Former Spurs striker says joining the Lilywhites was ‘the worst decision’ of his career 

Les Ferdinand has admitted that he regrets the decision he made to join Tottenham Hotspur back in 1997, admitting that the culture at the North...

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Les Ferdinand has admitted that he regrets the decision he made to join Tottenham Hotspur back in 1997, admitting that the culture at the North London club was not set up for excellence at the time.

Ferdinand was one of the hottest strikers in European football when he arrived at Spurs, signing for the Lilywhites in a £6m deal, which was a significant fee at the time, on the back of scoring 50 goals in just 84 games at St James’ Park.

However, the centre-forward failed to get anywhere close to the same ratio during his six years at White Hart Lane, finding the back of the net just 39 times in 149 appearances.

Tottenham was not what Les Ferdinand expected

The former England striker revealed that he got a stark reality check as soon as he joined Spurs, with the standards at the club not being close to what he had experienced at the North East.

Ferdinand said on Upfront with Simon Jordan: “When I say it was the worst decision, I said it was the worst decision for our footballing career. One of the things I say to people is that when I got there we were sponsored by Pony and that was quite apt.

“I went to Tottenham who I would have thought were on par with Newcastle in terms of the way they did things. It wasn’t, it was so, so different.

“They built their own training ground, a new training ground, and the changing ground were like going into Hackney Marshes. I remember saying to Alan [Sugar] you have just built your own training ground and have changing rooms like this.”

Ferdinand went on to explain that there was quite a lax culture at the club, with the players being too comfortable.

He continued: “I walked into the medical room and that was the room that was the most comfortable room, they had six beds and had TVs on and I thought no wonder everyone is injured at this football club. “They had TVs in the medical room. It was too comfortable.

“Everything about it, Gerry [Francis] was the manager then, and I always remember my first day of pre-season I walked out and there was a group of players doing keepy uppies in one corner and a group in another corner, and another one in another corner.

“There used to be like a slope and a couple of boys were lying on it waiting for the manager to come out and I thought ‘What the hell have I come to?’

“I had been warned, a couple of players had said, ‘Les, Tottenham isn’t what you think it is’. And to be fair, when I spoke to Alan [Sugar], he knew it wasn’t what he wanted it to be.”

Spurs Web Opinion

When one can understand why the current Tottenham ownership comes in for a lot of criticism, the one thing that some fans perhaps fail to take into account is how dire the state of the club was in the 90s and the early 2000s both on and off the pitch when ENIC and Levy arrived.

At that point, if you had dared to suggest that Spurs would be part of a ‘big six’ or be regulars in European competitions, most people would have asked you what you were smoking.

While I only started supporting the club in the Martin Jol era and did not witness what happened in the 1990s, by all accounts, it was an extremely dark period in the club’s history, possibly the darkest.

The post Former Spurs striker says joining the Lilywhites was ‘the worst decision’ of his career  appeared first on Spurs Web - Tottenham Hotspur Football News.