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7th May 2008 - The end of the beginning One game to go, and still something to play for – if only
the chance of finishing in the top half of the table and above West Ham. What
sort of mood Liverpool, out of the Champions League, secure in fourth place,
and with a boardroom barney to contend with, is anyone’s guess, all of
which will add to a strange atmosphere at the end of a strange season. As I write, Spurs are the only English team with a major
trophy to their name this season. This should be the cause of much joy, but
Spurs being Spurs have managed to take the edge off. The almost total shut down
in the effort department since the Wembley win has annoyed and worried many
fans, which has in turn led to some heated discussions among supporters.
There seems to be a view that even mild criticism of Spurs under Ramos is
treason, but expecting unquestioning support whatever you’re doing is
an unrealistic ambition - just ask the Labour Party. My views on where we
stand won’t please the fundamentalist Ramosistas,
but might yet surprise a few people. Overall, I’m happy. Happy most of all with a Cup won
the right way against a tricky opposition and a fantastic day out with a big
group of fans I’ve known for years. Happy too with some of the football
we’ve played this season, with some great European trips - although the
football played at Anderlecht’s ground was as depressing as the weather
– and with the opportunity to see Dimitar
Berbatov on a regular basis. Less happy with the bungled beginning of the season, the
handling of Jol’sdeparture and some of the
childish games that accompanied it, the throwing away of a proud European
home record, and a UEFA Cup exit that didn’t do us justice. Plus that
lack of motivation since Wembley. I think that’s a pretty balanced, and accurate,
summation of the season. And I’m cautiously optimistic that we could see
continued improvement. My criticism of the way our board operates,
particularly its at times clumsy and ineffective PR, has been well-aired, but
there are very tiny shoots of optimism suggesting they have learnt from their
mistakes. I genuinely hope so, because I take no pleasure in making the
criticisms. The real test will come if, as expected, Berbatov departs this
summer. If that does happen I hope we remember a wonderful player and his
contribution over two seasons, rather than witness a succession of whispers
and leaks suggesting we’re well shot of a greedy and destabilising
influence. The board may be tempted to do this if they want to deflect the
justified criticism that the bungling of last summer cost us the league
position that could’ve persuaded Berbatov to stay, but I sincerely hope
not. It has been easy to criticise the board because, well, they
make it so easy, but sometimes they’ve been the victims of bad luck. No
sooner, for example, had Daniel Levy given one of his collector’s item
interviews to a micro-publication to point out that the manager he appointed
was “obsessed with winning” than the team sleepwalked through a
run of 1-1 draws. Here, I’m afraid, the Ramosistas
may want to look away, because it is impossible not to contrast Ramos’s
much vaunted ability to motivate players with his inability to, er, motivate our players for a significant part of the
season. Now I know the argument is that the part of the season through which
motivation has been lacking has not been ‘significant’, but
I’d have to take issue there. I understand the arguments, I understand
that players who are convinced they have no future here will be almost
impossible to motivate. But we’re not talking about a few games at the
end of the season, we’re talking about two and
a half months; twelve league games; one third of the season; a possible 36
points. That’s significant in anyone’s book. |
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What the club has failed to do in that period is demonstrate the sort of character required to move on. I don’t believe any squad of players can switch on and off at will, a winning mentality is built up steadily over time. So there’s a missed opportunity, and also the not insignificant fact that the paying customers – as clubs like to call us fans these days – can fairly expect to see some entertainment for their investment. There have been some pretty dire displays since Wembley, and the strength of criticism directed at those who have expressed customer dissatisfaction has provided a rather sad indication of how little value some people place on themselves. We may not have a ‘right’ – that much overused word – to expect to be entertained, but the day we have to accept that a reasonable expectation is in fact unreasonable will be the day to finally walk away. But back to those shoots of optimism I mentioned, for there are
some emerging even from the grumble above. It’s clear that it
won’t be the current squad that is expected to switch on again come
August. We seem at last to have got our system of player selection right,
with Ramos identifying his players and concluding that the much vaunted
“top 4 squad” the previous unwieldy committee system built was
not what was claimed. Consequently, the squad is being rebuilt along
principles far more likely to bring us success. To be clear, we seem to be
buying players who are a) good and b) play in positions we need. And not
because of nationality, sell-on value, potential or age. Hardly rocket
science, but it’s a real relief to see the penny finally drop. A relief
too to see the club not trying to rewrite history again to prove they’d
got it right all along. People actually don’t mind mistakes, as long as
they’re learnt from. The quality of our two January signings, Alan Hutton and
Jonathan Woodgate, is clear to all. And the signing
of Luka Modricis one of the most welcome pieces of
news for some time, for which congratulations must evidently go to Daniel
Levy for changing another habit and moving quickly to secure the deal, rather
than attempting some too-clever-by-half brinkmanship. Modric
may take a while to adjust to the premiership, but in running the game for (as if by magic… ed)
Modric supplying Berbatov would be
close to football heaven, but sadly I can’t quite see it happening. And despite the dire nature of the last few months, it
can’t be denied we have some great entertainment at Spurs this year.
Over 100 goals! The best strike partnership in the Premiership. The wonderful
5-1 against a good Arsenal side. It’s all been part of what must be
seen as the end of the beginning - that is Ramos’s beginning. This
season he’s righted a sinking ship, won a trophy, and stamped his
authority on the confused recruitment policy. Now is the end of his
beginning. Next season is the time to see what he can really do, and there
can’t be a Spurs fan who doesn’t fervently hope he’s given
every chance. So plenty to celebrate on Sunday at the season send-off. Afterwards the hangover, made particularly sharp no doubt by receiving news of next season’s ticket price rises - almost certainly huge especially after the announcement that a new stadium is as far away as ever. But I suspect that most of us would take a trophy over another high league position, and that’s the measure of the season. Success to be enjoyed. Now it’s got to be built on.
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THE LATEST TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR NEWS
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12th April 2008 - It makes you wonder “Curiouser and curiouser”,
was Alice’s signature phrase on her fantastical journey into
Wonderland, and the route to what we are assured is our own Juande wonderland is starting to elicit the same
response. When I last wrote I wondered how the rumoured replacement
of most of the “top 4 squad” and the apparent reversal of the
‘buy young, gifted and Brit’ transfer policy squared with the masterplan we’re told is still on course. And I
wondered why Juande Ramos’s much-vaunted
motivational powers seemed unable to motivate our players since the
impressive League Cup victory. This week, Ramos gave his view, but succeeded
only in raising more troubling questions. Asked about Spurs’s
Champions League ambitions, Ramos said “it's very difficult and it all
comes down to budget. We need to buy the best players. It comes down to
budgets at the end of the day.” He has a point, and was doubtless
signalling to the club’s board that it was time to ditch the wage cap.
But arguing for more funds to be made available is hardly a demonstration of
managerial acumen. And, in fact, it is not true to say that it all comes down
to budgets. If this was true, In case you think that’s a tad harsh, I must quickly
point out that I am not the only person to harbour such thoughts. A very
well-respected business figure once said: “We built a fantastic team in
the summer, £30m was spent on players. So there's no excuse, we have some
great players there but we just have to make sure they play together.”
If that quote seems familiar, it’s because it came from Tottenham
Hotspur non-executive director Keith Mills in August 2007, in the midst of
the early-season ferment that wrecked our league campaign. For good measure, he also added that: “For the club
to expect to do only as well as last year is unacceptable." Chairman
Daniel Levy was of a similar mind, saying that “We have made a massive
investment in the squad and as a result we have the best squad of players
this club has had for over 20 years.” We can only guess the boardroom reaction to Juande Ramos’s statement that even more
“massive investment” is required in this “fantastic
team”. The great irony is that, however much Ramos may have annoyed the
board with his comments, he is virtually untouchable. He is so clearly the
board’s choice that it would be excrutiatingly
difficult for the suits to manoeuvre themselves into a position in which they
could axe him. So, thankfully, it seems like they will have to grit their
teeth and let him get on with his job. (Although anyone who has followed this
club for longer than five minutes can never be entirely confident that a gun
barrel is not being aimed at a foot somewhere at Of course, Juande could
reasonably make the point that his precise target is not clear, at least is
so far as Daniel Levy has outlined it. In August 2007, when the conventional
wisdom was that Spurs could finish in the top four, Levy fuelled the
expectation when asked about what he expected from his manager by
saying” “We want Champions League football.” The
team’s apparent progress towards Championship football prompted him to
wield the axe – or to be more accurate, text – and install Ramos.
And yet just seven months later, when asked about breaking into the Champions
League, Daniel Levy said: “I don’t accept we will have failed if
we don’t make it next season.” Curiouser and curiouser.
This next bit is going to be tricky, as criticising Arsene Wenger in a Spurs column is going to be seen as
predictable by most non-Spurs fans, but the point has to be made - and no one
else is making it. It’s also tricky on a Spurs website to acknowledge
the qualities Wenger has, but I’ve no problem with doing so. As Spurs
fans we have an idea of the way the game should be played, so no matter how
much it sticks in the throat our ability to appreciate good football tells us
that the south Londoners have indeed played some very good stuff since Wenger
arrived. (And let’s not underestimate the contribution of Hoddle
disciple Denis Bergkamp). This is in stark contrast
to those unfortunate Gooners who, after years of
singing the praises of ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ boreathons,
have had to convince themselves that they wanted silky football all along. But while I don’t have a problem with acknowledging
the football principles Wenger has attempted to promote, I do have a problem
with the hysterical fawning that passes as informed comment in much of the
national press. Just this week, columns in the Racing Post and The Times have
attempted to argue that all true lovers of football should be behind Arsenal
because they are single-handedly holding the line against the barbarian
hordes. Once the debate is taken to this level, questions which go
beyond the normal inter-club banter are raised. Because perpetuating the myth
of the lone aesthetes battling to uphold civilised values means vital
questions go unasked. Take the storm over Matthew Taylor’s studs-up
challenge on Eduardo, which led Wenger to repeatedly call for Taylor to be
banned for life and to present his team as victimised artists constantly targetted by lesser mortals. Wenger later grudgingly
withdrew some of his comments, but his attitude had changed when, just weeks
later, Abou Diaby went in
studs up against Of course, football managers will always see things from
their own side’s perspective. But in most cases this is recognised and
their comments taken with a pinch of salt. Wenger, on the other hand, is
treated as a modern-day prophet, attempting to spread the word among the
philistines. Some say Wenger’s attitude is what is required in a
manger, a single-minded drive to be the best. Yet Alex Ferguson, whose side
have been known to play some pretty attractive football, seems able to
acknowledge at times that his team has lost because the other lot were
better. Despite Fergie’s frequent
gamesmanship, this is what gives him the class Wenger lacks. There are many examples that are at odds with the image of
the philosopher king attempting to bring beauty to an ugly world. Wenger and
his team’s disgraceful but laughable moaning after losing the Champions
League final about their opponents and about their fixture list - leading to
the hilariously pompous demand from a thunder-faced Wenger that
“Something must be done” remains a personal favourite. But this
season Arsenal have apparently lost games because the pitch wasn’t good
enough (Gerry Francis used “the grass was the wrong length” years
ago - Wenger’s so behind the times), because they didn’t think
the game was important enough to win, because the opposition didn’t
play in the right way and, on several occasions now, because the ref was
against them. In the recent Champions League tie against The great aesthete’s inability to deal with reality
may go some way to explaining why the cobwebs are gathering in the Arsenal
trophy cabinet, in which case I’m perfectly happy for him to stick to
his guns. But let’s not make the mistake of thinking his views carry
more moral authority than those of any other manager. 3rd April 2008 - Making hard work of it The big issue in football
this week was dodgy chanting. More precisely, dodgy chanting at the
Merseyside derby. Listening to the seemingly endless hours devoted to this latest
manufactured controversy set me thinking, not for the first time in the last
few years, about where we’ve come as football fans. For those who
missed it, here’s a brief resumé. Some fans
chanted some dodgy things about an opposing player and his family. The other
fans complained about the lack of respect. The first set of fans then said
the other lot chanted some other dodgy stuff. Both sets of fans reported the
other lot to the police. And before long people were talking about
‘rights’ and ‘political correctness’ and all sorts of
high-falutin concepts. And what’s wrong with
all that? It’s difficult to know where to start. Are our lives so empty
that we have to fill them up by making official complaints about what is sung
at a football match? I’d say it’s evidence that some people take
themselves too seriously to be taken seriously. But in saying that, I’m
not saying I understand why some people think it’s right or acceptable
to chant some of the stuff that comes out at football grounds. In fact, it makes
me laugh quite how vociferously some people defend the alleged human right to
behave like a cunt. Because you can be suspicious of the current tendency to
employ the thought police while also making the perfectly reasonable decision
that chanting about child abuse, bad things happening to people’s kids
and families, or terminal diseases goes beyond the acceptable realms of
banter. Of course, the game’s
authorities don’t help with their constant attempts to over-regulate
our behaviour. It’s long been a fault of administrators to believe that
the world can be made a better place by writing codes of conduct. And
we’ve usually dealt with it by allowing them to keep themselves happy
by drafting codes we’re equally happy to ignore. It’s
what’s helped make In the end, it’s up to
us all to decide what’s important. I think regulating some of the
wilder extremes of free-market football is a more important and appropriate
task for the game’s authorities than trying to regulate the behaviour of
individuals to the extent we sometimes see. But I suspect that, just like the
Government, the game’s authorities often attempt to divert attention
from their unwillingness to tackle the macro issues by blinding us with the
micro. You need to step back to gain
perspective, to work out what’s important. Which brings us to the
current state of Spurs. I hope you’ll forgive the roundabout approach
I’ve employed, but assessing what’s important and not allowing
the detail to distract from the bigger picture are equally important in
discussing the state of Spurs. I’m choosing my words
carefully here, because there seems a substantial body of opinion which sees
even the slightest questioning of Juande Ramos as
tantamount to treason, and a smaller but still significant school of thought
which is fighting old battles by proxy. So it’s important to say that,
despite my public criticism of the club board’s appalling handling of
the managerial situation at the start of this season, I fully acknowledge there
were problems at the end of Jol’s tenure that
weren’t all caused by unsupportive employers. I think Juande Ramos is a good manager who was able to quickly
make some necessary changes, I like the way he says he wants his sides to
play, and I’ve enjoyed some tremendously entertaining match days since
he arrived. And of course let’s not forget that day at Wembley, when
Spurs won something, and won by playing better than some very good opponents.
That should make it clear
that what follows is not an argument against Ramos – alas, I fear
nothing can help those who choose to interpret it as such, not even a code of
conduct. But there are some causes for worry and some questions which need to
be posed. Ramos arrived with a
reputation for attacking football and a high level of motivational ability.
And his salary, reputed to be the highest paid to any club manager anywhere,
reflected this. Within mere weeks, Ramos had transformed the team’s
fitness and restored player confidence. Within months he had dragged the side
clear of the drop, and then won a trophy. By any measure, that is a
remarkable achievement. But since then, it’s
been a different story. The much-vaunted motivational powers seem unable to
convince the players that they should turn up in spirit as well as body for
the remaining games of the season. As things have started to drift, rumours -
always a popular currency at Spurs – that Ramos ‘rates’ an
increasingly small group of the players the board insisted were “a top
four squad” are gathering pace. Now, maybe I’ve missed something
in my understanding of motivation, but letting your staff know they’re
being bombed out doesn’t usually get the best out of them. Some justified criticisms of Jol
were that he was slow to change things around, that his substitutions were
one-dimensional, and that he tried too often to sit on a lead. Ramos is
certainly not slow to change things, and has done so to great effect at
times. At other times, though, his changes have looked more like throwing the
counters up in the air and seeing where they land, with some bewildering
formations and strange use of players out of position. And while our exit
from the UEFA Cup against PSV was not dishonourable, they also featured some
questionable decisions. Giving a player his debut in such a vital game was
one, appearing to sit on a 1-0 lead in the second leg when the tie was there
for the taking another. The story we are required to
believe is that Ramos is the final piece in the jigsaw, that all glitches
have been ironed out, and that next season (Rodders)
we’re going all the way. And yet it looks increasingly like next season
we will see an almost entirely new team after a clearout of Augean proportions. This, of course, will mean that Ramos
cannot be properly judged for another season, as the new players need time to
bed in. It could be that Ramos is right, and to be honest on what I’ve
seen so far I’d be happier to back his judgment on players over either
Daniel Levy or Damien Comolli’s. And yet
there’s a lingering thought that buying a new team from more familiar
pastures is less a demonstration of managerial expertise than taking a
quality squad on that vital stage into the elite. It’s possible that the
rumours are not true, but if we go on what we can see for sure, there are
also troubling questions. How can it be acceptable for a team to play the way
it has in most of the games since Wembley? I don’t buy the argument
that it doesn’t matter how we do because we can’t get anywhere in
the league. An ambitious club, and ambitious players, always aim higher. The
signal the club has sent out since the Wembley win is that we are still a
soft touch, that we can’t build on our flashes of brilliance. And, once
again, what has become of the manager’s motivational expertise? Our
current players were capable of the wonderful football against Arsenal in the
5-1, the mature and exciting display against Some may be sold, some may
ask to leave, which brings us to Dimitar Berbatov.
Recent performances can have done little to convince him that it’s
worth sticking around, and I’m increasingly less confident we will see
this superbly gifted player in a Spurs shirt next season. Doubtless we will
hear ‘stories’ about his ego and attitude as the chances of a
departure become more likely, but when he signed we all accepted that if we
weren’t in the Champions League in two seasons he’d probably go
elsewhere. I hope I’m wrong, especially as it would restore some of my
faith in modern footballers if Berbatov opted to stay and lead us to glory.
But I suspect I’m not. The departure of the most gifted player
we’ve had in years would be nothing other than a serious step back, and
one that brings Levy’s failure to act decisively over the
manager’s job in the close season into sharp perspective. Some may say it’s all
to easy to blame Levy, but Levy makes it all too easy to be blamed. As
Chairman, he must have known the true situation as regards fitness and morale
that existed under Jol. If he didn’t, he wasn’t doing his job. If
he did, and he decided not to act until the season was underway, he did his
job very badly indeed. The chaos caused by the bungled and protracted
managerial changeover effectively wrote off our league season, and could yet
lead to the departure of our best player and the further setting back of our
league prospects. Add to Berbatov’s potential
departure the offloading of Defoe because the balance sheet is more important
than what happens on the pitch and the rumoured shipping of Keane - allegedly
not ‘rated’ by Ramos despite his 15+ goals in each of the five
seasons he’s been at Spurs – and you complete the breaking
up of one of the finest strikeforces in English
football. Such is progress. For Daniel Levy, who eagerly
but briefly shed his subterranean media profile in the wake of our League Cup
victory to make sure everyone knew it was ‘his’ manager wot won it, these must be worrying times. It looks quite
possible that his manager is going to dismantle his top four squad, overrule
his director of football, and embark on a transfer policy that ends his
much-trumpeted strategy of buying British and young. For those running the
Levy spin machine, working out how to present such a complete reversal as the
forward march of a carefully planned campaign must represent the greatest
challenge they are ever likely to face. The obvious rejoinder to all
this is that much is based on supposition, and to that charge I plead guilty.
Which is why I’ve not tried to present speculation as fact, and why
I’ve attempted to see the other side of the views I’ve put forward.
All I can do is say it as I see it, and all in the hope that things really
can ‘only get better’. I have enjoyed much of this season when
once it looked a write-off, and for that I’m genuinely grateful. But
can those who may be gnashing their teeth reading this really say that some
of these thoughts have not crossed their minds? Whatever you may think, I
hope you’ll agree that these issues are more worth having a row about
than some of the stuff that passes for important in the modern football media
circus. 8th March 2008 - Grounds for judgement The touch of confessional
in my last column seemed to strike a chord, so thanks to those people who
mailed to say they enjoyed the read. Alas, no word from Julie my Cup Final
benefactor from 1981, but if there’s an emotional reunion in the offing
I do have plans to rush out a special commemorative DVD at a very competitive
price. All of which gives me the opportunity to avoid popping up
for my regular blather on the back of something negative – the pisspoor PSV performance – and rewind a little to
the more positive scenario of winning a pot at Wembley. What was most encouraging about our win was that it combined
proper Spurs football with the steely determination and solidity we need to
develop. As the weeks have passed, the story has been recast as Chelsea, and
more specifically Avram Grant, losing the Cup
rather than Spurs winning it, but in the immediate aftermath Tottenham were
recognised as worthy winners. And make no mistake, we were – hauling
ourselves back into a game against a very resilient team after going behind
and doing so in the right way by playing ambitious, expansive football. A
great day was made better by the fans’ fantastic contribution and the
pathetic showing of I was expecting to be as disappointed by this new stadium as
I have been by most, but it’s really not too bad. There’s the
familiar glass and steel airport terminal feel, overpriced beer and pies, and
the sterilising of Wembley Way to ensure a clear run for official merchandise
was unwelcome, but once inside the concourses are spacious, the queues not
too bad and - most importantly - the sightlines are very good indeed. There
had been complaints of a sterile atmosphere, and we did fear the worst when
two yellow-tabarded jobsworths
approached us as we stood being photographed with our large flag and said
“You know you can’t take that into the stands?”. Fire risk,
apparently. But Spurs fans were up for it and proved that with some effort
Wembley can still rock. It was a fine day all round, although quite how we
managed to escape without being burnt to death due to the fire risk posed by
all the banners people brought in I don’t know. Since that great day, and long night, things have slipped a
little, with Spurs reverting to talking a better game than they play. A
hopeless performance at What that game did do was return us to the debate that is at
the heart of the Spurs conundrum – are the players we have good enough
and just in need of the right coach, or does the coach need better players
than the board and its much-vaunted Director of Football system have
provided? The problem we have, and one not uncommon to a game increasingly
driven by commercial rather than sporting considerations, is that success is
essential and if it is not achieved someone must be blamed. What this leads
to is finger-pointing and politicking rather than pulling together, because
the reality that everyone can’t win means that avoiding responsibility
for losing becomes more key than achieving success. If at first you
don’t succeed, blame someone else and have another go – it’s
a modern motto. The low feeling we had after the PSV game was because we so
passionately wanted to believe that Ramos had changed the culture of the
club. It appears old habits die hard, and it’s early days on which to
judge Ramos – just as it’s early days to judge Gilberto. The
problem we have at the moment is that it’s difficult to discuss Ramos
properly because of the strength of the desire for him to succeed. It’s
a bit like New Labour – the desire for them to succeed meant that
tricky questions weren’t confronted. And, another New Labour analogy,
many at Spurs seek to avoid proper discussion of Ramos’s approach by
constantly blaming the previous regime for any problems. My view is that Ramos is the most promising manager
we’ve had for some time, but sometimes he gets it wrong –
he’s human after all. I’m not convinced the decision to let the
players go out on the lash for two days after the Cup Final was the subtle
psychological stroke we wanted to believe it was, and I think the But take all those things in the context of a general
improvement and an ambition to play proper football, plus that all-important
Cup win, and of course I’d still put my cross next to Ramos. I also think it’s clear that the squad isn’t as
good as many, including me, thought. That’s obviously an issue, but
let’s also remember that the art of management is to mould a team, not
just to buy the best individuals and stick them on a pitch. This is the task
Ramos faces, and its successful prosecution won’t be helped by playing
the blame game or by people seeking to associate themselves with success but
avoid responsibility for failure. What matters, and God help me didn’t
the Blairites say this too?, is what works. The Philips Stadium in Notwithstanding the important UEFA Cup game on
Thursday night, it’s Sunday’s Cup Final which dominates the
thoughts. It’s all taken me back to the days leading up to another
Final, when a Spurs team hungry for success faced one last hurdle to win a
trophy that could take them on to a new level. Much has changed since May 1981, although not the
importance of winning the trophy. So what follows is a personal confessional
that serves two purposes. First, to paint a picture of football in a
different, and perhaps more rewarding, age. But second, and more important,
to perform penance for a wrong left undone for too long. The story, as is so often the case, begins some years
before. I was a schoolboy in Despite the team’s decline after the UEFA
defeat and Nicholson’s bungled departure - what changes? - I was firmly
Spurs. Because of the unhappy combination of regularly reported violence on
the terraces and the fact that my best mates supported Stoke City and Leeds
respectively - in North London! - I couldn’t persuade my Mum to let me
go to But by 1978, I was 13 and old enough to go on my own.
What was more, Spurs had been relegated and we all knew we had a
responsibility to rally round the team and get them back up. So I was one of
the many thousands who poured back to cheer the Spurs back to the top flight,
my first game a spine-tingling 1-0 victory over fellow table-toppers Bolton
Wanderers in front of 52,000 at White Hart Lane (1-0 thanks to a Don
McAllister diving header since you ask).
I was hooked on the live experience. I went to more home
games, I celebrated promotion and gave it back to every Gooner
and Hammer who had taken the piss in the playground when we went down, and I
scraped my jaw off the floor when we signed to Argentine World Cup stars in
the summer. I began to go to away games, all on my own, trips into unknown
territory like Leyton Orient for a pre-season friendly, all the way to South
London to Selhurst Park, and even a coach trip with
the old Supporters Club to The Dell, where Southampton caned us 5-2 and the
coach broke down en route. I lived, as the cliche has
it, for the weekend. I’d get to Spurs as the gates opened, sit on the
empty terraces and watch the ground fill up, and worked my apprenticeship
into The Shelf. Afterwards I’d wait outside the old West Stand entrance
for the players to come out to get their autographs. One day I got Steve
Perryman’s, the captain, Mr Tottenham to me. It was after a game
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