Amsterdam Spurs: Official Supporters Club of Tottenham Hotspur

Today we said a sad goodbye to one of our own. Steve(n) Statto Murray. A number of us were in attendance, and we represented Statto’s Amsterdam Spurs and Spurs in the best way we could. Some words were said by us, and they are below. RIP buddy, we’ll see you in the next round of the cup. The pub is booked……

Good afternoon everyone,

We are here today, mindful of the sense of loss that is attached to this gathering.

That being said, we wanted to propose a different perspective for the day.

With us are family, colleagues and close friends, some of whom are indeed closer friends of Steve than perhaps we were, but WE might well be standing out today due to our inconspicuous attire ……..

Before I talk about Steve, we wanted to introduce ourselves:

We are John, James, Simon, Yannick, Liam, Charlotte and I, Dominic. We’re all part of what is Steve’s local football supporters club. Our purpose is to get behind our  favorite team from London, the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.

I knew Steve personally for about the past five years and have spent the majority of that time with him sharing one of his favorite pastimes……….     watching Tottenham play. Steven, better known to us as Steve, was a well known member of our club, Amsterdam Spurs.

We gather regularly in Amsterdam to watch our team play, something that was important in Steve’s life. As a Spurs fan, you become familiar with hope mixed with a healthy dose of pessimism. In fact, we always hoped that when watching with Steve, he would predict a Spurs loss, as more often that not, it resulted in a Spurs win!

Either way, he spent a lot of time with us experiencing the emotional roller coaster of, “The Beautiful Game”, he truly relished every minute of it.

If you were though an unprepared member of our football watching group, you could be walking a tightrope if you turned up without wearing something representative of the club. 

From across the table he would bait you, in a friendly way you understand, with comments such as..

“Where are your colors? “

Today Steve, the last time we encounter you, at least in this half of the match, it is our sincere hope that you are satisfied by the showing of club colors, in your honor.

Oddly though, these were not always to be his club colors.

He must have told us 100 times he should have been a West Ham fan………….but considered himself too rebellious. Regardless of how his Spurs loyalty came to be, I am glad that he got to see this last year of football, as indeed it’s probably been one of the best since the early 60’s.

Steve’s connection with us goes back much further than the last couple of years, with our Club Chairman commenting that Steve was really just the third member.

He was a foundation of our group of friends here in Amsterdam.

It took a while for our team to get to the heady heights we’ve just reached. In the end we lost the match in question, but the last Spurs game that Steve got to watch, was with John, Simon and I. It was the Champions League Final.

If you’re going to go out on your shield – that’s the way to do it.

On our journey to this match, maybe just 8 weeks ago, we organized something in Amsterdam as a group. Our supporters club lined up an event in Amsterdam where we hired a theatre and had two of the old Spurs Legends, a guy called Graham Roberts and another called Clive Allen

 …. you can look them up on Google if you don’t know who they are……

 They are players of the past……..  who visited us to entertain us with a speaking event telling tales of their time at Tottenham. It was the night before the game here in Amsterdam, Spurs were going to play Ajax just a few kilometres from where we are now

When we announced our event, one of the first tickets sold, was sold to Steve. On the night itself, these two legends told stories of their past, the goals they had scored, and the rivalries that they had had. I remember glancing across and catching a view of Steve, smiling, mesmerized by the significance that this night had for him.

Having hired these old greats of the game and the venue, with the other club members, the point of the evening where we opened up the floor to questions was upon us.  At this point, Steve stood up.

He didnt have a microphone, nobody could hear him start his questions……. But a microphone was eventually delivered. There Steve was, talking to his idols.

He then proceeded to ask questions they didn’t have answers for, and playfully he argued with these guys on how many goals they had both scored in a particular season. The idols were asked a question, they looked at each other…….

They got the answer wrong. Steve of course, knew the answer without having to even think about it.

He was in his element and leading the way. His knowledge of club and game was second to none.

It was at this point we knew the nickname we had given him of Statto the statman, was a crown he fully deserved to wear.

Although we know Steve struggled recently with his demons, I know that looking back on the experiences he had with us was something that brought joy and fun, to both him and us.

Even in this facet of his life, he was an educator, as we all know of course he was a teacher in his day job. He regularly baffled us with little known and facts and trivia.

He would ask us things like, ‘what was the crowd attendance in the match of Tottenham v Arsenal in 1968’, or, ‘what was the score of Grimsby vs Preston in 1973’. He’d then offer us guesses and if he felt generous, cryptic clues, before telling us triumphantly, the match in question ended…0-0.

And………. if you ever needed someone on your pub quiz team, he wasn’t bad at that either.

We’re not going to touch on his other positive influences such as being a teacher and examiner here in Amsterdam, bringing education to young adults for many years. We’re not going to talk about the fact he had more DVDs than a video rental shop…………. or that he was passionate about listening to his music.

We can only talk about his influence on us and our club. It has been said that in a world full of Uniteds, Rovers and Cities, there is only one Hotspur.

In our world of club members, there are many Stuarts, Simons, Yannicks, Charlottes, James’, Toms, Dominics, Johns. Liams and Robs, but there was only one Statto