentioning the stadium's catering to tourism and visitors. There are regular stadium tours hosted at Spurs' new ground, as well as conferences, events and talks at the purpose-built conference facilities. In total, the club claims to bring almost two million visitors to the area each year, equating to a boost to the local economy of over £344 million.
What are the plans for the future?
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has been designed with a number of future-proofing measures in mind. Alongside forward-thinking features like the powering of the stadium with 100% renewable energy and the building of the world's first integrated grow lighting system for the grass pitch, there are also multiple parts of the ground where seating areas have been built in a way that allows for conversion to safe standing in the future. Going forward, expect this to be the main focus of any major changes at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Other than this potential development, and the planned renaming of the stadium when a suitable brand sponsor is chosen, it's unlikely that the new Spurs ground will have any major work done in the short to medium-term future. And why should it? Given that a recent survey found that 95% of Spurs fans are satisfied with the matchgoing experience at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it's fair to say this has been one of the UK's most successful modern football stadium builds.