The Season That Keeps On Giving

May 17, 2010 / Alan / 20 Comments

2009/10 – the season that just keeps on giving. Bathed in a warm rosy glow, I’m still reliving the great moments of the last month or so. It’s a feeling that I hope never ends.

I’ve rhapsodised about our miraculous achievements and swooned at the mere thought of players who have not only played scintillating football but have in different ways overcome through sheer bloody minded determination handicaps that prevented them from showing their true potential. Mostly mental, some physical, Dawson, King, Bale, Gomes, Huddlestone, in this age of money-motivated mercenaries, all could have sat back and waited for a lucrative transfer but their pride in themselves and in their club left them bursting for a chance. All of them took it, all have earned my undying admiration.

Over the season I’ve analysed the players and tactics, as I’m fond of doing, but now, at the close, I’ve watched Spurs regularly since 1967 and there’s a couple of simple things to say, so we realise just what we have, to savour it all the more.

The coverage of the modern game is so comprehensive. We see everything in slow motion, 37 times and only then do the pundits solemnly adjudicate, but this doesn’t mean that we see everything clearer. Of course the game is won and lost in fractions of a second, in subtlety and nuance, but too often we end up with unrealistically excessive expectations of what human beings are capable of. This creates an unnecessarily critical perspective, which in turn detracts from the pleasure we take from football and footballers.

Listen next time to the analyses of any match by any of the major TV stations. I guarantee that negatives rather than positives will predominate. It’s not about what players did, it’s where they failed. In particular we have the cult of the penalty. Usually they go straight to the replays of those given or denied. Match-turning moments they may be, but they are just that, moments in a much wider spectacle that ebbs and flows over 90 minutes. Yet you would be forgiven for believing that football is primarily about the creation of penalties or penalty appeals, rather than a stunningly beguiling mix creativity, nerve and physicality.

This is all part of the game, but please remember to enjoy what you have, because you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. Younger players suffer particularly. I wrote about this a few months ago http://wp.me/pzmOo-7c – a few games in, they’re learning and making mistakes but find themselves virtually written off in many quarters.

It’s been our privilege as Spurs fans to see some cracking football this season, as well as some total dross, but enjoy the good times for all they are worth. Know what you have and take the utmost pleasure in being part of it. And in that spirit, no analysis, merely a few straightforward comments.

Ledley King is one of the best centre halves I have ever seen. He would go straight into my best ever Spurs team. His intelligence and timing is peerless in the current Premiership and my only sadness is that his injury has prevented him from playing more frequently.

Gareth Bale is one of the best prospects in any position that I have ever seen from someone of his age. The combination of skill on the ball, pace and power is a force of nature. He has much to learn but if he fulfils anything like his full potential, he is a world-beater.

Heurelho Gomes – I would not swap him for any keeper in the Premier League. Luka Modric – the player to build a team around. Top, top quality.

So my first season of blogging has come to an end. I’ll carry on over the summer, something at least once a week. And maybe get round to updating the Harry quotes page…There will be a few more thoughts about this season – I’ve not talked enough about Harry lately – plus anything else that crops up that is Tottenham related.

There may a few additions to ‘Always On My Mind’, tales of footballing obsession, and you may have noticed through the teary beery CL haze that there’s a World Cup on. I’m part of the Guardian fans’ network and no doubt will shoehorn in any Spurs reference, however tenuous.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has read the site this season, in particular my sincere gratitude to those who have bothered to comment, especially those who do so regularly and so cogently. Check out the comments sections – often people have taken the time and trouble to write extended and insightful pieces. Ever thought of starting a blog? Anyone can do it….

Regards,

Alan

Love Hangover

May 10, 2010 / Alan / 9 Comments

On the morning this season’s fixtures were announced, I was on a train from London to Cardiff. Rolling through Bristol, a northern voice in front of me laughed into his mobile: ‘Great, Spurs on the last day of the season – they never have anything to play for.” It was only later that I worked out that he was a Burnley fan. As it turns out, he was right, but not quite in the way he expected.

On the surface, all the hallmarks of classic Spurs. Two up then falling apart to vastly inferior opposition. But you know what, I couldn’t care less. Easy for me to say, I wasn’t there, didn’t lay out hard earned cash and get caught up in some of the travel problems that befell our returning bravehearts. And I’m usually the first to state emphatically that whatever the circumstances, professional standards, pride in the shirt or the need to earn their inflated salaries should be enough to ensure maximum effort. So understand that I’m breaking a habit of a lifetime here. At the end of the season, we have done enough.

I’m still suffering from my love hangover, and as a woman who knows about these things once said, if there’s a cure for this, I don’t want it. The thought of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in the draw for the Champions League is simply mind-blowing. It’s not something that I dared to hope for, even as the season reached its later stages. I’ve not really talked too much about it in TOMM, as frankly I was doing the old ‘game at a time routine’, partly because that’s the right way to go about it, for fans and the team, partly to obscure the terrifying, exhilarating prospect that it might actually be possible. It’s only in the last two weeks that I have allowed myself to look at the numbers, at the status of other teams, hence the ‘7 points from 3 games’ mantra to which I adhered with such religious zeal that when the moment finally came, it passed me by (see my last piece).

So this past few days, I’ve been all Brady Bunch hallo clouds hallo sky what a wonderful world. It feels so good, I don’t want it to stop. That’s the beauty of a successful end to the season, there’s nothing to get in the way until mid-August. Not that I know much about successful ends to seasons, not lately anyway. I have a good memory, though.

On the boards and in the blogs, there’s some dissatisfaction with yesterday, and I respect that. There’s talk of rebuilding the squad, who we should go for, and that’s important. But later. Not now. Enjoy it. Enjoy the moment with every fibre of your being. Relish every ounce of joy, relive every game, as many moments as you can recall, who you were with, where you were, the nine goals or the Dawson block, Danny from thirty and Gareth from three, or Benny falling over for no reason. All part of this rich season. Trust me: I’ve been around for a while now and these moments don’t come around too often. The new term will be here soon enough, so don’t wish away the time.

Another reason to be cheerful is the plaudits that belatedly we are receiving in the press. I’ll review the season in the blog over the next week or so, but Harry has won the Barclay’s Premiership Manager of the Year (although surely Roy Hodgson will win an award), our players are being praised and suddenly everything is good about Spurs. Our attacking style, our finances, we are the club others want to be.

Of particular satisfaction for me is the attention rightfully due to a good few of our players who for different reasons have not always been in the limelight. The effort and application shown by Michael Dawson is nothing short of heroic. It’s all very well praising his form, absolutely and he should be considered for England, but we know the determination and dedication behind it. Only we truly appreciate his bloody-minded focus on seizing his chance, coming back after injury to a background of mild doubt about his long-term future at the top. Only we can really see how the passion burns inside. One of ours.

Tom Huddlestone, clumsy and awkward on the move with the grace of a panther on the ball. Forgetful and wayward, at other times he passes like no other in the league. He too has come of age. Simply, the team plays better when he’s there. So many games, so much frustration, now he’s taken his chance, not a sudden opportunity like Dawson’s but one of consistency. He’s a starter now and that brings the best from him. One of ours.

And finally, the mighty Ledley King. They all want to praise him now but not so long ago, he was a forgotten man, written off by so many, a crock condemned with sympathy, but not here. Can’t train, can’t run, but he wants to be there so he’s changed his style to the most economical of strides, gliding over the surface. The knees may be gone but the mind is a diamond, sparkling and clear. He just knows what to do, and when. Only we have felt his pain, his agony as he troops off dispiritedly, so often, then back he comes in a week, month maybe, but back he comes. Only we know how good he is, a true Tottenham great. One of my all-time Spurs favourites. One of ours.

Thank You, and I Love You All

May 6, 2010 / Alan / 8 Comments

Not a good day for me. Granted, Tottenham Hotspur won through to fourth place in the league and qualified for the Champions League, but nothing else went well.

An astonishing, remarkable, stratospheric achievement, its magnificence shining across time and the universe like a supernova. And you were alive to see it, maybe you were there, you lucky so and so, let me shake you by the hand. It may not have quite the historical impact of the death of Kennedy or the fascination of Lady’s Di’s car crash, but in the decades to come you will remember exactly where you were when Spurs made it to the CL. Me, I will don a satisfied smile, lift my grandchildren onto my lap and looking into their wide, innocent eyes truthfully be able to answer: “Under the Dr Marten’s stand at Upton Park”.

Yesterday morning I woke early and wrote a short piece for the blog. I couldn’t sleep and had to note it all down – this place is called Tottenham On My Mind because it always is. It was the usual blather, a bit of analysis wrapped in an over-ripe call to arms, the core of blood and sweat with the romantic tinge plus a hint of destiny that is the way I see these big games.

Then in a moment it was gone. I toggled, it deleted. The first time wordpress has let me down. Busy day at work, no time to start again, or inclination for that matter. In the scheme of things it’s nothing, a half-life as long as it takes to drop from the first page of Newsnow, but it knocked me sideways for most of the morning. Mind you, concentration was difficult enough as the hours passed and kick-off approached.

Ah yes, kick-off…. My wife and her family support West Ham. We handle it in a manner befitting our intelligence and maturity. We don’t talk about it. Spurs – West Ham matches do not exist once I walk through the door, and as regular readers will know, I expend enough energy despising Chelsea so the Hammers don’t bother me too much in that sense. They are long-standing, loyal fans and until recently had season tickets, but then life changed, for the worse frankly, so they seldom go these days.

A while ago, they spotted an end-of-season testimonial for their long-serving youth manager and booked the tickets. She is disabled and I’m the only person who could take her, so with her daughter and grandson, off we went. The Wednesday prior to the last weekend of the league seemed a pretty safe bet, at the time…

Another time I’ll tell you about my lifetime of effort to watch Spurs, the promises broken, arrangements altered, relationships harmed, weddings missed. So trust me when I say, this was not the moment to add to that long list. So the 90 minutes passed for me in the disabled section of the main stand, in the front row but as my wife is also quite small, she couldn’t see properly over the advertising hoardings and so enjoyed the bizarre spectacle of seeing a game from the knees up.

My lovely daughter kept me well supplied with news via text and all in all, I think I handled it pretty well. I felt like throwing up with nerves for the entire time but resisted, so well done me. The final score came through as we were walking out and amidst the crowd of beery Hammers, I punched the air in silent delight.

Home late but it was hard to sleep, what with all the excitement. I switched on the TV and – Sky Plus had failed. So no comments or analysis today dear readers. I’m watching the meagre highlights as I write – couldn’t sleep again – but I don’t really care. On a day like this, how can any Spurs fan be down.

One final consequence of obsession. Deprived of the endless stream of drivel that the pundits spout, I was left to my own thoughts. Since the United game, I have fixed in my head the following mantra that I repeated over and over, my comfort blanket – 7 points from 3 games and no one can catch us. It’s in our hands, 7 points from 3 games.

So ingrained has this become that I even repeated it after the game, just one more point I told them, ignoring the exultant texts that I was receiving. Then, late at night in the silence of the dozing car, on a lonely motorway, it suddenly dawned on me that we had actually made it. I’m aware that this sounds bonkers, but genuinely I had not done the math. Perhaps subconsciously I did not believe that we would defeat City. I was so focussed and fixated that at the moment of our glory, I was still wrapped in anxiety about this coming Sunday.

No time to rhapsodise further, in print anyway. Just a reminder that on February 10th we lost 1-0 at Wolves in an appalling performance that signalled, surely, the end of our hopes of success. Since then – remarkable, astonishing, magnificent, glorious, wondrous. To every single one of them, thank you.

If you see a slightly portly bloke walking around central London today, wearing a suit, battered Spurs baseball cap and a navy cashmere scarf, come up to me and say ‘hallo’. To anyone who works with me and is going to my meeting today, well look out because I’ll be on fire. And to all Spurs fans out there, wherever in the world you may be, have a grand day, enjoy every last second and I love you all. If I knew where you lived, I’d come round and give you a hug personally.

Morris Keston – Superfan

May 4, 2010June 6, 2010 / Alan / 4 Comments

Imagine sitting, say, on a train or in a pub. You’re having a relaxing chat about football with one of your best mates. He’s brought along a couple of other people, you’re introduced and get on really well with them. The conversation and the beer flows, a good time is had by all. It’s a familiar enough story for most of us, one of the pleasures of being a fan, and something we share with long-time Spurs fan Morris Keston. The only difference is that he’s sitting next to Bobby Moore, who’s brought along half the 1966 World Cup squad for company.

Since he began supporting Tottenham Hotspur in the mid forties, Morris Keston has watched them nearly 3000 times. He’s followed them all over the world, whether it be a major final or a meaningless friendly, not that any Spurs match is meaningless for Morris. He curses his triple by-pass operation because it broke his run of watching every home game since the early fifties, but he missed just the one game. Not only that, during this period he’s known most of the Spurs and England players and counts everyone from Moore, Greaves and Hurst through to Jennings, Venables and Crooks as personal friends. You name them, he name-drops. The book’s title is no publisher’s hyperbole – Superfan he most certainly is.

Most Spurs fans of my generation have probably heard of Keston. Often interviewed over the years, he’s featured in the Glory Game, Hunter Davies’ classic inside story of the club’s season in the mid 70s, where he incurs the wrath of the board because the players chose to attend his ’67 Cup Final celebration party rather than the club’s official function. I always regarded him with a mixture of envy and resentment. Although I’d kill for the chance to mix freely with my heroes, as an equal, I begrudged the wealth that bought the travel, the parties and, frankly, access to the club. The reality is somewhat different. Keston is indeed a successful businessman but he started from nothing. Brought up in the Jewish community of the East End, he was evacuated during the war but suffered from malnutrition because the care he received was so poor, a not untypical story that remains largely hidden because it is at odds with the myths of Britain in wartime. His mother figured he would be safer in the comfort of his family, despite the rigours of the Blitz, so he spent the rest of the war in London, earning a scholarship and beginning a lifelong obsession with football. Leaving school at 14, he was sacked from his first job in a barber’s after he refused to work on Saturday afternoons. Eventually he got into the schmutter business, schelpping around the country for a fortnight at a time, taking in third division reserve games and any football that he could, and co-ordinating his return to London with the home fixture list.

There’s little more about these fascinating early years here, a shame in my view but then again that’s not the story. Or rather stories: this book is a series of entertaining tales and anecdotes about Keston’s relationship with football and the people in the game. They are mostly Spurs related but not all. He knew directors and players at other clubs clubs including Chelsea and Stoke, and was personal friends with almost all the Boys of ’66. Oh, and for good measure Frank Sinatra and Muhammad Ali. As you do.

Some remind me of those speech bubbles in Roy of the Rovers, where they begin by summarising the plot in case you missed last week’s episode- Voice in the Crowd – ‘Melchester have to win this 3-0 after the bruising encounter in Poland where Blackie was butchered then sent off’. Second Voice: ‘Yes, and the club will go bust if we don’t reach the next round and Roy’s girlfriend was run over by the team bus’. But never fear – like any good storyteller Keston is quickly off and running. It’s an easy, pleasant read that rattles along, and will undoubtedly carry you along with it.

His access was astounding. Moore, Hurst, Greaves and others regularly popped in for a for a cup of tea during the 1966 tournament. He stayed in the same hotels and travelled on the same planes when Spurs and England went abroad, and could get a seat in the director’s box for most games, the only exception being at the Lane, where the Wale family who ran the club in the 60s and 70s regarded him with suspicion. He sat alongside Terry Venables (Uncle Terry to his children), holding a seven figure cheque as they waited in vain for a call that would have transferred ownership of the club from Irving Scholar. Business and financial advice to a legion of players, chairing testimonial committees, negotiating transfers, all in a day’s work. And those parties.

Perhaps the most telling anecdote comes not from the author himself but from Graham Souness, who Keston helped out as a cocky 16 year old tyro. Now Morris had nothing to gain from that, no prestige or kudos. No one knew who the hell this anonymous apprentice was. He did so because he wanted to, because he cared about the club and the young players. And yes, the parties, but the players came round for a cuppa and a slice of his long-suffering wife’s apple crumble. He entertained in his home, with home-made cooking, and although it’s not acknowledged specifically here, that’s the real secret of his appeal. He emerges not as a glory hunter but as a homespun, friendly and generous bloke, often a little star-struck, who is deeply in love with football and Tottenham in particular.

It will appeal more to the older Spurs fan and it’s great fun. There’s little analysis of how the game has changed over the years – that’s not the aim of the book. However, ultimately it’s a tale of a bygone, arguably better era, where you could turn up on the turnstile and get in, where players were open and willing to chat rather than be surrounded by a forcefield of PR and agents, where players understood that they and the fans are one and the same, not a different class.

The Amazing Life of Morris Keston – Superfan by Morris Keston and Nick Hawkins Published by Vision Sports Publishing.

Look out for book signings with Venables, Jennings, Hurst and others in and around London