The battle for the Olympic stadium

They keep the away fans tucked away, well out of earshot at St James's Park. So I dare say any of the Tottenham Hotspur directors who made the trip to Newcastle last Saturday would have missed the tuneless chant the 3,000 visiting supporters kept up throughout the afternoon: "North London is ours, north London is ours, say no to Stratford, north London is ours." But even if they did, it's hard to imagine they gave it a moment's thought. The Spurs board know how most fans feel and they aren't that bothered. They reckon that when push comes to shove most fans will follow the club, even if that means to the Olympic stadium site in Stratford. I will. Reluctantly. So if the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) accepts Spurs' bid to rip up the athletics track and demolish three-quarters of the stadium, then Tottenham will move to the East End. If it sounds insane to trash a stadium that's cost £450m of public money for two weeks' use at most, then the greater insanity is that the Spurs bid is widely recognised as by far the most commercially viable. How, then, did it come to this? When the club first talked about moving to Stratford in the middle of last year, most fans thought it was a typical piece of Spurs wheeler-dealing. No matter that the present ground at White Hart Lane has been redeveloped several times and – the cockerel apart – is unrecognisable from the one many of us first went to, we're comfortable in our 36,000-seater stadium and averse to the idea of a new mega-structure. With reason. Most Arsenal fans privately admit to being less than thrilled with the Emirates; they are further from the action than at the old Highbury stadium and the corporate gloss makes many games feel deadeningly soulless. For several years, then, Tottenham's repeated efforts to convince the fans of the benefits of a new stadium at Northumberland Park, right next door to its current site, have had a lukewarm reception. Spurs would put regular development updates on its website and still every vox pop would come back with an overwhelming "Thanks, but no thanks". Until the club threw Stratford into the mix. At which point most fans concluded Northumberland Park was the lesser of two evils. The threatened move was also a useful shot across the bows of Haringey council. Believing it had the club over a barrel, it sought to exact ever greater financial commitments in exchange for granting planning permission. Had it made some concessions a little earlier, no one would have got round to mentioning Stratford. Still, the club's strategy appeared to have paid off last September when Haringey finally gave the Northumberland park development the go ahead. And then, it seems, the Spurs directors started to do their sums. They worked out that the Northumberland Park option would cost £450m – of which £200m was earmarked for compulsory purchase orders and enforced neighbourhood upgrades – while they could dismantle and rebuild the Olympic stadium for about £250m. At which point Plan B suddenly became Plan A. Here Seb Coe, Tessa Jowell et al should take a bow for making promises in 2005 to the International Olympic Committee that they can't keep. It's amazing now that they thought they could ever get away with building an 80,000-seater stadium with public money that would be immediately converted into a permanent 25,000-seater athletics venue once the games were over. It must rank as one of the most expensive temporary structures in history. But that was the deal and no one batted an eyelid. Except the OPLC now can't find anyone to take on the venue with even these limited ambitions. Some Olympic legacy. Which is where Spurs and West Ham come in. Of the two rival footballing bids, the Spurs one is clearly financially the best. It involves no public money and the club, with a season ticket waiting list of 35,000, would near enough fill the ground most weeks. It does, though, involve ripping up the athletics track, as separating fans by another 20 metres or so from the action is a proven football passion killer. Though not, apparently, for West Ham who will keep the track and stage a set number of athletics meetings per year. Their downside is they will struggle to fill more than two-thirds of the ground, they need £40m of public money from Newham (one of London's most deprived boroughs) and most of their fans are as reluctant to be relocated as Spurs supporters are. Predictably, Coe and co are right behind the West Ham bid as it is the one that causes them the least embarrassment, but every option is a poisoned chalice for the OPLC so it's no wonder it has postponed making a final decision . It probably wishes it could postpone it indefinitely. Some Spurs fans are warming to Stratford. They believe that notions of Spurs' spiritual identity being rooted in N17 are outdated. They reckon most fans live outside the area in Enfield, Edmonton, Essex, Kent, and in my case Streatham; that most local people don't actually like being invaded by 36,000 fans on a weekend and will like having 60,000 even less; that the already rubbish public transport infrastructure around the ground will collapse even with the odd refit here and there. These fans' version of spiritual identity is one where the club no longer being second best to Arsenal is the over-riding principle. They believe we are already punching above our weight in a pint-sized stadium and that sooner or later the club will come unstuck as long as Arsenal have access to the greater income a larger stadium brings. So the Spurs converts go along with the club's board. If one imperfect option costs £450m and the other imperfect one costs £250m, it makes sense to save the cash for players. But I can't see it that way. Partly because I don't think the club would necessarily invest the savings in players. Nor do I agree that choosing the more expensive option means the club will sell off our best players – Bale and Modric – to partially fund the difference: I'm cynical enough to think the club will sell them both regardless, if the price is right. It is what they've always done in the past and there's no reason to imagine the club will change its habits of a lifetime once it is in a bigger stadium. Mostly, though, I do feel there are important questions of morality and identity at stake. Try as I might, I can't justify to myself bulldozing three-quarters of a £450m new-build structure. Even if it is a white elephant. Nor can I square away the move five miles east to a location that is undeniably more West Ham than Tottenham. As unlovely as parts of Tottenham may be, they still have more appeal to me than a former Olympic theme park. And heretical as it may be to some Spurs fans, I'm not even that obsessed with being as big as Arsenal. I just can't get too worked up about financial muscle. We've had good years, bad years and indifferent years: infuriating unpredictability is the real Spurs identity. If change is inevitable, then paying £450m to stay in the area seems a price worth paying. It was certainly a price the club was prepared to pay before Stratford came along, so it can hardly argue the cost is now prohibitive. Besides, if Haringey does really want the club to stay it could always help out by dipping into its own pockets and easing its financial demands.