Let’s get the sad stuff over with quickly: Spurs have got rid of yet another manager, sacking Thomas Frank after eight months or so in the job. Well, surely, that’s more than enough time to sort out a basket case of a club with more than a dozen first-team players out injured, isn’t it? Not forgetting a captain, a World Cup winner no less, who is a red card waiting to happen and is now sitting out four games, all crucial, as we struggle to keep a tiny, increasingly uncomfortable gap between us and the relegation places.
We finished fourth from bottom last season but were never in danger of going down because the bottom three were so far adrift. We also won a European trophy, the first bit of silverware for nearly 20 years and still sacked Aussie Ange because the league form was so dire. It’s still dire, even worse if anything and Frank’s last straw was Tuesday night’s 2-1 loss, in the pouring rain, at home to Newcastle, another side not exactly brimming with confidence. However, a visit to “Dr Tottenham” sent the Geordies home feeling a whole lot perkier.
I didn’t go because I decided it was a better idea to spend the night at the sister’s, having dinner (a delicious venison stew) with friends up from south Wales. Oh, just as a point of interest, no one bought my tickets on ticket exchange, probably because we’re so bad on our home patch but also because the kick-off times make it so hard for a lot of people to get home after the game. A friend who was at the game suffered even more on the train home to Derby because he found himself in a carriage with what he uncharitably called “moron students”, a mixture of Newcastle and Leeds (2-all draw at Chelsea) fans making a racket… Such are the trials and tribulations of a travelling supporter.
Anyway, we watched the footie on my iPad thanks to a friend’s Sky Go and the others just about tolerated my agonised swearing and despairing shouts of “Run, run, close him down, don’t let him shoot…..aaaagh….” There was, I’m ashamed to say, lots of unedifying effing and blinding on my part before I handed the iPad over to the others, all Manchester United fans, to watch their late kick-off at West Ham.
Anxiety as the seconds tick away but United are on the attack.
Nastily, I wanted the United fans to suffer too and West Ham, who looked doomed to relegation before they won at our place a few weeks ago and started a revival, went 1-nil up. Then, belatedly, I realised that three points for the Hammers might be a nail in our coffin and in the 96th minute United equalised. Hooray. I suppose.
Happiness and relief. The arm on the left had won some money as well!
Well, next up, on Sunday week, at our place, it’s Arsenal, our deadliest rivals, who are having a brilliant season, top of the table and possibly the best team in Europe at the moment. They’re looking a wee bit wobbly as the end of the season, with all those tantalising trophies glittering, gets ever nearer but not that wobbly. If they win everything and we get relegated -it doesn’t bear thinking about.
On the BBC website, Ian Poulter, of Ryder Cup fame but now of LIV, a mad Arsenal fan, took on Chris Sutton, footballer turned pundit, at a few predictions, including Spurs v Newcastle. They both went for 1-all, which was very kind of them, especially considering that Poulter has a nice line in insults when it comes to Spurs. Even though he was an Arsenal fan from the beginning – “My dad just dragged the shirt straight over my head and that was it” – he had trials at Spurs when he was 13.
“I’m so glad that never worked out,” he said. “I had two left feet and it turned out everyone else Spurs have signed since has got two left feet as well….”
The club motto is Audere Est Facere – to dare is to do – but there are many, including Ange, who doubt there’s enough daring, let alone derring-do, about the place at the moment. So, to cheer myself up I rooted out the book celebrating the majestic Double side that won the League title and the FA Cup in 1961, playing beautiful football. It’s not all in black and white, there’s some colour and I suppose it’s why we have our delusions of grandeur and why most subsequent teams are doomed to failure….
Notice how few players were involved!
Really, football, which has taken up the whole blog, more or less, should be well down the pecking order at the moment because everywhere you look there’s fantastic international sport at full pelt: The T20 Cricket World Cup – did you see how close Nepal got to beating England and then lost to Italy; the Six Nations Rugby – could be tough for us Celts; golf in California and Saudi Arabia – still not sure how I feel about the women being there; and of course the Winter Olympics in Italy at Milan-Cortina with all that curling, skiing, skating, skeleton, ice hockey and snowboarding. The terminology is something else and I’m lagging behind, just about remembering that a goofy stance is right foot forward on the snowboard.
It’s exhausting and mesmerising all at once and is keeping me out of the rain.
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