Spurs v Arsenal. She Gets It

October 31, 2009February 9, 2010 / Alan / Leave a comment

A few continuity gaps in the blog over the past couple of weeks. Work is the curse of the blogging classes. Not that the net has been humming with dismay and angst. Bobby Gee, we salute you.

Now the tenders are complete, the meeting over and the reports written, the important business of life has my full attention. During this barren spell, the ethos of TOMM has never been better evidenced. Evidenced, See, I’m still partly in work jargon mode. Evidenced isn’t really a word or at least it didn’t used to be. However in my world it has become a mantra. Everything must be proved, documented, show your working out. So evidenced it is.

Lost in the labyrinthine complexity of business plans, continuity assurances and probity safeguards, Tottenham was the guiding light. I can share with you, my friends, that I don’t know what the flip we are going to do if swine flu carries us all away but that’s not what we told the London Borough of Haringey.

Because through all this Tottenham really was always on my mind. My intense note taking in the parliament building? The Everton preview. The final tender? The red presentation folder rejected for a more appropriate shade of navy. Never red. After one meeting I was complimented on my prompt distribution of notes and the impassive authority of my little psion notebook on the desk has contributed to my status as meeting chair. Relief. Before sending, I had remembered to cut all the notes about the Arsenal game from the minutes.

And there was market research. In the pub following the most po-faced of debates, my good friend Adriana, who has been enormously encouraging of my efforts despite having visited this blog as often as she would leave the house in Primark underwear, with characteristically delightful mischief described me as a writer to someone who is doing proper research for a proper book. With pages. Cringing, I was forced to describe my pony efforts to an enthusiastic young football innocent. A pause. ” Tottenham On My Mind’, she weighed the words carefully, out loud. “What a great name. I suppose that’s how football is if you are a fan.” Doesn’t know her overlapping full backs from her catenatcio, she got it. Always on my mind.

Never more so than on the eve of the north London derby. I can remember the times, which to me do not seem so long ago, when the most repeated statistic about Spurs and Arsenal was that over the years the head to head record of wins and losses was almost symmetrical. Since then, they have pulled away, if not out of sight quite yet. Now we have a team capable of challenging their dominance, or more accurately we have the players if not quite their teamwork. However, that resilience is more fragile than ever. Against West Ham last week they were fine when all was going well but crumbled as soon as a challenge was mounted. They could have easily lost after being well on top for two thirds of the game. We must keep playing, keep it tight, attack to pressure their back four and not fall apart if we go behind. We will have another chance.

Problem is, will we take them? This blog has concentrated on our defensive frailties but over the last two games, we have been so wasteful in front of goal. Keane missed so much on Tuesday and Pav was in another dimension. Or crap, whichever you prefer. In a match where we are likely to have few opportunities, we can’t be so profligate.

Bentley must play following his fine display against Everton. I was pleased for him. It was a pleasure to see the fear visibly evaporate as the game went on, although despite his warm words of praise, Harry could not have been pleased with the ball juggling flash of the last ten minutes. Mark Hughes would not have tolerated that at Blackburn. Maybe Bentley needs that firm hand, but Crouch will prosper if those crosses arrive whipping and curling from the right.

Outwardly brash and cocky, Bentley’s mind has been on his business and music interests as much as on training. A round of media appearances shortly after his transfer signalled his agent’s plan to launch him as a celebrity player. At Spurs they call him ‘Becks’. However, this masks a psychological vulnerability that has left him unable to challenge Lennon’s domination of our right side. Used to being an automatic selection, he has not known how to react and as a result his attitude in training has been poor. He took his chance on Tuesday, admittedly without being pushed too hard by the opponents, so now maybe today and next Saturday to decide if he will remain a Spurs player.

Without Lennon, JD and Modric, we are deprived of the pace and creativity that are the key to victory. JJ will surely return as Hudd will be too slow for this one. Despite Keano’s form, two up front will maintain the pressure and cover Vermaelan’s forward runs.

Spurs Bring Us Together in Good Times and Bad

October 9, 2009February 9, 2010 / Alan / 6 Comments

A version of this piece first appeared in My Eyes Have Seen The Glory

Chris Parker, loving husband, doting father, loyal friend, died this time last year. A few weeks before his sudden passing, family and close friends gathered in a secluded pub garden to celebrate the christening of his first child. Under a fierce sun, we basked in the warmth of his naïve delight in the virtues of fatherhood and friendship, a good natured young man marvelling at the discovery of family life as if he were an Elizabethan explorer returning from the New World with tales of strange creatures, heroic deeds and untold riches.

We never really got to know each other – he’s related on my wife’s side of the family – but it’s peculiar how much you find out about someone only when they’ve died. Shortly before the funeral, I discovered that Chris was a lifelong Spurs fan. So is his father, and many of his mates. Our snatched conversations had never progressed beyond bland pleasantries and for some inexplicable reason we’d never mentioned football, decidedly odd as I can recall who people support long after I have forgotten their names.

The funeral of a young person bears excruciating poignancy. We mourn with desperate intensity both the tragic loss of life and the passing of hopes and dreams, ours as much as theirs, unfulfilled and laid to rest. Emotions veer crazily between a surreal this-can’t-be happening quality and the cold reality in the centre of this Catholic church, a six foot wooden box.

It’s a struggle to engage as the ceremony floats around me like the incense swirling in the breeze. I want to demonstrate respect and sympathy but I’m an outsider here, a non-believer, so I stick to respectful silence. It works. I know, I’ve practiced hard lately, more practice than I can stand.

The congregation cling to the priest’s consoling words but I find no solace in the notion that somehow this is part of the plan for a better universe, only anger and frustration at a life cut short. Absentmindedly I turn to the final page of the Order of Service. Suddenly the organ strikes up a familiar tune. I join in ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah’ with all my heart, my singing lusty and utterly tuneless. The shameless substitution of ‘Spurs’ for all references in the chorus to the Lord seals my eternal damnation.

I look around. I’m not the only one. Inhibitions shatter, grown men proud and strong break down. Chris’s spirit is amongst us. We begin to grieve, openly and fully, for the first time. It does us all good.

Afterwards we make introductions with unabashed candour. Men aren’t good at sharing feelings but in football we find a means of expression. This maddening, frustrating and wonderful club brought us closer just at the moment when we needed it most. The game creates and sustains lasting relationships. Together in our allegiance and our grief, we could communicate with people who were no longer strangers.

The drink flowed, Chris would have approved. We chatted, laughed and shed a tear. Chris, I wish we had talked more, but now rest in peace. Football is a healer.

Spurs v Chelsea. Share My Pain

September 19, 2009February 9, 2010 / Alan / 9 Comments

Whatever the result, past glories mean that matches against Manchester United are amongst the most eagerly anticipated of any season. And so, a week later, to the one I most dread, Chelsea away.

My abiding abhorrence of Chelsea dates back to my childhood in west London. In 1967 Chelsea’s’ resurgence took them to the Cup Final and as the bandwagon passed through my primary school playground, it was standing room only. In those days the staple method of showing allegiance or just gathering numbers for a quick kick-about was to place your arms across a mate’s shoulders and march around, chanting the name of the chosen activity. As others joined each end, the line grew longer. Movement was sideways, rather than a prepubescent conga line, so usually some altercations ensued as innocents got in the way. Many kids joined these lines purely for the purpose of inflicting pain on their fellow school mates. Football, country dancing or maypole frolics, who cares when the opportunity to whack a classmate presented itself.

On the Thursday lunchtime before the Cup Final, two lines started, one Chelsea and one Spurs. The Chelsea line gradually became more visible as the chanting increased in volume and attracted more attention. Then the herd effect came into play as the sheep and the psychos linked up with the vocal minority. I guess Goebbels considered similar tactics in the 30s. Within a few short moments, the playground was empty save for one extended line of over a hundred interlocked kids. And five Spurs fans, including me. The phalanx turned by the shelters, with surprising dexterity manoeuvred round the drinking fountains and came towards us, as solid as a Roman legion, a hundred pairs of eyes intent on their prey and the scent of blood in their nostrils.

What happened next was not pleasant, and suffice to say Mr Watson and the school caretaker will forever have my gratitude for stubbing out their sly fags and rushing from the back of the kitchens to rescue us. However, come Monday morning, I would have my revenge. I planned the moment carefully, from about 5pm on the Saturday in fact , I thought about little else, apart that is from when I was endlessly recreating Frank Saul’s winner in the back yard. In the end, I decided against glorious triumphalism, accompanied by loud chanting, flags and finger pointing, not really me. No, I went for smug, profound satisfaction. Eye contact yes, the knowing smile, merely a questioning raised eyebrow. ‘Was there a game on Saturday?’ Secure in the knowledge that as just about the only Spurs fan to openly come out of closet, all eyes would be me, I strolled into the playground on Monday morning, my scarf discreetly visible over the collar of my green blazer, a bright and breezy air with all the joys of spring.

Nothing. Not a thing. Every scenario that the mind of an impressionable 11 year old could conceive had been meticulously rehearsed. Each jibe would be parried by a devastatingly witty riposte followed swiftly by a telling stabbing thrust of my own, right into the heart. ‘All right Fish?’ was the closest I got to any football related conversation. Never mind; for the rest of the week, in the playground games I was Jimmy Robertson, little did they know.

Of course they had all melted away, to next year become QPR fans, as our other local team reached Wembley. Amidst the scuffed leather and dust of playground concrete, I learned a lasting lesson about football. Mine was a true, everlasting passion.

I suspect that the modern crop (or should that be plague?) of Chelsea will be as loyal as my schoolmates, their bonds to the club as temporary as the lunchbreak line. When the Russian gets bored or ends up on a gulag, or this aging team breaks up, as the Park Lane taunted a couple of years ago: ‘Next year, you’ll support Man U”.

Not entirely fair. There are two distinct types of Chelsea fan, pre and post Abramovich, whose attitudes are so disparate, it often sounds as if they support different teams. Most BA fans (Before Abramovich) enjoy their success, justifiably so, sometimes with a little guilt and always grateful for the good times. Because they have been through the rough as well as the smooth, they have a sense of perspective. They are easy to identify because you can have a conversation about football with them.

Some have become disillusioned and alienated as the character of their club has changed beyond recognition. One long-standing Chelsea mate of mine is always up for a bit of banter but at the same time he feels more cut off from his club than ever before. Once a regular visitor to the bridge, he now takes his kids a few times a year, preferring to have a season ticket at his local non-league team, Welling United, where he is welcomed and is part of things.

On the other hand, Chelsea AD fans (Abramovich the Deity) are the most loathsome, arrogant bunch I have ever come across in the 40 years that I have watched football on a regular basis. The divine right of 18^th century French kings to rule as the instrument of God on earth has nothing in comparison with the hubris of these people. Utter superiority is their birthright. Success is a given. History starts in the early 21^st century. Before then, the football world was a primordial soup.

Callers to 606 are perhaps not the most accurate cross-section of the fans of any club, and goodness knows some Spurs idiots have rung up over the years, but the righteous indignation of 2 Chelsea AD fans who rang last season stays with me. One from the Chelsea AD heartlands (Bournemouth) was troubled by his team’s performance. They had only won 5-0. The ‘only’ was his word, not mine. The other lambasted his manager and his squad, rubbish. They were only third. Their manager, 10 games into his job, was not worthy of the post. He had only won the World Cup. The ‘only’ was his word, not mine. Both meant it wholeheartedly, because they really do not know any different.

This supercilious superiority, reflected also in the behaviour of several of their players, creates the most unpleasant atmosphere of the season. I have no intention of going anywhere near the Bridge, and significantly neither does my son who travels all over the country, yet after a couple of years of insults and goading is going to give this one a miss. Chelsea have banned us from bringing flags with the word ‘yid’ but they will not take action when their ghastly fans make with the anti-semitism and the gas noises. Maybe they wish to gas their owner, who knows. Whatever we think about them, you don’t get that with the Arse.

And so to the match itself. We cannot afford the luxury of an attacking formation, like the one against United, and Keane cannot play in midfield. On the other hand, we must not sit back and let them come to us. In other circumstances, Crouch would be a useful target man to hold the ball up as we move from predominantly defensive posture into attack, but with Defoe, who must start, this would mean two up front with potential weakness in the centre of the pitch.

Therefore, I reckon Keane will start with Defoe and drop back into midfield when we lose possession. Jenas must be given a run in midfield alongside Wilson, and Wilson must stay on his feet more. Chelsea’s diamond means we must carefully cover the space in front of our back four. Equally, they are vulnerable to width – please welcome Aaron Lennon! He must stay wide and attack on the flanks but track back on Cole. He’s in for a tough afternoon and that’s where the game could be won or lost.

On the left, Niko looks the most likely but he is seriously unfit. I wonder if Harry is considering a tactical masterstroke by playing someone out of position to cover over there. Will Bentley appear to seek salvation?