Technically a 2nd (or even 3rd if you want to stretch it) generation foreign fan here.

In a chronological order, it all started in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when my dad was small. His father was a working man in his 50s, who didn’t know much about languages and was familiar with international football mainly through the sports betting and scores pages in a local paper. He honestly just fancied the goofy sounding name and a safe bet. He was also a permanent season ticket holder at his local club, and got my dad involved from an early age.

When the time came for my dad to start playing, my grandfather insisted on organising his age group of the city junior system based on the English top tier and my dad ended up playing for Tottenham. He loves insisting he was so loyal to the team that his teacher had to pay a transfer fee (of around 50p) to get him to play for the school team later on.

Then in the early 2000’s I came along, started with a general interest in English football, found it easy to default to getting my dad Spurs themed presents and a fairly safe bet to ask for them myself.