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26th
March 2008 – The new Spurs stadium Now that
the euphoria of the Carling Cup win has started to abate, thoughts have
naturally turned to the future and what the prospects are for Spurs. Despite
the reverse in the UEFA Cup and mixed fortunes in the league, what could have
been a farcical season has turned into a trophy-winning campaign, which,
really, is what counts. The outlook now is arguably better than it has been
for many years (or at least since the last time the outlook was arguably
better than it had been for many years). Associated
with such an upturn in our fortunes, the issue of the stadium has again been
raised. The reasoning is that, if Tottenham really do want to compete and
break into the fabled ‘top 4’, we need to either completely
redevelop If we do
nothing and stand still, the argument follows, we don’t have a hope of
catching up with the big boys, as we will miss out on the vastly increased
revenues that come with having a capacity of around 60,000 compared to the
meagre 36,000 that WHL currently holds. Look at Arsenal, runs the logic
– see how they have benefited from having a swanky new stadium. So
let’s look at Arsenal. Though we may hate to admit any admiration for
how the interlopers have gone about their business, it’s worth noting
the order in which they have reached their current position as Champions
League regulars. They assembled a winning team first and only then did they
turn their attention to their own stadium dilemma. Trophies, frequent
Champions League participation and with it a rise in TV money and increased
demand at the gate made the Death Star viable, not the other way round. They
may have had plenty of favours from local and regional government and public
bodies, and they had to take on huge debt to fund it all, but the decision to
move came from a solid foundation built on success on the pitch. Tottenham’s
position is actually similarly secure. We don’t, in the short term at
least, need the money a bigger stadium can bring. THFC plc is one of those
rare things in football – a profitable business. According to
Deloitte’s annual bragging list, the club is the 11th
‘richest’ in the world. Despite an absence of CL participation
thus far, one of the main reasons for this robust health is that the club has
been able to depend on the loyalty and financial support of a large fanbase.
For years we have been major spenders in the transfer market and high-price
deals will continue while the TV cash keeps rolling in. We
don’t need to take on the huge debt burden of an entirely new ground to
speculate for future success. Indeed, stepping into such a risky venture
could even harm our chances: Arsenal have got lucky in that their relative
‘blip’ of no trophies for three and a bit seasons and more muted
title challenges have been compensated by continuing participation in the CL
and the new domestic TV deal. This has
kept them ticking over and enabled them to service the massive loans that
funded the Theatre of Nightmares’ construction. But one season out of
the CL money pit could tip their precarious debt position further into the
red, particularly pertinent at a time of credit squeeze. In such a climate
and without the safety net of CL revenue, we would be even more exposed.
There’s taking a risk and being reckless, and having a large punt on
the prospect of attaining a hard-to-achieve ambition after the ground
is built at great expense, veers towards the latter.
Examples
of how it should perhaps be done are not limited to the Goons. Before Man U
turned Old Trafford into the world’s biggest football shopping complex,
they made sure there were trophies in the bag first, and even then only
redeveloped OT bit by bit. Successful clubs tend to concentrate on building a
successful team before their ground. Examples of the errors of those who
tried to do it the other way are numerous. Southampton, There are
similar doubts to be had over the reasons being given by the club for a
complete redevelopment or a move. Chief among these is the old chestnut of
transport issues. A myth seems to have been transformed into accepted fact
that WHL is almost impossible to get to, that the parking problems are
horrendous, and that escaping from the area after the final whistle is akin
to The Warrior’s desperate fight for survival in the film of the same
name. |
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WHL can
be a pain to get to, the parking is an inconvenience, there are traffic jams
after the game and Tottenham might not be the most charming of places on a
midwinter night. But is it really that bad? Will a move to a new stadium lead
us all into a new dawn of consumer freedom? The party line is that all of
these ‘problems’ will be solved at a stroke by upping sticks.
Anyone who has been to the new stadia up and down the country knows this is
at best challengeable, at worst laughable. And it is worth repeating some
facts about how ‘difficult’ it actually is to get to WHL. There
are two overground stations and two underground stations, all within either
easy or comfortable reach. If you really cannot countenance using public
transport, or you are Jeremy Clarkson, there are plenty of private car parks
to utilise. And while the rotten tailbacks of the The
suspicion persists that the real motive behind the clamour for a new ground
is you-know-what. Returning to Arsenal, there are continuing rumours about
what lay behind the move to Ashburton Grove, and the luxury development going
up at Highbury might provide an answer. In this instance, we do not need to
follow suit. After all, shouldn’t football clubs be about football,
rather than property portfolios? In recent
weeks there has emerged another factor that might put a doubt on the wisdom
of a big new ground. Since the Carling Cup win and the UEFA Cup exit, and
with Spurs marooned in midtable, the season has effectively finished. For the
remaining home games, it appears they might not be the oversubscribed
sell-outs the stories about a massive ST waiting list would have you believe.
The message boards are full of tales of fans saying they can’t shift
spares, and that the same ‘casual’ supporters who were frantic in
their search for a Wembley seat aren’t so desperate to see Spurs v
Bolton in a meaningless (for the home team) fixture. This
isn’t to say Tottenham fans are fickle, rather than that when it comes
to paying £50 or more to watch what is essentially a non-event, perhaps they
are picking and choosing what they want to see. The club treats fans as
customers, after all, so they can hardly complain when they exercise their
preference as a consumer. For all the talk of the necessity for having a
60,000 capacity stadium, it’s doubtful that Spurs would be able to fill
such an arena game in game out. Without
the more wider fanbase and the corporate hangers-on that the Goons have
attracted in recent years, Spurs might not have the numbers to justify such
an increased capacity quite yet. And when you are paying interest on a £300m
loan, empty seats and executive boxes don’t add up. Unless the club were
to amend its ticketing policy (and such devoted adherents of the free market
are unlikely to countenance a progressive, subsidised pricing structure that
will enable less-well off supporters to benefit from a reduced admission
charge), there could be some embarrassing gaps for us to explain. Such a slur
would be unfair on what is still one of the biggest and most loyal of all
British club supports. So where
does that leave us? No one should pretend that the stadium issue is an easy
one to resolve. Some difficult decisions will need to be made, and all this
while our rivals either continue to count their winnings or travel further
down the path to getting their own new ground sorted. If we do nothing, we
stagnate, and we cant afford to let the gap widen. So, bearing in mind that
there’s little point in being critical without offering some kind of
constructive suggestion, here’s an alternative blueprint for a new
improved First,
tear down the outdated and woefully inadequate West Stand. There is plenty of
land that the club owns between it and the High Road, so there is scope for
erecting a far larger replacement. Once the site has been cleared, assemble a
temporary stand that can seat 5,000 while a new one is built behind it. Brighton
have survived for years on something that looks it’s been made out of
Blue tac and Meccano and Liverpool did something similar when rebuilding one
of their stands a few years back. It’s not ideal but would suffice
while a proper main stand is constructed – one that holds at least
15,000 and could hold plenty of boxes and corporate suites to keep the
commercial department happy. This
would raise capacity to approximately 45,000. More than enough for where we
are now and adaptable enough for where we want to be. If progress is
maintained, stage 2 can kick in. We were told when they were redeveloped that
the Paxton and This
could leave us with a revised capacity of 55,000 plus: enough to take up the
reported ST waiting list and enable many more members to see more games. If
we still need a greater capacity then the East Stand would be next. This is
arguably the most difficult to redevelop. Such was the botched job last time
around that we would probably need to knock the whole thing down and start
again. The club would have it that they have looked at doing this but myriad
planning and logistical problems have kyboshed the option. This
might be the case now but is surely not insurmountable in the future. Man U
solved their East Stand problem by incorporating the road underneath the new
structure; we could do the same. At the same time, the club could work with
local and regional authorities to improve transport in the area, chiefly an
upgrade and extension of the The net
result would be a proper football stadium with a capacity possibly in excess
of 60,000, with the cost spread over an extended period of time and invested
as when circumstances allowed. And we’d still be in Tottenham. That
might not sit comfortably with the naysayers who claim that there is no
alternative but to abandon our spiritual home, but why ever not? We Are
Tottenham, from the lane: it’s who we are, what we are and
shouldn’t ever change it. West Essex Hotspurs, playing at the Brentwood
Amstrad Leisure Arena, just doesn’t have the same ring to it. This plan
is no doubt riddled with architectural, design, financial and planning flaws.
It ignores a welter of huge problems that will be difficult to overcome. But
that’s not the same as saying it can’t be done. |
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TOPSPURS
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THE LATEST TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR NEWS
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22nd February 2008 – Cup Final Thoughts While it is a shameful slur on
our current standing in the game that Spurs are regarded as
‘underdogs’ going into a cup final with that little club from
Fulham, the weight off Tottenham shoulders can be used to the team’s
advantage. On paper, But fack it, Audere est Facere
and all that. We have good players, and a couple of matchwinners in our
ranks. Fitness allowing, we have a much-improved defence and a general
upsurge in stamina and application. And in the shape of Juande Ramos, we have
a potential trump card. If his tenure
as Spurs boss has shown nothing else, it is that he is prepared to make bold,
innovative changes to shape games. He is a proven winner and has the
experience of knowing what it takes to prevail in cup competitions. Avram
Grant, by contrast, is an unknown commodity. Nothing about Chelsea post
Mourinho has told us anything about Grant’s competence, merely that
when it comes to grinding out wins and shutting up shop with the
world’s most expensive squad, he can follow Mourinho’s
predictable template. Depending on who Grant picks,
there are In the words of some pundit or
other I don’t make predictions and never will. All I expect is to see
Spurs have a go and take risks. Better to go down fighting and live up to the
club’s ethos rather than play the role of plucky but obliging loser to
the big four hegemony. 24 January 2008 – The Goon semi ‘Show me a
good loser and I’ll show you a loser’ is the common retort to
those who criticise sportsmen who cannot react with decency in the face of
failure. All football fans would probably take a bad-tempered winner over a
generous defeatist any day of the week, but the truly great managers tend to
rise above the petty squabbling and combine success with good grace and
perspective. Bill Nick was exemplary in this respect, similarly Clough,
Busby, Shankly, Paisley and even Alex Ferguson: for all his red-faced
tantrums and one-eyed tendencies, Contrast this with Wenger’s nauseating whinge at the end
of the CL final two years ago. Soundly beaten by a better team, Wenger and
his players wallowed in their own self-pity, complaining loud and boringly
long about perceived injustices that had no substance, encapsulated by
Wenger’s ludicrous, hissy demand that ‘something must be
done’. It’s part of the reason why Wenger may be able to assemble winning teams and has an eye
for talented players, but, for a supposed disciple of ‘pure’
football, he blots his record with a mean-spirited approach to the game that
should be roundly condemned. For all the contrived reputation for
respectability Arsenal’s myth-makers like to perpetuate, the club has a
long and sorry record for misbehaviour, and Wenger fits the cap very well.
His players follow his lead, which resulted in the disgraceful scenes amid
their humiliation on Tuesday. On show were all the familiar Arsenal traits: the cowardly,
cynical fouling of opponents to (unsuccessfully) neuter Tottenham’s
attacks; the haranguing of referees after mild fouls committed against
Arsenal; snide off-the-ball challenges; and most disgracefully of all, a
‘friendly fire’ punch up between so-called teammates so
frustrated with their own ineffectiveness that they resorted to hitting each
other. At the final whistle, the prime offender had to be held back from
continuing the argument. So much for Arsenal's wonderful team
ethic. The tone for Arsenal’s night of shame was set from the
moment Wenger’s tiresome mantra about his ‘young players’
was exposed as a con. Even allowing for the falsehood that an expensively
assembled squad stuffed with internationals with considerable European and
domestic experience represents Arsenal’s ‘second team’,
Wenger had spun a web of deceit. Claiming earlier he would not break with the
habit of blooding his precious youngsters, Wenger instead started with at
least five first choice players, one of whom is a World Cup winner. In short,
he was ‘economical with the truth’. It’s worth asking why the media allow him to get away
with this, when Glenn Hoddle made enemies in the press corps for doing much
the same thing while England manager, but returning to the ‘urbane
Frenchman’ many in the media fawn over, his behaviour left him
glaringly open to criticism. With 30 minutes remaining in the tie, his
substitutions meant that no less than eight of those in red shirts were what
can be described as fully-fledged first teamers. And they were humiliated, by
a rampant Spurs side playing Arsenal at their own game: defending in numbers,
working tirelessly in the middle and hitting their opponents with devastating
speed and skill on the break. Wenger should have taken it as a compliment. Instead, in a familiarly sour, mendacious and self-serving moan, he refused to accept that the best team won, complaining without a shred of justification that the score was unfair, and rambling incoherently as to his true feelings towards the outcome. Most pathetically of all, he wheeled out the usual ‘I did not see it’ line regarding Adebayor and Bendtner’s very public disagreement. A few years back, Wenger’s ‘see-no-evil’ posturing was mildly amusing, now it’s just a tired gag wheeled out by a graceless egotist, a default bleat that fools no one save for the deluded man saying it. It brought to mind another Maybe poor Arsene is feeling the pressure, burdened in part by
his own smug arrogance at how his 'great' team were so
comprehensively thrashed. You lost, monsieur Wenger. Have the good
manners to accept it. 18th October 2007 – Unimportant man
leaves Spurs - so what! I guess there’s an easy answer. They are in
it to win it, and the prize in modern football is cash, lots of it. Success
on the pitch should neatly coincide with personal profit, but if it
doesn’t, what the hell: owning a Premier League club is a nice little
earner whichever way it’s cut. THFC plc’s accounts are a perfect example of
how profit needn’t depend on the team being successful.
‘Success’ is a relative and contentious term these days,
depending on who’s talking. In Tottenham’s case, two successive 5th-place
finishes are undoubtedly progress, but for those with long enough memories to
remember the glory days it’s only trophies that really count. It is
certainly true that despite not being members of the Champions League-closed
shop, Spurs are raking the money in. We are, apparently, the 11th
richest club in the world. As if that matters. A wise observer of modern
football’s tedious alpha male posturing likened it to ‘home
improvement for the very rich’. It’s a neat analogy, especially
given that much of the football business these days is the property business
– see our friends down the road for what a move assisted by public
bodies can do for the balance sheet (not to mention individual remuneration). For the current owners of the North East London EPL
franchise, they are quids in whatever happens. THFC plc will be more of a
desirable property portfolio with a glorified gym, a timeshare in This could be down to the progress ENIC have
overseen under their tenure, it might not. The point being that the nature of
modern football is such that, like the crazy British property market it apes,
all an owner has to do is a spot of superficial maintenance, sit tight and
wait for the loaded market to raise the asking price. ENIC are not the only ones. Chairman Al set the
template for them: buy an ailing sporting ‘brand’ on the cheap,
get the roofers in to give it a makeover, and voila: a nice, 400% return.
It’s happening everywhere: from West Ham to Without wishing to paint too rosy a picture of all
our yesterdays, it wasn’t always like this. Football used to be about
pride as much as anything: the pride people had in their club, players and
fans, the vain pride of directors who, while they treated the supporters as
so much turnstile fodder, were in the game as much for the prestige and the
respect of their fellow masons and Rotarians as simple profit (it’s
worth noting that until the FA rolled over for the new breed of owner and
changed the rules, individuals were prohibited from taking salaries or
profiteering). But the obsession with money has become a
distraction. Kemsley’s departure this week was a news story and talking
point that wasn’t, in the grand scheme of football things, actually
important. Can you imagine media and fans 30 years ago devoting so much
attention to the resignation of a bloke who wasn’t even chairman? The
age of the internet inevitably means that anything football related is up for
consideration, but really, Kemsley’s decision to quit is a sideshow. Or
has the business of football really taken over to such extent that
we’re all more worried about the comings and goings in the boardroom
then the real concerns of what’s happening on the pitch? After the entirely predictable result against the south
Londoners re-confirmed how far behind the domestic elite Spurs still are,
with a seemingly inert Jol once again cast as the only villain by his growing
number of detractors, there were a couple of salient points to consider which
may go some way to identifying why we are in the state we’re in. The first was from journalist Michael Calvin who departed
from the Jol-focussed script and wrote in his Sunday Mirror comment piece as
good a summary of the gulf that exists between the two clubs as we’re
likely to see. “What gets managers the sack?”, he asked.
“Multi-millionaire strikers whose misses would shame a schoolboy.
Rumours and innuendo from a supposedly divided dressing room. Directors with
one eye on the share price and the other on the league table. What wins
managers the title? Young players with the maturity and mental strength to
seize the big occasion. A unified squad which combines art, industry and a
sense of purpose. Directors with the foresight to take short-term pain for
long–term gain. And that is the difference between Arsenal and Spurs.” Rarely has a nail been hit so squarely on the head, in
apportioning responsibility where it surely must lie. No one should discount
the disparity in managerial talent between Wenger and Jol, but there is
something more fundamental that explains why we consistently fall short and
the Goons maintain their seat at the top table. It has to be taken into account that ENIC had a long way
to catch up thanks to Alan Sugar’s legacy. The man who gained control
of a Big 5 club labelling it ‘Del Boys Stall’ left it as an EPL
also-ran and rich man’s cash cow. The task before ENIC was huge, but
with the progress of recent years they seemed to be making headway The farce that was the meeting with Ramos has undone all
that, demolishing in one fell swoop the gains that have been made and giving
ammunition to those who target ENIC as ham fisted amateurs whose obsession
with profit undermines what happens on the pitch. This is not to say that the board at Arsenal are saints
with a Corinthian devotion to football. In many respects they are just as
‘business minded’ and self interested as their WHL counterparts.
The image of Sir Peter Hill-Poshbloke as some patrician knight in shining
armour protecting the game’s soul jars with the alternative view of him
as revealed in David Conn’s brilliant ‘The Beautiful Game’,
in which Hill-Wood comes across as a hands-off, almost disinterested
figurehead, content to let others run the show. Not forgetting that Dein,
Fizsman and others will or have made a very tidy profit out of Arsenal for
which they owe Wenger a great deal of thanks. But the point is they had the conviction and good sense to
sack Bruce Rioch, appoint Wenger and give him the time, support and freedom
to do his job. No Directors of Football or Sporting Directors to confuse and
distract; no interference in player purchases and squad building; no trips to
sound out potential replacements three games into a season. At least, nothing so visible, blatant and
damaging. Last week a mate picked out yet another potent example of
the difference between us. Amid uncertainty and turmoil at the Death Star
over Dein’s resignation, Flat-Track Thierry’s departure and
takeover talk involving assorted billionaires, Wenger was diligently getting
on with his job. And, with the kind of PR-friendly timing we can only dream
about, Wenger then announced he was signing a new contract. It was never seriously in doubt. But what a boost for a
young, talented, hungry squad, that a proven manager with a track record of
success who could probably walk into any other job was putting his future and
faith in the hands of players he believed in. What a contrast to what’s
happened at our place, where a group of promising but unproven players have
been left without even a remaining shred of confidence in their manager by
the board’s actions. You could see it written all over the pitch on
Saturday. It wasn’t just about tactics, or even an undeniable
difference in quality: it was about a club that knows what its priorities are
up against a club run by people who appear to be focussing elsewhere. It’s difficult as Spurs fans to face up to this
reality but the fact is their bunch of ‘businessmen’ is just much
better at running a football club than ours. To show how detached from sport the business of football
is, in the aftermath of the crushing defeat on Saturday, the share price
stayed buoyant, with over one million shares traded on the following Monday.
Among the principal shareholders in the PLC, of course, are those same
directors who are responsible for the condition the club is in. But the cash
keeps rolling in and they will, inevitably, be rewarded in their pocket
despite their various capers. Nice work if you can get it. And there’s something else to consider. Among
Levy’s pronouncements as to why he was entitled to constantly assess
what is best ‘for the club’, was the tired self-justification
that big money has been spent. This claim was given yet another airing by
Keith Mills, a non-executive director responsible for sorting the new stadium
but who saw fit to step outside of his remit and hold forth that, in so many
words, the media was to blame for the furore over Ramos, that the poor
directors were unfairly under pressure, and that Jol had been
‘given’ an expensively assembled side and that it was all his
fault if it wasn’t working. That’s Keith Mills. Know who he is?
Apparently he’s a bit of a mover and shaker in the world of sports
business and organisation. Apparently he also knows all about football to the
extent that all you need to do is throw a lot of money at it and hey presto a
ready made winning team is yours for the taking. These people are running our club. Perhaps we should
delete one of the ‘n’s and replace it with an ‘i’.
But let’s look a little closer at that bold claim. Sure, Spurs have
spent big in the transfer market. Not quite as big as the headline figures
may suggest, with all their clauses and cop-outs that reduce and spread the
actual cash spent. But there’s another stat Mills and Levy forgot to
mention that says much about the way the board operates. As highlighted in
this month’s WSC, in terms of wages for the 2005-06 season Spurs were
way behind the Big 4 and Arsenal’s wage bill for that season was, in fact
more than double that of Spurs. Who was it who said: ‘you get what you
pay for’? Levy, Kemsley and whoever else it is that makes the
decisions, those champions of the market and free enterprise, apparently don’t
like it when footballers have the temerity to ask for their worth. You might
not like it that footballers earn so much. You may even have applauded Darren
Bent for snubbing West Ham and taking a lower wage at Spurs. But on the
oft-quoted terms that Levy and co. set, that football is a business and you
have to play by its rules to succeed, Spurs are pulling up short. By the
parameter of what the club feels its new employees are worth - not what Levy
feels their former employers are entitled to - Jol’s side, has, if
anything, been overachieving. Something perhaps worth remembering the next time you see
Fabregas bursting past a puffing Huddlestone. The difference between us and
them is all too easy to see. 14th September 2007 – The extremes
of modern football Had such a game taken place today, Sky,
the press, and Tottenham’s merchandising department would probably have
a collective fit. TV producers would squeeze a week of programming out of it,
with endless loops of footage set to a Kasabian soundtrack, the papers would
be knocking out centre page specials and Spurs would probably rush out a
gilt-lined commemorative DVD complete with a chance to join an exclusive VIP
package to have an oak room dinner in the company of the match ball. Modern
football gorges on its own hype and such a result would be commercial manna
from heaven to those with their eyes on balance sheets rather than trophy
cabinets. At the risk of sounding like the
miserable git in the corner supping his half pint of mild and railing against
the modern world, there’s little chance of it happening. The game has
moved on, players have changed, blimey, loathe as I am to admit it, Arsenal
have changed. They play fast, fluent football to a clear plan. They are
well-managed athletes who maintain their discipline and effort throughout the
game and the results prove it. Spurs, by contrast, are a bit of a
curate’s egg: good in parts, not so good in others, a bit of a mess at
times. For all Jol’s correct observation that his team needs a winning
mentality, that vital characteristic still eludes them and him. Too many
Tottenham players switch off at vital moments; too many go missing, or shrink
into a nervous, collective shell, mirroring their manager’s tactical,
‘mustn’t lose’ tentativeness against the big 4. It doesn’t have
to be this way. Inferior players can exceed expectations and turn in a
display to be proud of. I loathed Goonersaurus’s negative philosophy,
but give the old throwback his credit, he could at least occasionally get his
side up for an NLD. Back in 1999, with a mediocre team staffed by the likes
of Deadwood, he got them motivated to tear into the Nomads right from the
off, and keep the pressure up. Players snapped into tackles, got in their
opponents faces and produced the skill when required. Modern football careers between such
extremes - wouldn’t it be nice if, just for once, we got a result and
performance to be proud of, to enjoy for what it is? Just when you think the people at New Spurs were at
last starting to get their collective act together, along comes a farce of
almighty proportions that presents Levy and co., not as architects of a
coherent, clear strategy, but as hapless incompetents who couldn’t
organise the proverbial brewery lash up. It couldn’t have come at a worse time: the
ludicrous sight of a club apparently seeking to replace its manager behind
his back three games into a new season, with a week to go in the transfer
window, only for the supposed replacement to get cold feet and leave his
rejected prospective employers backtracking faster than a bullet train in
reverse, not only made a mockery of the individuals responsible but rendered
the whole club that old tabloid favourite ‘a laughing stock’. It
leaves Spurs with very little time to repair the damage and far too long for
the damage to become more serious. Whatever your view on New Spurs, that is
surely unforgivable. Tragedy is a word that has no place in something as
trivial as football, but it is certainly depressing to view what has
happened. One of the most miserable aspects is that it undermines the
positive work that has been done. Like the venerable TS editor I dismissed
the rather desperate ‘six years good work’ plea from Levy as so
much firefighting PR, but I’ll happily admit that Levy has got some
things right (and has certainly been of more benefit to the club than his
predecessor). In the close season just passed plenty of people
still expressed doubts about the club, in terms of personnel on and off the
pitch, but by and large there was a mood of optimism. The proven quality in
the right positions that the team needed was not forthcoming but there was an
acceptable argument that the squad had a better shape and that the steady
improvement of the last few years would continue. Things, by and large, were
working. By the end of July 2007, I think it’s fair to say, Spurs was a
club in better health than it had been for arguably a generation. All that optimism has been blown away by the
misguided, mishandled and just plain ‘mis’ management of the last
week. The manager has been undermined, probably fatally; the players have at
a stroke become confused and uncertain as to their future; potential new
signings have probably been scared off while others will now see the
opportunity to get away or excuse poor form; and the fans have, yet again,
been treated with contempt. In addition, the shiny new management structure has
been seriously compromised. There are many people not convinced by it and
I’ve been among them. I’ll concede it may have played its part in
the progress that has been made in the last few years, especially given that
it allowed fairly bloodless transitions when Santini and then Arnesen needed
replacing. I can see the central argument that it enables the club to have a
consistent transfer and playing policy that can survive the reckless whims of
budget-hungry managers who keep cosy company with favoured agents. But for me its fundamental flaw has been
exposed: the lines of power and responsibility are not clear, leading to
dispute and division. Who has final say on transfers? We still
don’t really know. Does the manager take his orders from the (non-executive)
Sporting Director? Your guess is as good as mine. What happens when the
manager won’t play one of the Sporting Director’s signings? I
think we can guess that one. Can the SD only work with a coach of his own
choosing? Recent events suggest this is the case. But how much power does the
system have in any case when the man at the top and his mate still make the
decisions and sign the cheques? I’m coming round to the idea that the
structure is not wrong per se, but that it can only function if the individuals
within it can function within it. Which may be stating the bleedin obvious,
but is something that seems to have eluded its designers. Even so, it still
makes me wonder why if it hasn’t been needed by the ‘Big
4’, Big-4 aspirant Spurs are bothering with it? These are important issues but the fundamental ones
concern the most significant questions of why the board did what they did and
when in making Jol’s position untenable. I cannot see why Jol does not deserve at least
another full season: the usual complaint is that he is tactically not up to
scratch and that the players under his charge are not performing to the best
of their individual and collective ability. That may or may not be the case,
but if progress has been made in recent years, Jol has to be commended for
playing his part - you can’t say the system works despite one of its
key components failing: an engine doesn’t run like that. This surely entitles Jol to a bit of grace. But for
the sake of argument, let’s suspend that judgement for a while and
accept that if the board do not have confidence in their manager, they are
entitled to look elsewhere. They are, after all, very handsomely rewarded by
their own hand to make tough, unpopular decisions and not be swayed by
terrace opinion. Be that as it may I cannot accept that the verdict on Jol
has been made on the basis of two defeats for an injury-ravaged side two
games into a new season. If the Spurs board really wanted to replace Jol, it
should have been done last May, allowing time for the replacement to bed in
and work with the squad and the Sporting Director on summer transfer targets.
It would have been unpopular with supporters and media; the board would have
been ridiculed and condemned; it may have been the wrong decision in the long
run. But they had to have the courage of their convictions and be decisive
when it mattered. As it is they’ve ended up with the worst of both
worlds: a popular but lame duck manager, a squad in limbo, and they have
incensed many of the people who keep them in champagne and complementaries:
the supporters. It’s got worse. The basic error has been
compounded by the poor PR. I know sod all about the game, but I do know a
tiny bit about how organisations should present an effective image and get
their message across. This wasn’t it: the mysterious revelation of
certain ‘inside stories’; frantic statements about ‘not
commentating on speculation’ that commented on speculation concerning
Ramos’s pronouncements; the ‘long overdue meeting with Jol’
- if a meeting was necessary why was it overdue?; the public humiliation of
Jol with the highly-debatable contention that he has a squad equipped for a
top 4 position and then the subsequent climbdown that missing out on a CL
place ‘wouldn’t be the end of the world’; the mixed
messages from various directors sticking their oar in; the gradual drip-drip
of admittance as to who actually did what, where and when that can only
suggest people have something to hide; and most laughably of all, Kemsley’s
ham fisted, insulting nonsense about ‘contingency plans’ and his
laboured ‘beautiful wives’ analogy, rustled up a whole week after
the story was first blown. This was all reactive, panicky PR, the sure sign
of people losing control over a bad news story entirely of their own making.
Jol is an expert at PR. The regime that employs him is patently not. Sometimes when you’re in a hole, it’s
better to stop digging. I felt genuinely sorry for the poor sap who had to
peddle this guff and keep a straight face. But what should we expect after
seeing representatives of the clubs pictured in a Spanish hotel with a
probable managerial target and the deafening, naughty-schoolboy silence of no
comment? Sometimes, a bit of honesty actually is the best policy. But this is
a club where certain individuals appear to have a pathological inability to
do a straight deal, and it is something that will continue to cost us all
very dear. It’s not just Spurs. Every club is at it
– it’s just that other clubs seem to better at playing ‘the
game within the game’ than ‘us’. Modern football being what
it is, and modern, cynical football fans being who they are, there are
suspicions that the way events have played out for Tottenham over the last
few days is part of some wider cunning plan to undermine Jol and and thus
force him out by his own volition, with a reduced pay off as part of the
deal. That’s a conspiracy theory too far for me, and in any case it
assumes a level of intelligence and forward planning on the part of the
protagonists that they really don’t deserve. And nobody’s
laughing at this particularly badly timed joke. 30th August 2007 – In the
lair of the benign beast Judging by the weekend’s experiences, I
couldn’t be further from the truth. My image of Manchester United is as
outdated as the Goonersaurus’s offside trap. There used to be a
football club up there; now there’s just another Corporate FC but on a
bigger, brasher, more depressing scale than anywhere else. It was over 20 years ago since my last visit to Old Trafford for a league meeting between British football’s most glamorous clubs. I cherish the memories: a big crowd packed onto the terraces; a proper atmosphere, generated by fans who, when they opened up with a deafening chorus of ‘United! United!’ made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up; even the post-match chasing by a gang of 20 Paul Calf lookalikes with bum fluff moustaches didn’t spoil the |