WIN a Copy of Spurs Cult Heroes!

March 24, 2010 / Alan / 2 Comments

Win a copy of ‘Spurs Cult Heroes’ by Michael Lacquiere, known to the likes of you and I as the author of the fab blog All Action No Plot.

The stories of 20 fans’ icons, the book is often remarkable and always entertaining. I hope there’s not too much about fake boobs, though.

My first ever freebie as a blogger and I am giving you, dear reader, the chance to win it. Not that I haven’t been offered items, oh no, but selflessly I’ve turned them all down, keeping TOMM advert-free and as pure and innocent as a new born babe, with a bottom to match.

In order to send this to you in pristine condition, I’ve not been able to review it, although I might peek inside after buying a pair of those white gloves that David Dimbleby uses to handle medieval manuscripts or ancient maps with the land of the dog-headed men, now known as Chatham. If it is half as good as the blog, then it will be the best read of the year.

To win a copy, answer these questions. Replies to tottenhamonmymind@gmx.co.uk, closing date next Wednesday March 31^st at 8pm. First one out the hat wins. I’ve always wanted to pick a name out of a hat, you know.

The Hat. Just think, your name could be in it this time next week...

Spurs have been blessed with many cult heroes, but can you identify three more that you so nearly adored but in the end they never quite made it. We were seriously after these players but the deals fell through.

A bona fide stone cold hero for country and club, in the mid 60s he could not wait to join Spurs and get away from the London team with which he will forever be associated. But his board said ‘no’ and punished him by keeping his wages down.
This saintly hero was rumoured to be on his way for a couple of years and even the bloke behind me confirmed the deal. His style was perfect for Spurs but then his fiancée said she didn’t want to come to London, so he stayed a one club man on the south coast. All I can is, I hope she was worth it.
This man achieved iconic status in the 70s but for one of our bitter rivals. Medicals completed, he was on the point of joining us when one of the cult heroes featured in the book pinched him at the last moment. See how it all fits together?

Monday Meanderings. And Meditation on a Fine Weekend.

March 22, 2010March 22, 2010 / Alan / 4 Comments

I won’t lie to you. Because of a family bash, I missed Saturday’s match and I’ve not tried to confabulate an in-depth, incisive match report on the basis of MOTD and Football First. All right then, you forced it out of me, even then I dozed off for a moment or two.

Not my side of the family, mind. Good people and a fine time was had by all, but 3pm on a Saturday, the very idea. My kids know better, let me tell you. I’m so proud…

But Monday is a fine time to lean back, suck a thoughtful tooth, look the world in the eye and say, ‘Hallo world, I’m doing very nicely, thank you.’ Not a classic but there’s a great deal of satisfaction to be found in the way we refused to give ground as the throws were launched and the tackles flew in. They thought Luka would go under, that his mind was as frail as his body looks, but how wrong could anyone be? They put him down, he picked himself up. Riding a tackle is a skill in itself and Modric is a master. That took some determination; it’s not that long since his leg was broken but he never flinched. Bale too; he’s growing up before our very eyes.

The sound of twanging hamstrings is the soundtrack to our lives. As Pav went off, that completed my Crocks XI, as featured in my last post. Not quite the same feeling as completing the Spurs page in a Pannini sticker album, mind you.

Gudjohnson was given his chance and he took it with two memorable moments that stand out even in this season of fine football. Shoulder to shoulder with the defender, a man previously known for his guile did not waver and then smashed the ball home. Net bulging, no messing, so good. Then the step over, the pressure brought a moment of total poise and in a blur Kranjcar followed up. He too smashed. Or lashed. A fine goal superbly taken. His ability to come off his wing and enter the box could be crucial as we reach the season’s climax.

Although Eidur has been off the pace (and judging by the timber he’s carrying on the carbohydrates), he’s gradually found his fitness and finally some match sharpness. The speed is not what it was but the brain is still fine-tuned to what’s going on around him. He’s a clever player who can both score and bring others into the game, and his leave for the second was a simply stunning example of this talent.

A few scary moments at the back, and without wishing to puncture this blissful contentment, some yawning gaps appeared once or twice and Gomes’ looked like he thought he had been transported back in time to last year’s debacle. I’d prefer not to rely on the opposition missing chances, but then again they should get some better players.

BAE is an excellent full back but loses it at times, for no apparent reason. It flashed through his mind that he would be beaten in the air, and so pushed in a moment of panic. Perhaps not so crazy: all-in wrestling was apparently permissible in the box in the Chelsea-Inter game, as was pushing Gareth Bale.

He should take lessons from Corluka, who is superb at nudging his man without conceding a foul. But wait – the only reason he’s likely to take Charlie to one side is in a dark alley to punch his lights out. Over to Harry this morning:

Redknapp said: ‘Charlie (Corluka) was upset that he didn’t come back and do his job. Benoit is a strange boy. He’s a bit highly strung and hardly speaks English. If you say something to him he’s hard work. He hasn’t improved his English in the couple of years he’s been here.’

Asked why the player had walked off on his own, Redknapp replied: ‘He didn’t know the result! He probably thought we’d drawn.

‘He’ll turn up Wednesday and play great, but he won’t know we’re playing Fulham until someone tells him. That’s how he is. He’s unreal. He walks off and he’s thinking about the music he’s going to play when he puts his headphones on.’

Potentially a manager’s nightmare but Redknapp has handled him well. It’s an interesting point: in this world of badge-kissing and the clamour for commitment, Benny goes his own way and is he any less of a player because of that? He clearly worries about his work (and I use that term advisedly because ‘work’ is what it is to him) because he can be unsettled, as he was on Saturday and, say, against Everton when he fell apart. I cannot conceive that level of concentration and application without some form of motivation. Maybe being in his own world protects him from the stresses and strains of professional football at this level.

Tony Pulis’ whinging does him a disservice. He was right about the second booking but not in revealing what is a blatant attempt to influence who referees Stoke’s matches. I’m talking about his letter requesting that Dean not officiate for his team. He would do well to remember that many refs would not have dared give a penalty for a push in the area, and indeed he turned down our appeals for a similar offence on Bale, and that his teams give officials a hard time with their physical approach. Pulis has won considerable respect for the way in which Stoke have quickly become an established force in the league, on merit. They are brisk and tough but play decent football and do not rely solely on the long ball or those throws. He’ll lose that kudos if he turns into another Wenger or Benitez.

Talking of whinging, hark at me. TOMM is nothing if not constructive, Harry, but all this talk of how we’ve been hit by injuries and loans. Loans are not a force of nature that we are powerless to prevent. They are the result of hard-nosed decisions around money and player potential made by human beings. In fact, by you, Harry, so I’d keep quiet about it if I were you.

At the end of the window I protested at the loans of Hutton and Keane in particular. They may never have turned out again this season but they would be there if needed, as well as offering alternative tactical options. In the second half of the most important season for donkey’s years, there was simply no need to move them on.

But Spurs move in mysterious ways. Maybe Harry’s comments are not so strange if they were in fact directed at Levy, who may have put on some pressure in order to save a few bob.

For me, at the do, the moment of victory had a peculiar feel to it. We were wandering around the host’s newly refurbished terraced house in Archway, admiring the oh-so-tasteful features whilst curling an inward lip at the sheer fortune that it cost. The last thing I want is a TV over the bath but when no one was looking I had to turn it on. I hate myself, I felt dirty.

Reaching, eventually, the top landing, I took a deep breath and turned on the mobile for the scores. A win! I punched the air, and glanced up over the rooftops, dishes and aerials of north London, only to see the Emirates, bathed in light in readiness for their evening kick off. Look out behind you, we’re coming for you…

Winning at Stoke, 10 man Stoke if it comes to it, may not be so big a deal normally. To me, however, it feels as if a threshold has been crossed. We are fourth on merit and the door is wide open to that CL place, or Wembley come to that. It will be a tough path to travel, I’m under no illusions, but without these three points it would have seemed empty and futile. I am just so excited about the rest of the season.

Finally, Tottenham On My Mind has been asked to guest blog on the site of a new fantasy football game, Football 3s, that can be found here: http://football.picklive.com/

It’s fantasy football in real time, as the game is being played and you can play along as you watch. Touted as the next big thing, they are featuring Spurs Fulham on Wednesday.

And later in the week, a TOMM competition – win a copy of Spurs Cult Heroes, courtesy of All Action No Plot. I’m looking after you, eh, now come on, eh?

Inter, Contracts and Graffiti. It Fits Somehow.

March 18, 2010 / Alan / 8 Comments

On Tuesday, I made a point of wishing good luck to all the Inter Milan fans clustering around Parliament. Not the big bloke with the twitch and the staring eyes, obviously. Big Ben, Westminster Abbey then Fulham Broadway. ‘All England wants you to win’, I shouted at one point. The group’s puzzled looks turned to smiles as someone translated. That might have been going a bit far, mind.

Watching later with some degree of satisfaction, I gasped at Schneider’s skills as if he were one of our own. No wonder he wasn’t interested in us when his name was mooted as a possible target, if he can play for a team as good as Inter were. I had to chuckle at Andy Gray’s comment that when Chelsea were up against it in the second half (make that – outplayed totally), ‘fans of the Premiership’ would be disappointed. The pundits really have absolutely no idea about the fans, do they. Motson said something similar a few years ago, invoking some crazy notion of London supporters solidarity when Arsenal were in the Cup Final, but he’s been going soft for a while now so it didn’t count.

I empathised with the joy of the Inter fans in their corner as Eto’o preened and posed in front of them like a model on the catwalk. Maybe I met you earlier in the day, that good luck wish worked, huh. Maybe they’ll take back to Milan the story of the mad Englishman who wanted them to win. Maybe even now it’s on a blog in Italian. Or maybe not.

Their support was in stark contrast to the home fans. I checked the TV to see if it ha switched to mute by mistake. New Chelsea don’t get it – part of being a fan is that if your team are down, you get behind them. The old school Chelsea supporters have been through more bad times than good in all honesty but it is a sobering thought that a whole generation of fans know nothing but success. You could have watched that team at home for the best part of a decade and never seen them outplayed as they were yesterday. Money and success has transformed the experience of being a football fan. An intrinsic element has been lost, of solidarity in adversity. They simply did not know what to do.

Enough of this. Back to the Lane and Huddlestone has signed a contract to take him through to 2015. Levy has done well to offer extended contracts with, presumably, better terms, to young players like Lennon before the vultures start to circle in earnest. It gives a positive message that they are wanted and they respond well, unlike a player such as Wright Phillips who was appalled recently at being offered ‘only’ £70k a week, bless him the poor little solider.

Hud deserves it. Harry tried several permutations in centre midfield, then opted early on this season to start him regularly, and the big boned one has taken his chance whereas Jenas did not. He can drift around in an infuriatingly lackadaisical manner at times but this is gradually disappearing from his game and his passing and general availability is important to us. He was missed straight away when he got injured a few weeks ago and still is. There’s more to come; he does not have an instinctive grasp of positioning and his anticipation requires a bit of polishing. He learns slowly but when he grasps that the first yard is in the head, he will be a real force.

He’s repaid his manager’s faith in him but sadly it does not guarantee that he will be around for the next five years. These days contracts are as much if not more about securing the value of the player should he be sold than keeping him at a club. Still, for the present he’s ahppy and once again Levy has done well for THFC on and off the pitch.

Finally, on my way home I spotted a reminder, once common but now extremely rare, of being a football fan in the old days. Next to the railway outside London Bridge, deep in the Millwall heartlands, someone has painted the letters ‘T H F C’. Not a tag and certainly not spray-painted street art, just that simple inscription, created with an ordinary paint brush.

Graffiti was run of the mill in the seventies and eighties. Fans would furtively visit all parts of the city in the dead of night, struggling to conceal a 5 litre tin of Dulux under their crombies or donkey jackets and daub their colours here and there. Usually it was simple initials, sometimes a more complex message, typically involving some threat of violence. ‘Spurs rule OK’ or some such. In those times, arriving at the Lane you would be met with freshly inscribed messages of welcome from the opposition, displaying a marked absence of fan solidarity and sometimes some nasty stuff about yids.

When we played Millwall in their season in the First Division, approaching the old Den we were funnelled under a railway bridge and greeted with the slogan ‘Turn Back or Die’. Given the frantic expectation surrounding this rivalry, the scrap yards and barbed wire around us plus their fearsome reputation, unfortunately there was an element of truth to it, a bit like a government health warning. Some graffiti was more benevolent: for many years the environment in Tottenham was improved in some way, I feel, by the burst of creativity that resulted in the painted words, ‘Ken Dodd’s dad’s dog’s dead’. No, I have no idea either.

These surreal outpourings have great appeal. Nothing to do with football, so far as I am aware, but Richmond had ‘Cats Like Plain Crisps’, Deptford the plea from a tortured artist in the midst of bleak council blocks, ‘Give Me Canvas’, whilst only recently has the legend ‘Big Dave’s Gusset’ fallen victim to the building work outside London Bridge.

Any more examples of football graffiti? I’ll put them up on a page if we have enough.

Paul Gascoigne and the Ultimate Taboo

March 12, 2010June 6, 2010 / Alan / 10 Comments

Gazza on my mind this week. No real reason. A home tie to take us to Wembley, can’t complain about the semi-final draw and Liverpool’s ability to find a banana skin more often than Charlie Chaplin have all contributed to a sense of ease and relaxation. So the mind wanders back to past glories, and in modern times there are few more glorious than Paul Gascoigne. And as is the way with these things, I’ve not been looking but Gazza has found me, with a great story from Daveyboy in the comments section of my last article, Morris Keston gives him a mention on twitter and then there he is in the book I’m reading.

A Man Who Looks Like Danny Baker. From the Site http://menwholooklikedannybaker.com. You Couldn't Make It Up

I’ve been a big fan of Danny Baker for many years. Not quite in the league of Kennedy’s assassination or Princess Di’s death but I vividly recall the first time I heard his radio show. On a bleary eyed Saturday morning, making breakfast for the kids, wife at work and no chance of football, the mindless banality of Capital Radio would provide scant diversion from the drudgery of breakfast and the washing up, but it was the best I could come up with. Turning the dial, Robert Cray’s upbeat blues ‘Smoking Gun’ ripped from the radio and I hung around to see who on earth was playing this stuff. From then I’ve followed the fabulous Baker boy around the airwaves. Many times I’ve had to pull over because I’ve been laughing so much but his sense of the absurd and relaxed freeflowing presentation masks an effortless mastery of the medium of radio. Now he’s back at 606, a show he originated and was then dismissed from because he not entirely seriously suggested that aggrieved fans may wish to beat a path to the door of a certain referee. In reality this was the excuse because it was clear his face didn’t fit – on 606 he wanted to talk about things other than Fergie’s latest press conference or whether that was a penalty after 37 replays. Like things you had confiscated at the turnstiles or unusual places to play football.

His knockabout style and apparent lack of a coherent career plan (at BBC London he works on a handshake rather than a contract) hides his status as an insightful and shrewd observer of popular culture, especially football and pop music. His 2 hours on BBC London on the day after Michael Jackson’s death, where without a script he reminiscenced around his time in LA before, during and after his NME interview with Jackson back in the 80s, the last major independent interview with him, was touching, funny and honest, and said more about Jackson than the sum of all the tosh that overwhelmed the media for weeks after.

His latest book Baker and Kelly – Classic Football Debates, written with Paxton Road stalwart Danny Kelly, was certain to find its way into my Christmas stocking. Someone would put two and two together as they wandered round the bookshop ten minutes before closing on December 24th, when Waterstones is jam packed with desperate punters scooping up any offering that possessed a connection with loved ones for whom they could not think of anything that they would really want. It’s a bit like the aunt who every year gives you the latest Westlife album, because one Saturday round at hers, squirming with embarrassment at Celebrity Idol Factor on Ice, your morale squashed as flat as a Kraft cheese slice run over by a steamroller, you thought it would keep everyone happy by saying that parts of the chorus were ‘quite nice’. Quite nice. How inoffensive and non-committal is that. It implies that your nervous system was closed down totally save for a pulse sufficient to lift one eyelash a fraction of a millimetre. But to your aunt, it indicates undying appreciation of their irish might, to be rewarded each and every Christmas with their latest offering.

The only question with the Baker and Kelly book was not if I would receive one but how many. In the event, it was only a single copy (but four THFC 2010 calendars….). It’s a largely disappointing effort, an erratic mix of funny anecdotes, rehashed phone-in material that does not translate well to the page and fillers, all of which stinks of money for old rope. Even the print is spread wide apart so as to reach the end of the 300 pages without undue effort. But there are several gems, one of which is an eye-witness account of Gazza’s infamous spree in London. Stuck in traffic, Gazza cannot sit still so he jumps out the cab and commandeers a London bus, complete with passengers, which he then drives round the Marble Arch roundabout. Leaping out, he spots some workmen and while he cadges a fag, digs a hole in the road with a pneumatic drill. Baker and friend Chris Evans look on as he reaches their destination, a media awards ceremony to which he had not been invited, via a Bentley that he flagged down at the lights – the elderly couple in the back were only too glad to help. This was front page news at the time, with Gazza and his drinking pals both celebrated and simultaneously castigated by the tabloids in the ways that only they know.

Baker maintains that they were not drunk but the redtops were determined to imply otherwise. The bottles in the photo (not from the book) are water but that’s

Baker, Evans and a Mystery Man in Disguise

not the story that the tabs want. But the most touching element of this story is the public’s reaction to Gazza – everybody loved him. People from different backgrounds felt good just to see him. They cheered him wherever he went, went along with his fun (and it was all fun to him) and he made them feel better. Everyone felt they knew him, sharing jokes, shouting hallo, wishing him well. For his part, he could talk to anyone and stopped to give them all the time of day. No PR, no manufactured celebrity status, just Gazza.

Gascoigne was loved by the people, genuinely and unashamedly so, in a manner that may never be repeated. Pre-Sky, this was a time when players were not so tainted by their riches as they are now, separated and aloof from their fans. If Rooney wins us the World Cup, he would not be able to set foot outside the front door without a phalanx of bodyguards and PR people, and the sad thing is, he may not wish to.

Baker’s affectionate tribute to his friend opens our eyes to one side of his personality but obscures another, the demons that have driven him to the bottom of the deepest abyss. He touches upon the reasons driving Gascoigne on, his restlessness, the need to fight off a boredom that would engulf him when, finally, there were no more highs to sustain him: “The brighter his star shone the more its inevitable collapse into a black hole haunted him.”

It’s a powerful image of impending doom touching even the most exciting crazy moments but it does not look the real problem in the face: Paul Gascoigne suffers from a serious mental health problem. This is not criticism of the man, how can it be, it’s an illness, nor does it belittle any of his achievements on the pitch. If anything it makes them even more miraculous, given that they were performed under such duress. Gascoigne according to his autobiography was a restless, distracted and hyperactive child whose obsessive behaviour was under control but manifested itself later in life as the pressure eroded his coping mechanisms. He saw a therapist of some sort once as a child but never returned. Baker remarks on how Gazza was constantly talking and narrating his day, reminding himself of what was happening to him as a means of calming himself down.

Gascoigne MOTD2, 2009, in Optimistic Mood

Later, when football no longer sustained him, the drinking, depression and self-abuse took hold. The week long drinking binges by messrs Baker, Evans and Gascoigne are a myth, says Danny, and the London escapade ended with Gazza on Baker’s sofa, chatting with the family as they watched TV. However, he was supposed to be in his log cabin in the remote Scottish hills, which was the bolt hole and place of safety that his manager at the time, Walter Smith, had sorted out. Now we see a pallid and broken man, going through the motions and blank behind the eyes, struggling to rehabilitate himself.

Danny Baker has written an eloquent and insightful piece about the Gazza he knows, which says so much about the man and yet skirts round the one unmentionable in modern football. Sex, alcohol, drugs and infidelity are all open to debate, but one subject remains taboo: mental health. We can’t talk about it. The man suffers, yet he’s given offers to manage a football team or to get back into coaching, or to be a TV celebrity. I heard a rumour that he was going into Celebrity Big Brother and I swear I would have chucked in my job and set up a protest camp outside the studios. We fear mental health problems but they are just that, health problems. Let’s have some honesty about the pressures of modern football and talk more openly about their effect on vulnerable people. Show compassion to sufferers and offer sympathy and treatment. Above all, give them realism – don’t ask too much. The people around Gazza need to look after him. Gazza made us happy, now let’s care for him. A true Tottenham great, we owe him.