I did not watch Tottenham Hotspur’s scoreless draw against Everton live on Saturday. That’s because I drove about three hours to Holly, Michigan to attend the Michigan Renaissance Festival with my family — my first ever RenFest. The Holly festival isn’t the biggest in the country, but it’s still pretty frickin’ big — there were thousands of fantasy and Renaissance fans crammed into a sprawling site set in a wooded area in a small town north of Detroit.
I’ve never been to one of these and I had no
idea what to expect, and I had a great time! Before you ask, yes I did dress up, as a modern Tottenham fan complete with 2025/26 home kit. I can safely say that I was the only person at the Michigan Renaissance Festival wearing a Tottenham jersey, and sadly despite thousands of attendees there I only got one solitary “COME ON YOU SPURS!” as I was walking back out to the parking lot. Sad! American soccer culture is a guy in a Tottenham shirt sadly walking around the Renaissance festival.
But I had a good time. You have to kind of swallow your “this is hokey” sensor and just swallow the thing whole, and once you realize that no matter what you do you’ll never be as cringe as that drunk guy wearing the gnomish pirate outfit speaking in Middle English, you find yourself having a pretty fun experience.
The cell towers were hammered there (as were most of the overweight beardos wearing leather armor) so I had a hard time checking the score, but I did end up watching the match later on.
Here are my Tottenham player ratings for the Everton match, to the theme of Things I Saw at the Michigan Renaissance Festival.
5 stars: Elves
God. Elves. So many elves. Everywhere you look — pointed ears, on all body types — thin and lithe, standard, large. Everyone wants to be an elf, apparently. It’s like they never actually read Tolkien — elves are assholes. But they have cool ears, I guess? And there were some truly outstanding elvish costumes on some incredibly gorgeous people of both genders. Can’t get away from those fuckin’ elves, man. They’re ubiquitous.
No Tottenham players in this category.
4 stars: A dude wearing a Liverpool kit with pointed ears
Ok I almost mentioned this in the five star category, but I felt this merited special mention — I swear I saw from across the jousting field a dude wearing a Liverpool away kit and elf ears… and that’s it. No other costume accoutrements — just an elvish Liverpool fan. I felt like I was having a stroke.
Jan Paul van Hecke (Community – 3.5): One of his best performances thus far. Tidy at the back and his passing from deep was at times sublime.
Micky van de Ven (Community – 3.5): Didn’t get forward as much in this one but let very little past him on the left side.
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community – 3.5): Pretty good match as a midfield destroyer. A couple of horrible passes, but made up for it by breaking up a lot of play. This is the first time I’ve felt like he’s really gotten his legs back since his injury.
3.5 stars: Jousting
One of the cooler things I saw at the fest were one of the periodic jousting shows, featuring actual knights (okay, Guys in Armor™), real horses, and actual tilts against live opponents. The lances were obviously designed to shatter upon impact and nobody ended up on the ground, but they were going for it. There were also tilts with rings, both stationary and airborne. It was a warm day and the knights were clearly cooking in their armor, but they gave it their best for the crowd, which was really into it. I went to the jousting and it was very nice, I enjoyed it
Archie Gray (Community – 3.5): Not a perfect display but this was probably Archie’s best performance at right back for Spurs. Good interplay with Savio, and had some wonderful overlapping and box-crashing runs from deep positions.
Andy Robertson (Community – 3.0): Quite dynamic on the left flank with some extremely promising balls in from the flank, though none of them came off. Defended well.
3 stars: Working blacksmiths
I know blacksmithing is having something of a moment culturally right now, but I was able to sit in the shade for a while and watch some real blacksmiths hammer out a basic knife right in front of me and it was cool watching them work. The fantasy aspect of it was ruined by the obviously modern and gas-powered forges (no bellows and wood fires here) but the smiths, one of which was a woman, were talkative, attentive, and obviously skilled at their craft.
Antonin Kinsky (Community – 3.0): Made a couple of nice stops, but flapped at one corner and had a hospital ball pass that he was lucky didn’t result in a goal. He’d be higher up this list if not for that.
Sandro Tonali (Community – 3.0): I’m really trying not to define him by his transfer fee (it’s hard). Broke up a lot of play and had some admittedly outstanding passes from deep, none better than his ball to an onrushing Archie Gray. But I’m still expecting more.
Sávio (Community – 3.0): Had some truly exciting runs into the box and wasn’t afraid to take on his man, but his final ball was pretty bad. Still, so long as he gets into those positions good things will eventually happen.
Lucas Bergvall (Community – 3.0): Did well overall and had what was probably Spurs’ best chance at a goal.
Roberto de Zerbi (Community – 2.5): Again you can see the structure of what he wants his team to do, and the team is improving with every match. 39 touches in the opposition box with no goals however is concerning, and I wonder if he needs a tactical shake-up to get the team firing.
2.5 stars: Incredibly long lines for booze
People come to Renaissance festivals to dress up like fantasy creatures and have a good time among other fellow nerds. They also, apparently, want to drink alcohol while dressing up as fantasy creatures and having a good time among other nerds. There were a lot of people at this festival, and I swear at least half of them were lined up to buy alcohol at any one of probably 15 different “taverns” throughout the area. I’m sober now but even if not you couldn’t pay me to wait in line for 45 minutes for an overpriced glass of warm ale or cheap rosé. I guess I’m just built different.
Mateus Fernandes (Community – 2.5): It’s pretty obvious he’s not a natural 10, and his first touch in and around the box was at times atrocious. Faded out of the match in the second half.
Omar Marmoush (Community – 2.5): I like his work rate. I like how he drops deep to press and make defensive plays. I would like it more if he would put the ball in the back of the net.
Mathys Tel (Community – 2.5): Brought on as a difference maker and didn’t really make much of a difference.
Mohammed Kudus (Community – 2.5): A couple of decent dribbles but not much of an overall impact.
2 stars: Even longer lines for turkey legs
I’m not sure what would compel someone to spend an hour at a Renaissance festival waiting to order and consume a giant turkey leg, but apparently that was the thing people wanted to do. As long as the booze lines were, the turkey leg line was even longer, stretching what looked like about 200 yards or longer. I’m not here to yuck people’s yum, but Thanksgiving is only two months away, I’ll just wait, thanks.
Dominic Solanke (Community – 2.0): I honestly forgot he was out there for a good part of the match. Extremely rusty. Had a couple of good moments of hold-up play but was otherwise a non-factor.
James Maddison (Community – 2.5): Ineffective in a brief cameo. Starting to wonder when.. or even if… we’ll ever get the old Madders back.
1 star: Knick-knacks
Renaissance Festivals are fun examples of group cosplaying, but their main goal is to get you to spend lots of money, from everything to horn flagons to handmade blown-glass dragons, to leather and chain-mail armor, plenty of period clothing, and LITERAL SWORDS. I went into close to a hundred little shops at the festival and ended up buying nothing because either it didn’t speak to me, it was obviously cheap/chintzy, and/or it was outrageously expensive. I had a great time at the festival, but didn’t see the purpose of bringing a wooden short sword home with me, sorry.
No Tottenham Hotspur players were as bad as the cheap pottery dragon mugs or random wooden ocarinas for sale there.
Tom Carroll Memorial Non-Rating
Tosin Adarabioyo
