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How would you remember Daniel Levy?

Do you beleive Daniel Levy can return us to the 'Glory Days'?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 86.0%

  • No

    Votes: 6 14.0%
  • Total voters
    43
  • Poll closed .
S

spurs' magna carter

Ronnie Rosenthal
It is a quite strange thread to have but after watching a Storyville documentary on the life of Ronald Reagan I began to think, some what randomly, when Levy leaves the club how would he be remembered?

It's a question I ask because he, very much like Reagan and Thatcher before him, divides opinion frequently albeit on here or in the media with his re birth of the club, focusing on the development of young players, stability in the league after finishing in the top five four years straight, something we haven't done for 50 years (1959/60 - 1962/63), and impressive infrastructure projects. On the other hand he has an outrageously stubborn stance on his approach to transfers, ruthless on any information, keeping his cards very close to his chest with lack of transparency, the diabolical treatment of Martin Jol, the expensive and unnecessary purchases of Darren Bent and David Bentley, the embarrassment of the Berbatov saga on the last day of the 2008 summer transfer window and the reputation of him seeing his way as being the only way.

The above poll is unrelated to the thread, I would also like to see what the mood is now, not just what it could be when he leaves.

So, when Levy leaves how would you remember him?
 
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I would remember him as the "nearly" man. Nearly signed Leandro, nearly did this, nearly did that, most of all nearly was successful 8-[
 
If he delivers the stadium before going, then I'll remember him as the man who undid the damage of the Sugar era and the relentless mid-to-lower table drift that accompanied it. Because during his time, he'll have given us a new stadium, a new training ground, and, over the last five or six years, an era where finishing out of the European spots was regarded as an aberration as opposed to the painful norm. Has he made mistakes? Definitely. But other chairmen have made mistakes too: far bigger ones, and far more frequently. Levy's mis-steps just seem more obvious because we've consistently been run on sound, sensible financial means, and as such any wrong move seems more damaging by comparison to the wild, gleeful spending and transfer practices of competing chairmen and owners for whom money is no object.

What he would be remembered as in the long-term, however, depends heavily on what happens in the era after him and ENIC move on. If we're successful then, he'll be seen as having laid the foundations for that success. If we fail, his era will be seen as a brief, somewhat mediocre foray into solidity sandwiched in between the usual Spurs brand of failure.
 
DubaiSpur said:
If we fail, his era will be seen as a brief, somewhat mediocre foray into solidity sandwiched in between the usual Spurs brand of failure.
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I think Spur's fans need to take a long hard look down the divisions, some easy one's to point out with Leeds, Forest, etc. (sure anyone with a half assed effort could come up with a dozen or so names). Club's with history are a dime a dozen, the modern game and commercialization don't give a f#$k about history or fanbase. Basically if you weren't lucky enough to be well positioned and managed at the beginning of the PL era or haven't since been bought by a Sugar Daddy, you are almost always doomed. There are now only 6 every presents in the PL era, I expect Villa to drop out of that in the next few years, and Everton has to be very careful with their next move as they could face the same threat.

People also need to remember the years prior to FA/Jol, the misery, having nothing to play for every year by January, away games being a write off, Sky 4 games being a foregone conclusion.

Levy brought back respect to Tottenham, under his time we have improved financially, we have returned WHL to a ground where no team wants to come to look for points, we have had an amazing CL run, we have seen truly quality players (Berbs, Modric, VDV, Bale) wear our colours. He has made mistakes, but some of them because he's shown a ton of bravery, first to go for a setup and manager like Ramos (so it didn't work), then to go for AVB when everyone wanted to sell him down the river. He's made clubs PAY for our players that want out, nice change from being repeatedly f$%ked over in Transfer dealings.

We have a great training ground and a plan for a new stadium that will help us compete even more.

No one knows how/when the Levy era will end, but I think it's massive undersell to say we have seen a mediocre foray. Fact is (as the football gods like to rub in Spurs fans faces), if not for the Sugar Daddy era of Cheat$ki/City Levy has had to compete with, we would be easily a CL side, potentially competing for the title. Can't blame him for being in a hugely rigged system.

Time and time again, the easy judgment of a man's work is to compare him with his peers. What/how many chairmen in the PL would you have traded Levy for in the last 7 year to current? I can't think of one.
 
A hard negotiator which at times was to the detriment of the squad development.

It isn't possible for teams of our size to keep the best players but in trying to squeeze the highest fees he left us vulnerable going into the next season. Panic buy replacements are the only blight I can think of on Levy's reputation.

He comes across as a calm leader who is delivering us an amazing stadium and has already delivered us the training complex. We are keeping up a top four challenge year after year and have done this without paying crazy wages.

I personally would like to thank him for the work he's done up to now.
 
Raziel said:
I think Spur's fans need to take a long hard look down the divisions, some easy one's to point out with Leeds, Forest, etc. (sure anyone with a half assed effort could come up with a dozen or so names). Club's with history are a dime a dozen, the modern game and commercialization don't give a f#$k about history or fanbase. Basically if you weren't lucky enough to be well positioned and managed at the beginning of the PL era or haven't since been bought by a Sugar Daddy, you are almost always doomed. There are now only 6 every presents in the PL era, I expect Villa to drop out of that in the next few years, and Everton has to be very careful with their next move as they could face the same threat.

People also need to remember the years prior to FA/Jol, the misery, having nothing to play for every year by January, away games being a write off, Sky 4 games being a foregone conclusion.

Levy brought back respect to Tottenham, under his time we have improved financially, we have returned WHL to a ground where no team wants to come to look for points, we have had an amazing CL run, we have seen truly quality players (Berbs, Modric, VDV, Bale) wear our colours. He has made mistakes, but some of them because he's shown a ton of bravery, first to go for a setup and manager like Ramos (so it didn't work), then to go for AVB when everyone wanted to sell him down the river. He's made clubs PAY for our players that want out, nice change from being repeatedly f$%ked over in Transfer dealings.

We have a great training ground and a plan for a new stadium that will help us compete even more.

No one knows how/when the Levy era will end, but I think it's massive undersell to say we have seen a mediocre foray. Fact is (as the football gods like to rub in Spurs fans faces), if not for the Sugar Daddy era of Cheat$ki/City Levy has had to compete with, we would be easily a CL side, potentially competing for the title. Can't blame him for being in a hugely rigged system.

Time and time again, the easy judgment of a man's work is to compare him with his peers. What/how many chairmen in the PL would you have traded Levy for in the last 7 year to current? I can't think of one.
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The first part of my post dealt almost exclusively with his achievements, and I fully agree with everything you've pointed out. However, historical perspective is needed here. It is unfair, but history will judge him on how successful his successors are, purely and simply because in terms of trophies and CL runs, we have done next to nothing in the time he's been in charge. If they succeed, the narrative will adapt to portray him as the man who brought order to a chaotic house and laid the foundations for greatness: if they fail, then it is only natural that history will view him as a chairman who took us from terrible to mediocre, but no higher.

You know, and I know, that the deck has been stacked against him and Spurs from the beginning. You know, and I know, that we have always been competing at a disadvantage, and that the solidity we currently have is a testament to his success in overcoming said disadvantages. You know, and I know, that he is without a doubt the best chairman Spurs have had in the Premier League era, and is one of the best currently operating in the league.

But history won't take notice of these things. There have been many periods in our history where we've been mediocre at best, terrible at worst. They've all had stories attached to them: stories of competing against the odds, of quietly building, of bold moves and big dreams, of little successes here and there. But we don't remember them. No, for better or worse, all we remember are the glorious failures and the shining bits of our history where we actually succeeded in our quest to reach the top. The dull, brown bits are glossed over.

History remembers extremes. And so, since Levy-era Spurs have always operated in between the extremes (not terribly bad, but not outstandingly good), the narrative for Levy's time in charge will be determined by the success or failure of his successors.

It's not fair, but then, history is inherently unfair in remembering what it deems interesting and forgetting what it deems unimportant.

Of course, all this could change if AVB goes on a charging run and wins the PL/CL in the next few years, thereby thoroughly vindicating Levy's long hard years leading up to these triumphs: but for the moment ,that is the situation.
 
One area in which he has failed thus far is in attracting a manager of the very highest calibre, someone like a Mourinho capable of taking us up into the stratosphere regardless of our many disadvantages compared to the mega rich.
 
Spur of the moment said:
One area in which he has failed thus far is in attracting a manager of the very highest calibre, someone like a Mourinho capable of taking us up into the stratosphere regardless of our many disadvantages compared to the mega rich.
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Yeah and he hasn't signed Messi either
 
He's done well with no oil money.

I still don't understand where Liverpool gets its money from. It's not exactly a rich city and the owners must at some point get bored of pumping money into a club which gets no results.
 
A Chairman that will no doubt be hugely under valued, sadly, by a fair proportion of our support.
 
The teh Trunk vids keep popping into my mind.

Raziel's well thought out comments echo mine almost identically. If Levy delivers the stadium then his legacy is sound, and I have no doubt this will happen shortly leaving us well setup for a golden era of football at the lane (it will always be the lane). The cherry on top would be an all singing and standing kop stand at one end, with the 1882 movement firmly ensconced in the middle of it.
 
machotime said:
He's done well with no oil money.

I still don't understand where Liverpool gets its money from. It's not exactly a rich city and the owners must at some point get bored of pumping money into a club which gets no results.
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Massive oversea support is where a lot of it comes from. It's the kids of the previous generation of Liverpool supporters that are now feeding into the money pool.
 
I remember when Daniel Levy was a wee lad and used to come into my Dad's surgery and hide under the desk.
 
AdamB said:
Yeah and he hasn't signed Messi either
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Now now! Not quite the same is it. Arse managed to attract Wenger at a time when they were relatively similar in status to us. I'd cheerfully settled for a manager who could win us two league and cup doubles plus 20 years of CL qualification thank you very much.

Anyway you never know, AVB might yet turn out to be the very man.
 
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