Today, we celebrate 12 years of the Proud Lilywhites. From a meeting in the Bill Nicholson suite at White Hart Lane to over a thousand members, now more than ever, we will work with the Proud Lilywhites to continue to ensure our game is welcome to LGBTQI+ people.
For over a decade the Proud Lilywhites have worked with the Club and our Foundation to build a growing community, while campaigning and remaining visible across the game and wider community, and they aren’t going to be slowing down anytime soon.
Proud Lilywhites member Christopher Lewis shares his story of supporting our Club and experience as a fan.
I have been a Tottenham Hotspur supporter since before birth, and in my family that was never optional. Our connection to the Club goes back generations, and it has shaped how I think about tradition, identity, and belonging. Tottenham always stayed with me through my grandfather, who took me to matches and was my main father figure growing up.
For a long time though, football itself felt complicated, because supporting Spurs and feeling at home in football culture were not always the same thing. I identify as queer, something I only felt comfortable naming as an adult, and growing up in the nineties and 2000s, football did not always feel like a welcoming place. I played as a young teenager, then drifted away as I started to understand myself more clearly and found spaces that I considered more welcoming.
After losing my grandad to bowel cancer in my thirties, I realised football was not something I could just stop doing, and so I began going to games again on my own.
The moment that changed everything came in summer 2023, outside a women’s match at the new stadium, where there were a group of anti-choice protestors. I felt angry, but what I remember most is how sad it made me feel. Young women were being encouraged to feel that football could belong to them too, and they were being met with hate. These are not strangers. They are our partners, daughters, sisters, cousins, co-workers, nieces, and friends.
I emailed supporters clubs asking what I could do, and the Proud Lilywhites came back to me. They took it seriously and raised it with the club. That response mattered because it reminded me what football can be.
Sport gives people a shared language and a shared sense of belonging, but it only works when everyone can enter without fear, shame, or exclusion. Proud Lilywhites showed me that inclusion does not just happen by itself. People must choose it and make it real.
Not long after joining, I was invited to play five-a-side football with the Proud Lilywhites, which I have now been doing for several years. It is one of the best things the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation does, opening football to people who have historically been excluded. It brought me back to playing, but it also brought me into a community.
In March, we have a tournament where we will represent the Club, and I love what that says. It does not matter who you are or who you love. You can still be Tottenham. Super Tottenham. From the Lane.
My partner and I are both season ticket holders in 527, Shelf Side. We look forward every week to seeing our football family, and we travel when we can to away games in the UK and abroad. We were in Frankfurt most recently, and we went to Italy for the Super Cup. Those trips, often with fellow Proud Lilywhites, have become part of the rhythm of my life and a real expression of belonging.
Along the way there have been surreal moments that a younger me would never have believed, like playing in a tournament at Hotspur Way and scoring two goals. I think about my grandfather in those moments, and about the bond we shared through the Club. I find myself imagining what he would think if he could see me now, playing there, writing this, surrounded by friends, and feeling not only that the Club is part of me, but that it can be there for everyone.
This message of inclusion also feels true to our history. Tottenham has long been shaped by communities who know what it is to be othered. The roots of the area, its social history, the club's association with a Jewish following, and figures like Walter Tull all point to a culture that understands what it means to stand apart. In my view, that is part of our legacy, and it should extend to everyone, including LGBTQI+ people.
I know our club is not perfect, but we do have a choice about what kind of home we create. If you want to do your part, it doesn't have to be complicated. Welcome the new faces in your row. Bring a mate who has never felt football was for them. Challenge homophobia, racism, misogyny, and any other unnecessary hate when you hear it.
If you want to go further, support Proud Lilywhites by joining, donating, or volunteering. The smallest actions, repeated by enough of us are what make Tottenham feel like home for everyone.
Thank you Proud Lilywhites, and here's to the next 12 years.