Call it Tottenham again The London club has reversed its 2024 decision.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club has decided to go back to being called, quite simply, “Tottenham”. As reported by The Athletic, from this season - so far disastrous on the pitch - the London club has reversed its 2024 instruction to use “Tottenham Hotspur”, “Tottenham Hotspur Football Club” or “THFC”, avoiding simply “Tottenham” and preferring “Spurs” as its shortened name.

This is not a change to the club’s official name, which has always remained the same, but to the way it wants to be referred to. Today, the words “This is Tottenham” appear on the large screens outside the stadium: a return to normality and to the club’s tradition that makes the previous strategy even harder to understand.

Why Tottenham wanted to be called “Spurs”

On February 10, 2025, the Premier League sent media outlets, broadcasters and journalists a memo entitled “Tottenham Hotspur naming update”: a style guide in which the club explicitly asked to be “identified as Tottenham Hotspur” and “not referred to as Tottenham”.

According to the account published by The Athletic at the time, the preference dated back to 2011 and had a rationale: Tottenham was the name of the London neighbourhood, while Tottenham Hotspur was the name of the team. The idea was to distinguish the club’s brand from the area of London, prioritising what it considered the most distinctive part of its name. The club’s guidelines summed it up as follows: “In a world full of Uniteds, Citys and Rovers, there is only one Hotspur: Tottenham Hotspur”. Hence the preference for the full name, or alternatively “Spurs”.

The instructions followed the rebrand unveiled on November 18, 2024 and developed with Studio Nomad, which removed the lettering beneath the cockerel from the crest, revived the THFC monogram and introduced new graphic elements in pursuit of greater clarity across digital platforms. The naming preference soon became visible in television broadcasts and official channels: Sky Sports and the Premier League graphics, for example, replaced “Tottenham” with “Spurs” in league tables, fixture lists and results.

The return of “Tottenham”

Now, however, the name by which supporters - Londoners, British fans and international audiences alike - have always identified and referred to the team, “Tottenham”, has returned to the club’s communications. According to The Athletic, the decision also emerged from discussions with supporters, as the club “acknowledged how much that name means to its fans, and the pride they feel in this part of north-east London”.

The reversal is already visible in the club’s recent initiatives, including the words “This is Tottenham” displayed on the stadium screens and the short film “Tottenham ’Til I Die”, shot and directed by former goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman and released before the start of the season. If the club previously asked people to avoid “Tottenham” because it was the name of the neighbourhood, it is now putting that name back at the centre precisely because of that connection. It took just a year and a half after its request to broadcasters and media outlets, then, to remember the importance of speaking the language of its supporters.