bradley headstone
|
Posted: January 13th 2009
Click here to feedback
My Brother is a Spurs fan. I could just leave it at that and let you ponder the sheer awfulness of it, but why let you worry about other people’s problems when you have enough of your own.
It’s probably my fault; despite both of us being born in Lancashire we support London clubs. I choose the path of faded glory and misery, he chose instant glory, impossible expectation and a surreal sense of his team’s place in the pecking order.
He is a true believer though, he worshipped St Wendy and now he’s devoted to St ‘arry. He fervently believes that every signing they make and by golly do they ever make signings, will be the ‘one’. This week he will be happily welcoming back Jermaine Defoe, the same Defoe who was deemed superfluous some eleven months back.
Old ‘arry has worked his magic. His is an old trick that is essentially practiced the world over, but is best seen in the hands of an old school British manager. Whatever I say, the opposite is happening. Basically if ‘arry says I won’t be plundering Portsmouth for players then you can bet your house that it’ll be the first port of call.
Where ‘arry excels is in his dressing up of the game. Why just say ‘no, I won’t be going back to Portsmouth for players’ when you can say ‘well, it’s a great old club, wonderful chairman, great fans, I can’t see myself taking anyone, wouldn’t be right…but they do need the money, might be doing them a favour…’ and so it begins.
He’s a master of disinformation, ‘don’t fancy the UEFA cup, too many games, squad not deep enough and it’s not our priority’ means, ‘well, it’s a trophy, I am down to my last 50 players to choose from and when else is Gilberto going to get a game’.
How about ‘Defoe, can’t see it happening, there’s a club prepared to make a huge offer’ meaning, ‘Defoe, ours by the weekend, we’re prepared to pay silly money’
More recently, ‘We are a million miles apart from Middlesbrough over Downing’, this can be interpreted as ‘C’mon, we’re going to keep disrupting his season every January until you sell’.
My personal favourite is Craig Bellamy, ‘I like the boy, but he’s a West Ham player. If they choose to sell, maybe we can do business, but until then…’ which is translated as ‘we can have him anytime we choose’
So the Spurs soap opera goes on, while ‘arry is in charge the football world will be willing them on. Me, well as ‘arry would say…
‘Spurs, top four this time next year’
(‘Spurs, the championship is ‘orrible ‘arry, you would grace it’)