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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.

 

. .

 

 

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 Croatia as his country knocked Englandout of the Euro qualifiers he showed that perhaps he won’t take as long as some imagine. Creative, two-footed, quick, intelligent - a midfield playmaker of the type we’ve needed for years. Of course, Spurs being Spurs, my delight at the news was tempered by memories of the famous Spur fanzine cover - the one with Lineker shaking hands with El Tel and saying “I’m really looking forward to playing with Chris Waddle” and Venablessaying “Er… there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

(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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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, Chelsea would win every trophy every year. While it’s true that money, unfortunately, plays a greater part in determining success than it did when a gifted manager like Brian Clough could take a small provincial side to the greatest club prize in football – twice – it is not unreasonable to expect a manager’s ability to play a major part in a team’s success. Particularly when that manager is paid a rumoured £6m a year.

 

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 White Hart Lane).

 

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.

 

 

11th April 2008 - Pain at the Arse

 

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 Bolton. This, apparently, was a “defensive tackle”. Yet not one member of the sports press picked him up on this.

 

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 Liverpool, Arsenal did have a justifiable penalty shout turned down, although no one picked up on the delicious irony of Wenger criticising a referee who did not see the incident. And his protestations didn’t stop him saying the virtually identical challenge that led to his side conceding a penalty in the second leg wasn’t an offence. In fact, it’s hard to remember a single game when Arsenal have been beaten fair and square - at least if you believe Wenger.

 

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 Britain great.

 

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 Chelsea in the League Cup final, and two wonderful displays against the best team in the League. Do we really need to clear most of them out?

 

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 Chelsea’s - a fact acknowledged ruefully by some of the proper old Chelsea followers on their forums. And, a pleasant surprise, Wembley was OK.

 

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 Birmingham was followed by a clueless one at home to  a solid but initially unambitious PSV Eindhoven. The Brum bummer was put down to the players concentrating on the UEFA Cup, which meant some serious questions were raised when the final whistle blew on a defeat which means Spurs have lost twice as many European ties at home this season as they had in the previous 46 years. Defeat is never good, which is why successful clubs don’t pick and choose what games to perform in, but the PSV home tie may prove a useful reality check.

 

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 Birmingham match and the PSV home tie show that he failed to get the players in the right frame of mind. I also don’t agree that playing midfielders or right sided defenders in the left back role is preferable to playing the limited but efficient Wipey Lee. And I think sometimes his substitutions leave us looking unbalanced and don’t work.

 

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 Eindhoven could yet be the scene of one of this club’s finest European nights yet. Those of us lucky enough to have tickets certainly hope so, and there will be no shortage of commitment from us as we cheer the Lilywhites on.

 

 

21st February 2008 – A Cup Final reminisce

 

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 North London from a family with not much interest in football. Where I grew up, Muswell Hill in its pre-Liberal Democrat pushy middle class parent days, you were either Tottenham or Arsenal. I chose Tottenham because we won the week I looked at the results with any knowledge. My first football memory was Spurs winning the League Cup against Norwich, the first vivid memory watching the 1973 FA Cup Final when Sunderland beat Don Revie’s Leeds, my second is the tears of a nine-year-old listening to the 1974  UEFA Cup Final on Sport on 2 as Tottenham lost, Spurs fans rioted and Bill Nicholson appealed vainly to “stop the violence”. Pat Jennings was my first hero. with Steve Perryman not far behind.

 

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 White Hart Lane for years. And my Mum would no more have set foot in a football ground than she would’ve gone to a pub on her own - it was not what women did.

 

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 against Bristol City in the First Division - it was that long ago! - and at that game I met Julie.