Beginning, Again: Finding home, one match at a time

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story concludes a four-part series, “Beginning, Again” about people who moved to this area during their retirement years. Today’s piece is about Dorothy Barr, who moved to Florence from Cambridge and soon found a group of football fans at JJ’s Tavern. To read all of the stories in this series, visit gazettenet.com.

Dorothy Barr’s passion for football — English football, that is — took hold in 2002 when she was living in Boston and studying for a graduate degree in library science.

The story goes that a friend invited her to a pub outing to watch a Manchester United soccer match.

Barr, now 81, dismissed the idea. “I said something like, ‘Oh no, I don’t do sports.’” And certainly not sports in bars.

But she went anyway, and that was that.

Won over by the beauty of the game and the camaraderie of the faithful, she became a Man United fan and watched many a match over the years with fellow diehards. 

Moving on 

In 2018 Barr retired from her position as a librarian at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. “I wanted a new adventures,” she said. She’d enjoyed life in Cambridge, where she owned a row house, but didn’t feel attached to her neighborhood. She wasn’t even sure she wanted big-city life anymore. With the Boston area’s housing costs out of reach, she looked west.

She had fond memories of childhood vacations at a relative’s farm in Whately, where she’d thrived on the rural peace and quiet. She also liked Northampton’s progressive reputation: “I wanted to be in a place where I knew I’d be comfortable.” 

Barr, who is divorced, shared her thinking with her children — a son in New Jersey, one daughter in Maine, a second in Amherst. In 2019, after numerous trips to scope out this area, she bought a house in Florence on a side street near the village center.

She settled in and set about making a new life. She met her neighbors, found medical providers, joined Lilly Library, became a member of Northampton Neighbors, started making friends, and made it through the pandemic years.

What was missing? Well, there was one thing.

She’d kept tabs on Manchester United, but without a group to watch matches with, her life as a football fan just wasn’t the same. 

A sign at JJ’s

On a fall day in 2023 she spotted a sign at JJ’s Tavern in downtown Florence promoting a televised match for fans of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, a Premier League team in North London.

Barr figured she’d give it a try.

“I wouldn’t say it was easy,” she explained, “but I’ve learned to be more outgoing over the years.”

On game day she walked into a roomful of strangers at JJ’s — many of them decades younger — and politely asked if she could join them, despite her allegiance to another team. 

“They were very accepting of me,” she said. 

That was several soccer seasons ago.

“In a way she has become our Tottenham adoptive mom or grandmother,” says Kelly Twohig of Easthampton.

The “our” Twohig refers to is the Pioneer Valley Spurs, which is, as banners they hang up around the room at JJ’s proclaim, an Official Supporters’ Club for Tottenham Hotspur fans in western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, and southern Vermont. It’s one of 146 clubs in the U.S. that follow the team’s fortunes — a testament to Tottenham’s appeal and to the bond among fans who rejoice and mourn together. Between 15 and 40-plus fans show up for the gatherings at JJ’s.

Barr, who rarely misses a match, usually arrives with homemade cookies or a cake to share. “Dorothy is kind and generous, willing to come early to help us set up or pick up after the matches,” Twohig says. The two women bonded over Barr’s travels, her love of cats, and of course, football. On their WhatsApp group chats, Twohig added, Barr, always thoughtful and well informed, weighs in when she has something to say about team news.

“I get a lot out of it,” Barr said. Fun and friendships, for starters. Watching a match clears your mind of everything else, she says, and  keeping up with the team “takes energy, time and thought. It uses another facet of my brain, and I like that.”

She hung on to her Man United loyalty for a while, and she took some good-natured flak for that from the Spurs group along the way. The end came when Man United brought in new bosses and laid off longtime staff.

“I thought that was not OK,” Barr said, “and when they brought in a new manager whom I emphatically did not like, I switched loyalties.”

Jeffrey Weaver, a writer who lives in Hatfield, got the JJ’s group started about four years ago. Like many adult fans, he’d played soccer as a kid, though he quickly notes he never remotely resembled a standout player. But he loved the game, and years later became a passionate fan of Tottenham’s swaggering, attacking style. They’re a team known, he says, for “playing with flair and taking chances.”

Interested in finding like-minded souls, he filled out a supporters’ club application and sent it off to the powers that be. In due course a big box of Spurs banners and swag showed up on his doorstep. Jon Neumann, the owner of JJ’s, welcomed Weaver’s inquiry about meeting there and made it happen. Thus was born an official Tottenham Hotspur fan club based in the small village of Florence, Massachusetts. 

“I think people come out for the matches for the same reason they ride roller coasters,” Weaver says. “Being a Spurs fan comes with a constant sense of impending doom, along with just enough exhilaration to get you back on the ride. JJ’s on match days is like a gym for working out your hope muscles.” 

Barr describes the gatherings this way: “We don’t swear, but we do make noise.”

Glory, glory

On a Saturday last August, with the 2025-26 season just underway, it was Spurs vs. Burnley. As new seasons always are, it was a time of hope. Barr arrived at JJ’s with a blueberry bread to share. She was optimistic but clear-eyed. In Thomas Frank, she believed the team had a promising new coach at the helm — but a history, she added, as an “up and down” team.      

She chatted with friends, taking an occasional sip of hard seltzer. Once the match started, she was all focus. She likes to sit near the front, so she won’t miss a thing. She cheered for good plays, shut her eyes and clenched her fists when things got tense.

Tottenham was up 1-0 at the half. The announcer solemnly intoned that even “with their 1-nil lead, Tottenham fans know they cannot relax.” But then … in the second half, a second Spurs goal … and then a third. 3-0! As the clock ran out, the JJ’s crowd let loose and joined the crowd on the big screen in several rousing verses of song: “Glory, glory, Tottenham Hotspur! The Spurs go marching on!”

As the commotion died down, they straightened up the room, sliding chairs and tables back into place, saying their goodbyes.“They played really well,” Barr said. Looking elated, proud and relieved, she gathered her belongings to walk home.

Barr covers a lot of ground on foot. Having gone carless in Cambridge, she is carless here as well. Downtown Florence is an easy walk, and she often treks further afield as weather permits. She relies on buses, cabs and delivery services as needed and gets rides from volunteer drivers who are members of Northampton Neighbors. Life without a car is challenging, she says, but doable.

Another challenge has been keeping up with the cost of living. Barr keeps a close eye on expenses, she said, as taxes here are now higher than what she paid in Cambridge.

All told, though, moving was the right decision. “It just feels like home,” she said. In addition to her soccer group, she keeps a busy schedule that includes two book groups, a research project she’s doing about women scientists, and volunteer work.

“I like being around kids, and I wanted to do something worthwhile,”  she said of her community involvement. Two years ago, she volunteered for Lunch Buddies, a program of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County that matched her with a fourth grader at Jackson Street Elementary School. The connection clicked and resumed for a second year of weekly get-togethers.  

A mixed bag

Meanwhile, as football season rolled on, Tottenham Hotspur’s early glory faded. By winter, they’d compiled a record of scattered wins, middling performances and a string of dismal losses.

“It’s definitely been a mixed bag lately,” Barr said in December. Ever the optimist, she added cautiously that she’d noted “some improvements” of late.

In February the coach who had looked promising in August was fired, only to be replaced by another coach who lasted just 44 days before he, too, was sacked.  

“Man, we’ve really taken our lumps this season and they just keep coming,” said Jeffrey Weaver, when contacted for an update in March. Asked how the JJ’s gang was faring, he found the silver lining. “I think if anything it’s brought us closer through commiseration.”  

On May 24, Tottenham ended the season with a 1-0 victory over Everton, finishing in 17th place in the 20-team Premier League standings. Post-season write-ups of their record —10 wins, 11 draws, 17 losses — were laced with words like disastrous and catastrophic.

“It is what it is,” Barr said. 

Come what may, her football friends are now part of her wider circle. On occasion she invites all of them over for an informal brunch or a summer party. She likes seeing her football friends mingle with her book group friends and her gardening friends and her neighbors from up the street.

Though she still keeps in touch with old friends in Cambridge, her trips back to the city are less frequent than they once were. “I think I’ve put down roots here.”

Looking ahead, the first game of the Premier League’s 2026-27 season is set for Aug. 22. Barr will bake something good, and The Pioneer Valley Spurs will gather at JJ’s to start their fifth season together. Barr and Weaver say they’re feeling very optimistic about their latest, newest coach, Roberto De Zerbi. Things are looking up.

Suzanne Wilson is a retired Gazette reporter who lives in Florence.