Hotspur Football Club
The Hotspur Football Club was established on 5 September 1882. It was part of a cricket club by the name of Hotspur Cricket Club, founded two years earlier. The football club element was founded to provide a sport for the winter. Most of the members were schoolboys of St John’s Presbyterian School and Tottenham Grammar School.The first match was on 30 September 1882 against a local team called the “Radicals”. Hotspur lost 2–0.
A year later the boys got support from the Bible class teacher, John Ripsher, at All Hallows Church. He was installed as the first president of the club and helped the boys in the club’s early years.
In April 1884 the club was renamed “Tottenham Hotspur Football Club” to avoid confusion with another London club named Hotspur, after a mistake over postal deliveries.
The original emblem is simple: a big, bold “H” commemorating the hero Harry Hotspur, a knight of the 14th Century, whose family had owned land that the founding cricket club had played on.
