TOPSPURS Columnist

THE NW10 VIEW

Last Updated: Thursday, 01 January 2004, 6:33 PM

"It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory." - Bill Nicholson

THE TOPSPURS COLUMNISTS

NW10 Update - NW10 will be back with some new stuff shortly (hopefully like Spurs) but in the meantime, here are a couple of pieces penned by NW10 over the last year which are as salient today as they were when they were written

HODDLE - THE FIRST 18 MONTHS AND VIEWS ON THE FUTURE FROM "NW10" - November 2002

Even before the dire days of 666 were over, I was dreaming of Spurs legend, Glenn Hoddle, as manager. He had got Swindon promoted, took Chelsea to a cup final, managed the English national side and took Southampton to the heights (for them) of mid-table. So in April 2001, when he was appointed to take over, I, like most other Spurs fans, was ecstatic. We, for the first time in a long time, had a manager who was a Tottenham man, someone whose name we could sing with gusto. “Glenn Hoddle’s blue an white army” was the new mantra and against Man U, in the last game of the season, it made my hair stand on end. The atmosphere of that day, though, has not been generated since.

A recent web poll at topspurs.com, found nearly one in five Spurs fans wondering whether Glenn Hoddle could indeed lead us to the “promised land”. This is significant when you consider the scorn and disdain that is poured on those who dare to question the wisdom (much less the position) of GHod. So what has caused a few of us to revisit our earlier total faith that Glenn would be the saviour and revise it to a “not so sure now”?

It is clear that there is not a huge transfer budget at Spurs, if there was we would have seen it by now, so Hoddle’s skill in the transfer market has needed to be first rate. In my opinion, though, it hasn’t been at all. I was disappointed when he re-signed Ferdinand and Anderton, as neither had been setting the world alight for us or had given us value for money (eg Shaggy cost us £1.85 million in wages last season). We then acquired Sheringham, Poyet and Ziege, who were, although decent enough players at their peak, were never going to be the bedrock of a new dawn. All these oldies are now a major drain on our resources, costing a fortune in wages and not one of them deserving a place in the starting line-up. We paid over the odds for Richards, who is, although a decent enough centre back, not top class and never worth £8.1 million. I could go on, Bunjy, Acimovic, both slow, lightweight and not suited to the Premiership. Basically of all the players that Glenn has bought in (Blondel is clearly not a Glenn buy), I think only Keller and Keane have been good acquisitions.

Hoddle also has an oft-missed reluctance to use young players. Last year Davies was a makeweight in the team, when Anderton and Poyet should have been rotated to accommodate him and Tony Gardner was on the bench so that Chris Perry could play. This year we have seen it with Blondel, who has seen an amazing 12 minutes spell against Southampton rewarded with subsequent total exclusion from the match day squad. Instead of these youngsters, Glenn persists with his old favourites who play if they are fit, no matter how badly out of form they are. It’s great for the likes of Teddy, but is it any good for Spurs?

Glenn was a hero of mine as a player and I wanted him as manager. He has only been at the helm for 18 months and we definitely play better football now than we did under Graham, though that is not that hard. Since he has been here, though, the gap between us and the Goons has grown and that is not good enough. He has played players out of position, completely wasted an £11 million asset (and in doing so eroded much of the sympathy we had over Campbell’s defection), not addressed the embarrassing lack of pace in the side or the weakness in midfield and filled the side with players in his own image. If Glenn were not Glenn the rumbles of dissatisfaction would be louder, but being a legend he deserves some more time before anyone gets on his back. Ultimately, though, what really matters is that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club regains its place at the top of English football and I have some serious doubts as to whether Glenn Hoddle is the man who will take us there.

Thoughts on ENIC - by NW10 - Written in May 2002

I don't trust 'em and I think they are even worse that Sugar - that's right WORSE than Sugarlump. Sugar spent money, a lot of it wasted with his poor choice of managers but he spent it. ENIC, speak with forked tongue, they say all the right things about being Spurs fans and as such have got away with stuff that we would have crucified Sugar for. We were all so wound up with Rsol's betrayal that we have all forgotten that they blatantly lied about having money to spend on new players, because they clearly haven't. Who really can blame the Judas bastard for leaving us, he's about to win the double less than a year after jumping ship while we are not even in Europe? Newcastle finished below us last year but they are now in the Champions League and that for me puts our "advancement" into perspective. ENIC are here to make money, first and foremost, let us not deceive ourselves about that, they are not Jack Hayward, John Hall, Jack Walker, the Rushden and Diamonds bloke or even the Darlington geezer who will plough their own money into a club they love. Daniel Levy - what self respecting Spurs fan would allow his spawn to be an Arsenal fan, much less have a season ticket. I've got 2 sons and they are both Spurs even though we are average and have been all their lives.

I'm pissed off with 5 year plans and all that bollocks, do we really think that the top sides are gonna stand still why we get our house in order? Hell no!! They have better reserve and youth sides than us and they continue to go out and get the very best talent there is. I've watched Arsenal U19's and they piss all over ours. We need to spend some cash now and make good the gap in one year or, to quote Josef Stalin "either we do this or they crush us".

The Trust, imvho, are well meaning pawns. They are unwittingly part of ENIC's PR mechanism and are about as much use in influencing the club to do what the supporters want, as our love for individual players is in stopping those players doing what is best for their careers.

I'm pissed off, mate, really pissed off. We have learned to set our sights so low it sickens me. I want nothing less than what the Gooners are gonna get this season. We talk about the fact that the football has improved at WHL, but we are still light years away from them, they have more skill than us, pass better than us, tackle harder than us, have so much more pace than us (but then who hasn't) and are just a better side, period.

I just wish I could escape from Arsenal gloating this summer. Rant over.

8^th March 2003 – "It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory." - Bill Nicholson

The words above used to symbolise what THFC was all about. We were the “glory, glory” boys, the glamour club, one of the “big five”. As I sit here this weekend, with no Spurs game to look forward to, not for the first time this calendar year, I ask myself “when will things change”?

This season we have gone out of the FA Cup, at the first hurdle, with an abject display; we got battered by lower league opposition in the Worthington; we are bobbing along in mid-table pack in the Premiership, we have a 37 year old Sheringham and central defender Doherty as our front two and we are not discounting being tenants at our fiercest rivals new stadium. Now, whether you blame ENIC or Hoddle for what is, or is not, going on (for the record I don’t think either Hoddle or the Board have what it takes), surely there must be little dispute that the current state of affairs is not good enough for Tottenham Hotspur. We are now competing with Charlton, Blackburn and Southampton, when we should be competing with Arsenal and Man U.

Some will say: “we have been rubbish for 10 years, it will take more than two years to sort it out”, the question I ask is why should it? Everton and Newcastle are two sides that have been behind us for most of the last 10 years, 2 years ago they definitely were. Now, with a combination of excellent managers and, in Newcastle’s case in particular, an ambitious board, they are challenging for Champion’s League spots. It is the lack of ambition at Spurs that I most decry. We should make an attempt every season to win the League, not aim to finish in mid-table and hope we scrape into Europe somehow. We should also see entry into Europe as a non-negotiable, so that if we have a bad season and finish outside the top 6 and don’t win a cup, we enter the Intertoto, simple (if the players and manager want a longer break, they should have do the business in the season).

Though it hurts me to say it, Arsenal are currently a better club than us in every way except for the fans. They have more ambition; they have a better manager; they have a better board; they have better, quicker, stronger, more athletic and younger players; they even have a better youth system and they play much better football. I want people at the helm of our club, manager and board, who are as hurt by that as I am (not the token “I’m a Spurs fan” stuff) and will do whatever they need to do to give our amazingly loyal support, something to really shout about.

Not everyone realises that Josef Stalin was the originator of 5-year plans. He said: “we are 50-100 years behind the industrialised nations of the world, we must make good this gap in 5-10 years…either we do this or they crush us”. Back to football, Arsenal are about 10 years in front of us, we should want to cut that gap in 1 year, Newcastle have done it, Everton have done, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, need to want to do it, too.

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Disclaimer: Please note the words on this page are the opinion of Spurs supporters and are just that, opinions, not facts and are nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur Football club PLC. Just a supporter having his say, nothing more nothing less