Tottenham Order Non-League Club Fleet Spurs FC To Change Their Cockerel Badge

Chris Wright

15th, November 2013

11 Comments

By Chris Wright

fleet spurs

Tottenham’s legal department have been busy over the past few days, putting the kibosh on a non-league side using their club badge after deeming it too similar to their own.

Fleet Spurs currently play in the Wessex League Division One in Hampshire and were originally set up in 1948 by soldiers who had returned from World War II – though there are no official links between them and the Premier League club, who have now legally requested that they drop their cockerel crest.

Bryan Sheppard, Fleet Spurs chairman, told BBC Hampshire:

“We haven’t got a penny to our name, we couldn’t afford to fight it. It’s been quite stressful, we just felt really intimidated by the heavy-handed approach, but I can see where they are coming from.”

Yes, it is a little bit copyright-infringementy isn’t it Bryan?

A spokesman for Tottenham made the club’s case to the BBC too:

“If we do not take action to stop Fleet Spurs using our cockerel logo, it can undermine our ability to stop other unauthorised people who use our logo for commercial purposes, such as counterfeiters.

“We are very conscious that Fleet Spurs is a grass-roots club. For this reason we have been very careful not to ask them to do anything that might incur costs.”

Apparently, Fleet Spurs have always featured the cockerel on their badge in homage to Tottenham, with the current design coming about as the result of a fan competition.

Chairman Sheppard has also insisted that the new design will also be drafted up by a supporter – although he admitted he would scrutinise the winning entry more carefully this time to avoid incurring the wrath of Tottenham again.

It is also estimated that changing the Fleet Spurs badge again would cost the club between £3,000 to £4,000, though Tottenham aren’t bullying them into changing it straight away – allowing the non-league side to wear their current badge on their kit for the rest of the season and giving them up until Christmas to remove any traces of the current crest from their home ground.

Posted in Newsnow, Non-League, Tottenham Hotspur

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11 Comments

  1. Andy Adams says:

    How about THFC contributing some money to the redesign of this logo for good will?

  2. Richard says:

    Despite what they got for Gareth Bale, obviously Tottenham have no money to do the decent thing.

  3. dan says:

    why should SPURS pay anything towards them changing there logo which is a obvious copy of tottenhams crest? its there chairman’s mistake not tottenhams..

  4. Room101 says:

    Fleet urns definitely aren’t the ‘First among equals’ in this case.

  5. Ross says:

    Sounds decent and would be a drop in the ocean to a club like THFC, but somehow I can’t see it happening. :(

  6. Spurs4Life says:

    How about Tottenham actually take Fleet Spurs under their wing and fund them and utilise them as a feeder style club from the grass roots of football and bring some players through. Also funding the new kit – and keeping the link to back to Tottenham…. If this isnt possible – Tottenham should be sorting a new kit etc for Fleet spurs as a minimum…

  7. daily hots says:

    i totally agree with spurs4life levy do the right thing and support the lower league teams donate two kits for them im sure Under Armour would approve of this as it would be good for them as well as spurs. the only thing that is leaving a bitter taste is why has it taken so long for spurs to notice this. its not as if we cant afford to pay a club in the non-league then there’s something wrong with THFC. stop trying to be a right moany old git.

    if you don’t change things now levy then you are going to loose the respect of all the supporters through out the league. then when you come knocking for a talented young player they will tell you were to go.

    you moan about the atmosphere at WHL yet you BANNED the drum now you BANNED the y word.

    leave the small clubs alone and support them instead of ruining them

  8. Andy The Yid says:

    If someone steals your intellectual property, the onus is not on you to finance the redress of the problem.

  9. EP says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Hotspur_F.C.

    Have a look at the Crest section, I would ask with the current logo, who copied who?!

  10. Jarren says:

    Tottenham owe them nothing.

    It’s enough to not sue the bollocks off them. That is as blatant a copyright infringement as I have ever seen.

    Quite how it got chosen is beyond me.

    Did they honestly think “oh, we’re non-league nobody will care”?

    Bullshit.

    Get your own design, stop ripping others off.

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