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O/T - Fleet Spurs

Mumorn

Mumorn

Vic Buckingham
Tottenham Hotspur force Fleet Spurs badge redesign

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A non-league football club have been forced to change their badge design after Tottenham Hotspur complained that it was too similar to theirs.

Lawyers for the Premier League side wrote to Fleet Spurs, from Hampshire, telling them to drop their crest.

The Wessex League Division One club said it was "heavy-handed" and changing their badge would cost them between £3,000 to £4,000.

Tottenham said they had to protect the club's identity.

Fleet Spurs were set up in 1948 in homage to the London side by people returning from World War Two, although it has no official links with the club.

The Hampshire team have always incorporated a ****erel into their badge, in tribute to Tottenham, and claimed their current design was introduced after a fans' competition.

'Stressful'

The club admitted the winning fan probably based their entry on Tottenham's design but said they were disappointed at the way the matter had been handled.

Tottenham, who originally contacted the club in the summer but failed to resolve the matter amicably, have allowed them to keep the design on their kit until it is next replaced.

Bryan Sheppard, chairman of Fleet Spurs, said: "We haven't got a penny to our name, we couldn't afford to fight it.

"It's been quite stressful, we just felt really intimidated by the heavy-handed approach.

"But I can see where they are coming from."

The club said they are changing their website and have been allowed until Christmas to remove the crest from their ground, moves they said would cost money.

Mr Sheppard said there would be another fans' competition to design a new logo but club officials would study the winning entry carefully.

A spokesman for Tottenham Hotspur said: "If we do not take action to stop Fleet Spurs using our ****erel logo, it can undermine our ability to stop other unauthorised people who use our logo for commercial purposes, such as counterfeiters.

"We are very conscious that Fleet Spurs is a grass roots club. For this reason we have been very careful not to ask them to do anything that might incur costs.

"It was always the club's approach to deal with this matter amicably and with a large dose of common sense."
 
We should have welcomed them to the Tottenham family, have a friendly next pre season with maybe a legends game to raise decent funds to pay for the changes.

PR stunt missed IMO.
 
Well, Spurs have got this wrong big time for me

It would have been far better (both from a club POV and a PR one) to allow Fleet Spurs to use that badge "under license" as a mark of respect to the origins of Fleet Spurs.
 
monkeybarry said:
Well, Spurs have got this wrong big time for me

It would have been far better (both from a club POV and a PR one) to allow Fleet Spurs to use that badge "under license" as a mark of respect to the origins of Fleet Spurs.
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... as long as we get a cut of any merchandising sold with that design
 
Superhudd said:
We should have welcomed them to the Tottenham family, have a friendly next pre season with maybe a legends game to raise decent funds to pay for the changes.

PR stunt missed IMO.
Click to expand...

So every time someone rips off our logo we should help them earn money to teach them a lesson.

The guy who said it was probably based on our logo is the problem. It's a direct copy and he should never have green lighted it's use in the first place.

I do agree with the sentiment that they are a homage to us so could be helped. But moaning we are bullies is not the way to do it.
 
galeforce said:
... as long as we get a cut of any merchandising sold with that design
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That'd be about £4.50 ;)

It's pretty dumb in this day and age to brand yourself up with the logo of a big company (which is what we are). Asking for trouble. Saying that, some of our millionaire players could cough up the money for the changes as a show of good will in this case.
 
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Eh. Club have a right to protect their intellectual property. It could have definitely been handled better (Like Superhudd said, give them a friendly at the Lane and use the proceeds to help design and print a new sufficiently unique logo: would have been a great PR move, and would have given the fans reasons to smile), but we haven't exactly ****ed up royally here. We've allowed them to keep it until their kits next need changing (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...eague-minnows-remove-****erel-logo-crest.html) so they don't incur any extra costs from that, and since their next design will also be a fan competition it won't cost them anything extra there either.

Overall, there is definitely an argument to be made for being more accomodating in these types of cases (Fleet Spurs aren't the only club with Tottenham-referencing badge or name: there are a bunch in Africa as well) and gaining a sort of global grassroots network that would help engender some goodwill for us, but we haven't really done too much wrong here imo.
 
that would set a precedent though, then you'd get every two bit club ripping off the logo to get something out of it

In this day and age you have to protect your IP aggressively
 
We should just pay them the $4,000 to change the design. Just imagine how much good publicity we will get from it.
 
As others have said, it's obviously a complete copy incorporated in their design. If they were using an older version of the Spurs ****erel I would hope the club wouldn't object. The club aren't forcing an immediate change so they are not really being heavy handed. It would be a completely different matter if the THFC were objecting to an old design that Fleet Spurs had being using years and was similar to the Spurs logo (like MacDonalds going after long established businesses).
 
Shut the ****ers down and let everyone know what happens when you try taking the **** by 'honoring' us with crappy little clubs like that.

If we wanted a club at grass roots football then we'd bloody well relegate ourselves there wouldn't we.
 
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