Even my wife wondered why on earth Spurs were playing football on a Friday. By the end of the
match I knew exactly what she meant. As it was ESPN, perhaps Spurs prepared for the Saturday
evening game, because they certainly weren't ready for this one.
This was dire, as disorganised as Harry's tax return.
I may have a few crumbs of comfort for the Bolton fan who rang 606 last night to bemoan his
side's lack of application and effort. The same thing happens after every game these days, the fans
of the opposing side making a similar complaint, and the common denominator is Spurs. Rather than
your team not trying, it's because they couldn't get near us.
Spurs away and just like the old days. An inferior side produces their best because we let them
play. Shaky at the back, vulnerable to the simplest long ball. Can't keep hold of the ball or close
down our opponents. One difference, mind we won.
The familiar 4-4-2 created plenty of opportunities early on.
Family stuff and that, so rather than bodge a post or two, I'll pause for breath, back this time
next week, with the mouthwatering prospect of the north London derby. So many of their fans on the
phone-ins expressing their dread at this fixture. Mmmm.
Plenty of the good stuff in the pipeline, including a revised and expanded version of my piece
on Spurs and the riots that's in this month's When Saturday Comes magazine and an interview with
legendary Spurs author Martin Cloake on Danny Blanchflower.
Yesterday I rediscovered a valuable element of the art of watching football. It's absent for a
good reason when Spurs play it's a serious business as far as I'm concerned and I'm totally
absorbed. Wouldn't have it any other way, that complete commitment is the source of the passion,
but it can be draining and debilitating sometimes.
Chelsea and Manchester United will engage in an auction for the services of Luka Modric. Not
ITK, just obvious, and something I've mentioned a couple of times since the season finished. He's
one of the top midfielders in Europe and certainly the best outside the top four, with the possible
exception of Gerrard who is welded to his club.
Unlike many of you, I look forward to a couple of months without football. The summer is for
rest and recuperation, time to reflect on what has gone before and anticipate the season to come.
It's welcome respite from the self-inflicted psychological damage of being a Spurs fan.
As the seasons ebb and flow, football takes its place in the natural order, a dormant period of
regeneration only to return bright and vibrant in August.
Harry Redknapp has met me. Years ago my neighbour at the time organised a testimonial for one of
the Charlton players against West Ham and my wife's family are rabid Hammers, so there we were in
the director's box at the Valley. Before kick-off Peter waves to me and beckons me down to the
front. I'm happy to thank him but he says, "Where are the rest of you?
The second in a series this week the Players
Rubbishing Crouch and Jenas, demanding a wholesale clear-out, insisting on bids for every
striker in La Liga. If only it were that straightforward.
It's not just about the individuals, it's where they will fit into the shape of the team as
defined by our tactics and how they combine with each other in crucial areas of the field such as
up front and in central defence.
The first in a series of pieces covering the 2010-11 season. To follow the players, the
manager, the future.
All Spurs fans are united in the pursuit of success but scratch the surface and the definitions
of what that actually means are less certain. It used to be easy you won something bright and
shiny.
What the new ground needs, wherever we may end up, is a statue. It's the thing these days,
dignifying our improvised chaotic representation of beauty with the use of an art-form that
stretches back beyond antiquity. Wolves and Wembley have had one for a while but there's been a
spate in the last few years.
We're all the same, football fans. Turn up every week, that familiar and engaging mix of
optimism and dedication at kick-off, tinged with the total certainty that the wheels are going to
fall off at the earliest opportunity. "Typical insert name of your team here, trust us to
have it all go wrong" Really though, is there a team like Spurs?
"If you didn't know much about the Double side, or dad, and presented the story as a work of
fiction, people would say it's great but the ending's not right. It's too far-fetched."
Rob White is talking about a journalist's reaction to the Ghost of White Hart Lane, the book
about his father John he has co-written with author and screenwriter Julie Welch.
Summer's nearly here and the signs that mark the eternal passing of the seasons come round once
more. Warm evenings, the goalposts in the park coming down (which always brings a pang of sadness
when I first discover they've gone) and the arrival of my season ticket renewal pack.
This last option is no longer a reliable calendar as it seems to plop on the mat earlier and
earlier each year.
The media have taken a solemn and binding oath never to say a bad word about Harry Redknapp.
He's teflon-coated, surrounded by a legion of sycophantic pundits who at the slightest hint of a
problem adopt Roman strategy and surround their man with an impenetrable wall of shields. Spurs
fans ringing the phone-ins who dare speak his name in vain are showered with ridicule, for
example.
Gone two and there's no sleep. A long day, 6 hours driving, in between people needed me, lent on
me, drained me more than the queue on the Purley Way or the Blackwall Tunnel. The Tunnel. Please
let loose from your grip, just let me through, always the Tunnel, it's holiday time, people are
away for chrissakes, for once let me through.
We came to celebrate, and despite the result we were not downhearted.
We battled through the hold-ups on the M25 and the Blackwall Tunnel, blanched at the accident on
the North Circular and arrived in our seats panting from effort as well as excitement. Same old
jokes, we make them, we're told them and still we laugh as if we've never heard them before.
Still feeling the pain of Tuesday night's self-inflicted wounds, Stoke were frankly the last
team I wanted to meet this weekend. High energy and elbows, they saw us as victims, injured,
bleeding and sorry for ourselves. At kick-off I swear from the Shelf I saw the glint in Pulis'
eyes.
Time to do more with those anxiety exercises, I think.
As if the result in Madrid wasn't bad enough, Spurs remain in the news because the goalscorer
has spoken about the abuse he received. Quite how Emmanuel Abebayor heard the song infamously named
after him is surprising in itself. From what I hear from people who were there, the din at the
Bernabeu was like nothing they had experienced elsewhere.
Not like this. Not this way. If we had to go, and we've had a miraculous tilt at this European
lark, then go down with a passion, a flourish. With the style that swept Inter aside, or the
courage and poise that created a victory against Milan in Italy, then the fortitude than saw us
through at White Hart Lane.
Tribalism is the essence of being a football fan. United in support of our obscure object of
desire, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, we pledge everlasting love and set aside other
relationships in preference to the one that truly matters. We have our colours, our temple of
worship, our rituals. At games or out and about, I strike up conversations with perfect strangers
because they are navy blue and white.
Ten days ago the Football Supporters Federation, the country's largest representative
organisation for football fans, published the results of a nationwide survey of club charters,
documents that set out standards of customer service. Clubs were graded according to a number of
criteria, including accessibility, timeliness, quality, complaints procedure and contact
details.
So many times he's saved us. The forward bursts through, draws back the hammer and pulls the
trigger, eyes not on the ball but on the expectant net only to find that in a whirl the object of
his desire has disappeared, swept away by the sweetest of tackles. No bone or muscle, it's the
timing that has defeated him.
The final piece of four wrapping up the season, delayed by a few mishaps but here
finally
So let's pull this all together. I've looked back at the players, the team and the manager. It's
been a positive season with unforgettably cracking football and the blazing thrill of the Champions
League tainted by the frustration of what might have been.
At the risk of letting light in upon magic, I sometimes prepare a few things to say before the
game starts. Bit of background, some context maybe, the key themes to put the match into the
context of what's gone on before. For this one, as recently as last week I resolved to stand back
from the clamour about this being the 4th place decider.
He shoots from distance. The keeper sees it early and gets everything behind it.
Ultimately it comes down to the keeper. Number one, at the back, unique in that he and only he
has the precious gift of being able to use his hands to repel the voracious attackers. Sure there
are tactics. he's part of a team, the back four is really a back five, with him in a crucial
role.
Just one of those weeks, things conspire to make it a time of thought and reflection. Work
overflowing with problems, unsettled elsewhere. The game is as enticing as always, it's just that
sometimes the mind dallies along the way.
‘Glory glory hallelujah' rolling out from the east upper (so it seemed)  threw me.
On my daughter's mantelpiece sits a photo of her son, then aged about 3, walking along the beach
with his father. Taken from behind, they are unaware of the camera's presence. Their stance and
gait are identical. Size and stature come from shared genes, the rest, the bit that matters, just
happens.
Three days on, that stamp is still the major talking point in football, dominating the backpages
and sports leads. Not that it was a stamp, of course. Poor Mario has been cruelly victimised by
referees. I realise English isn't his first language but he really has to get to grips with what
'victimised' actually means, as opposed to ‘stay on the pitch and score the crucial winning goal
that could lead to the league title'.
Thank the deity that doesn't exist it's over. The Modric saga and Harry's inability to pass by a
camera without giving an interview meant the last few weeks have been excruciating. Let's get on
with it now and play some football. However, here's no denying the backdrop of genuine tension on
deadline day.
This is a drill. Do not be alarmed. Go about your normal business quietly and calmly. Repeat,
this is a drill.
If you normally reach this site through Newsnow, your joy at Our Great Victory has been tempered
by TOMM's absence in your life, as the latest post has not registered for some unknown reason.
