The North London derby. A match that has changed in significance to the outside world in the Premiership years. Somewhat surprisingly for this fossil it also seems to be a fixture that doesn’t retain it’s rating among some of our younger fans, a few of whom look more towards the Chelsea fixtures.

For the uninitiated the fact that this season sees the twentieth anniversary of the last time Tottenham finished above us in the Premier League has taken the edge off the fixtures. For those of us born in the pre-Sky era, the pre-all-seater era, the pre-all-ticket era the clashes with our nearest and dearest will always be the ultimate must-win matches.

No Tottenham manager, and sweet mother of Jesus they have had enough in the last nineteen years, has ever guided his rabble above an Arsene Wenger managed team. That has increased the ire at the other end of the Seven Sisters Road. They are without a top-flight title in nigh on 54 years, and have gone without an FA Cup for 24.

For all that though in the post-war era until the arrival of the Premier League the two clubs traded blows and urged each other to greater heights. Three years after the cessation of hostilities we won our sixth championship and a similar timeframe later, in 1951, the neighbours won their first.

We restored the six title gap in 1953, but the Lilywhites finest hour came in 1961. A double, their only one and the first in the twentieth century, so you can imagine how frustrating it was for them to witness us secure the first leg of our first double a decade later on the final night of the season at White Hart Lane.

For all that there are records of civil disorder at matches between the two clubs going back to the nineteenth century it was during the sixties and seventies that it accelerated, and the rivalry intensified.

I mention it only because the more sinister aspect to the fixture was born in an era when the match wasn’t all ticket, so large numbers of Arsenal supporters would descend on the Lane for the away fixture, and likewise the neighbours would arrive en masse at Highbury.

The arrival of an all-ticket, all-seater although tumbledown White Hart Lane, and the allocation of under three thousand tickets to the visitors has taken away some of the romance that always hung over the day out at the Lane.

Long gone are the days when friends and family members would sit together, best of enemies, and nobody would know until Arsenal scored and a few dotted about all areas of the ground would leap up together, but alone, in shared celebration.

Long gone too are the days when the boards of both clubs were driven to do better than that lot up (or down) the road. It may still be true at the Lane, but our motivation now is Mammon.

The lust for growth, and for ever-larger chunks of the Premiership and Champions League riches, have taken us to a remarkable new stadium, and a degree of consistency and support that has left our old rivals behind.

While our snouts are well and truly in the trough, Tottenham are among the runts at the back of the litter, nibbling at the leftovers we carelessly drop. A League Cup or two to prevent them from complete starvation.

For all that though I cannot accept that for any Arsenal supporter, regardless of age or background, that beating this lot isn’t still the sweetest of feelings in the humdrum of any season.

They may not be serious rivals, but they are still Tottenham. Never forget.