On the ball James follows his team from afar

AVID Spurs fan James Bremner closely follows the fortunes of his favourite football team even though he now lives thousands of miles from the London club’s White Hart Lane ground.

The 38-year-old, who grew up in Letchworth GC and attended St Christopher School, has been a Spurs supporter since he was taken to watch a match by his father Barry when he was a toddler.

James now lives and works in the United States. His business success in marketing and advertising has seen him recently appointed senior director of marketing for an international software company based in Manhattan.

Now he has been elected chairman of the New York Spurs, the officially sanctioned Big Apple branch of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Club. There are similar clubs in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Every Spurs match, in the league or cup, home or away, is watched on the internet by hundreds of New York supporters in Floyd, a bar not far from James’ home in Brooklyn.

As chairman of the local supporters, James met players and officials of the club when they visited New York on a pre-season tour last week. Among them was former Spurs star Ossie Ardiles.

Dad Barry was at home in Letchworth GC on Sunday evening tuned in to a dedicated sports channel watching Spurs play Sporting Lisbon as part of a New York tournament when the camera scanned the crowd and he spotted his son right in the front.

James married the daughter of a Russian film director in Moscow in 2007, and he and his wife Lola now have a 16-month-old son, Maximilian.