The Guardian

Football’s name-changing fetish shows the game’s infected with greed | Anthony Clavane

Renaming White Hart Lane station as Tottenham Hotspur is a blow to loyal fans and the neighbourhood’s history
‘Tottenham Hotspur’s new state-of-the-art ground will finally open next month.’ Photograph: Dinendra Haria/Rex/Shutterstock

What’s in a name? Everything, if you’re a football fan. The sport has always been driven by finance, but the post-1992 fetish for name-changing has taken commercialisation to a whole new level. And it’s spilling into our public spaces.

History, tradition and community are all high on the list of the reasons why long-suffering supporters stay loyal to their teams. It is fashionable to caricature those who campaign against the corporate rebranding of their clubs as traditionalist dinosaurs. But in an era when local neighbourhoods

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