F+p034-039THS

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David Hepw

orth

on a life shac

kled to

Tottenham Hotsp

ur;

‘a shambling w

reck,

a shabby delu

ded

aristocrat of a

football club’ My wt

art

ad, why couln’t ou ve

supporte arsenl?”

It’s nly when yu bequeath a

lyalty t Spurs t yur sn that

yu realise the ull enrmity what

being a Spurs supprter means. It tk my sn, nw

in his twenties, quite a ew his byhd years t

realise that, unlike his Chelsea, Arsenal r Manchester

United supprting riends, his inherited allegiance t

Tttenham was likely t lead nt t a trphy but t a

lietime ccasinally heric, smetimes cmic and

generally hurtul underachievement.

It’s a unny thing. In all ther respects we d ur best

t make ur children happier. It’s nly in handing n

ur lyalties t a club like Tttenham that we knwingly

cndemn the ruit ur lins t bearing a painul

burden r the rest their lives. It’s like asking yur sn

t turn rund while yu attach a nte saying “kick me”

t his back bere sending him rth int the wrld.

He blurted the abve heartelt plea sme time late

in the last century, during ur mst recent Dark Ages

when we had smehw cntrived t be managed

by Christian Grss, wh arrived at his rst press

cnerence brandishing a tube ticket and never ully

recvered his pise, and then Gerge Graham, a man

bearing the duble shame having been banned

r taking bribes and als having managed Arsenal.

Nt lng ater that, in ne thse dmed furishes

t which clubs like Tttenham are attached, we hadappinted avurite sn Glenn Hddle as manager

and suered the peculiar agny ging three gals

The Big Picture Tottenham Hotspur

images DAVID CANNON / GETTY IMAGES

up against Manchester United and then lsing by

tw. At hme. I remember Gary Neville saying in his

pst-match interview that it culd nly have happened

against Tttenham. He smirked as he said it.

Neville was speaking the truth. At that pint my sn

must have wndered hw he ended up shackled t

this shambling wreck, this Dn Quixte, this shabby

deluded aristcrat a tball club. But then I had t

remind him that when yu live where we d in nrth

Lndn yu either attach yursel t the vercrwded

cat tails that bunch arrivistes rm Wlwich r

yu make the grand rmantic gesture nailing yur

clurs t Tttenham’s mast, knwing that they were

lighting the way r adventurus attacking tball and

winning the Duble in the days when Arsenal had little

need a trphy cabinet. Bit like nw in act.

I CoULD tell my sn the quicksilver talents Jimmy

Greaves, the inscrutable Alan Gilzean, r stlid

Bbby Smith; I culd sing the praises push-and-run

r the staggering width Pat Jennings’ hands and

remind him we were the rst winners the UEFA Cup

in 1972. It wuld be little use. Fr anyne wh’s grwn

up in the Premier League era, nly the Premier League

matters and in that time, despite getting th under

Martin Jl wh was then inexplicably red and replaced

by Juande Rams, wh was just plain inexplicable,

we’ve been, let’s be hnest, let behind.

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Rams may have dne us

a avur because his bizarre

tenure must have cured the

club’s wners their belie

that salvatin had t cme

rm the ther side

the English Channel.

The latter part

Rams’s reign, which

began the secnd the

nal whistle went in ur

2008 Carling Cup victry,

was characterised by a drit

s cmplete yu wndered

i sme the players were still

calling themselves pressinals.

It merciully ended n octber 25,

2008 with us having gt nly tw pints rm eight

games and lking mre than capable ging

dwn. I any team can make a nnsense the bland

nstrum “t gd t g dwn”, it’s Spurs.

Then alng came Harry. or ‘Arry, as he is knwn

t reprters, wh can’t decide whether t be

utraged r impressed by his histrical dealings in

the transer market.

Earlier this seasn he

nally bridled at a TV

interviewer wh called him

a “wheeler dealer”. “F-ck

,” he said. “I’m a tball

manager.” It’s dicult t blame

him r nding this kind attitude

patrnising. Under him we have

nally glimpsed sme sunlight in the shape last

year’s qualicatin r the Champins League.

Nw we’re tasting nce again the ld truth that it’s

nt the despair that kills a tball an, it’s the hpe.

o curse all true Tttenham ans knw the wheels

culd very easily cme at any mment. This

seasn we’ve managed the seemingly impssible by

making the grup stages the

Champins League interesting,

cnceding three gals t Swiss

side Yung Bys bere cming back,

putting ur past Twente Enschede and

then plitely waving Inter Milan thrugh

ur times bere Gareth Bale gt s sick

supplying crsses that nbdy gt n the end

that he went and scred the same ga l three times

in the secnd hal. We still lst, curse, but, hey, in

Tttenham terms, that was a mral victry. Even better,

it was llwed by an actual victry ver the Italians at

hme. Bale wke up the next mrning t nd himsel

the mst acclaimed yung player in Eurpean tball

and therere, the argument ran, Tttenham culdn’t

pssibly retain him i sme prperly cmpetitive club

came calling. Tttenham ans, having watched him

gallp past every right back in England hme and

away r a whle year, wndered why it had taken

everybdy s lng t realise hw gd he was, while

als suspecting that he culd easily end up at old

Trard r the San Sir. It wuldn’t take the wrld’s

mst persuasive agent t cnvince Bale, wh seems

quite a bright yung man, that he’s mre likely t

becme a wrld name at a club that wins smething.

And there’s the rub. Ever since I’ve been watching

Spurs, which was in the days Martin Chivers, Ralph

Cates, Mike England, Steve Perryman and Pat

Jennings, they’ve been ccasinally brilliant, requently

embarrassing, always entertaining but usually under-

achieving. Yu can eel that undertw bred-in-the-

bne pessimism cursing thrugh the crwd during

a game. I they g ahead t early in the match yu

just knw that they are incapable shutting ut a

tp team r mre than hal an hur. All cnversatins

amngst ans will at sme pint r anther eature the

expressin “that’s s o Spurs”, usually accmpanied by

a shake the head.

Wnderul players are nt a prblem. White

Hart Lane has prvided a perect stage and an

appreciative audience r sme tball’s mst

princely gures ver the past 40 years: Glenn Hddle,

Paul Gascigne, Teddy Sheringham and Martin

Peters t name a ew. Tttenham were the rst English

team t take verseas players t their hearts with the

arrival osvald Ardiles and Ricky Villa ater the 1978

Wrld Cup. Since then the crwd have thrilled t the

likes David Ginla, Jurgen Klinsmann and Dimitar

Berbatv. Right nw there’s Luka Mdric and Raael

van der Vaart. They’re all wnderul players.

But during that time what have we wn? The

Carling Cup, that’s what. We spend a lt mney

but we were never ging t attract Fernand Trres r

David Villa with a recrd like that. They can read. Van

der Vaart, wh is a natural diplmat, said he wanted

t cme t Spurs where they “play rm the heart”.

When he scred against

by heading straight t em

I’m surprised he didn’t si

the same time. He knew

English accrding t Eve

wn charm. In act Ttten

tball clubs. They migh

time but they’ll put yu th

witter n abut it r yea

ur bld. We’d ar rathe

that tk place lng in th

pssibility that we might

It’s requently bserve

array bench talent in th

hardly any deensive cv

succumbed t a mysteri

“They’re occasionally brilliant, often embarrassingentertaining, usually under-achieving. You feel anof bred-in-the-bone pessimism coursing through

8/7/2019 F+p034-039THS


crcked himsel

playing r England

and Ledley King, the

club captain and, since the

acrimnius departure Sl

Campbell, the embdiment

the club, can nly play ne in

three and desn’t train. We have

ull backs – Assu-Ektt, Huttn

and Bale – wh are likely t have senir mments that

lead t the ppsitin getting a tap-in at the ar pst.

In mideld we have s many players they can’t give

a start t Nic Kranjcar and Wilsn Palacis, bth rst

picks r their natinal sides. Uprnt we have ur

strikers – Cruch, Pavlyuchenk, Dee and Keane –

nne whm yu wuld put yur huse n. N ther

club can bast as many players

capable scring a gal.

N ther club have s many

wh can’t be relied n t

scre a gal.

Yung players tend

t get briefy better at

Tttenham and then

slip back. It’s as i

there’s smething in

the water at White Hart

Lane. David Bentley, Aarn

Lennn, Tm Huddlestne,

Jermaine Jenas; they’re all

talented, all English but nne

them have grwn and imprved

like a Gerrard r a Rney. There’s

a sense in which they dn’t lk as i they believe

they’re expected t win. our recrd against the

traditinally strnger teams bears this ut. We’re quite

likely t turn them ver in spectacular ashin rm

time t time but mstly, when it cmes

t the tense arm-wrestles that decide the destinatin

titles, we’ll give in.

That’s the dark secret every Spurs an carries in

their heart: the lust r glry is utweighed by the ear

ailure. The peple talking them up at the mment

are nt the ans. They’re the pundits, wh are suddenly

surprised t nd anther entertaining team utside the

usual suspects. Tttenham ans rankly wish they’d

stp ging n abut it and leave us t glriusly all

shrt smewhere ar away rm the sptlight.

Nne this is t suggest r a mment I dn’t lve

Tttenham. That’s the imprtant thing abut tball

lve. Like lve yur children, it’s uncnditinal.

They may waste yur mney, let yu dwn in public

and make the same mistakes again and again.

This changes nthing. The thing yu lve is the

accumulated experience jy and pain that yu have

stred inside ver the years. As the Americans say,

yu are invested in them.

Talking Americans, yesterday I listened t Bruce

Springsteen talk abut ne his ld recrds which he

had wrried away at r ver a year. He said: “Yu dn’t

chse the stry. The stry chses yu.” Maybe it’s like

that with Tttenham. They chse yu. Yu wuldn’t

change them i yu culd. They’re part wh yu

are. That’s why we dn’t supprt Arsenal, sn.

The SPURS PRiMeR10 tales you might not know about Tottenham Hotspur

door o international stars in the past 20 years,

with the likes o Jurgen Klinsmann, David Ginola,

Sergei Rebrov, Dimitar Berbatov and Luka Modric

being just a ew to have graced the club with their

presence. Yet the status o the club’s avourite

son alls to an Englishman, Glenn Hoddle, who

was voted the best Tottenham player o all time

by ans on the ocial Spurs website. Hoddle

pulled the strings in Spurs’ mideld during their

golden period in the 1980s, playing almost 500

times or the club and returning as manager

rom 2001-2003.

Game of two halves

Tottenham’s ability to simultaneously entertain

and rustrate their ans was at its puzzling best

in the 2001-02 season, when they went into hal-

time leading Manchester United 3-0 at White Hart

Lane. The nal score? United 5, Spurs 3. “We

attacked brilliantly and nullied United’s attacks

in the rst hal,” said the manager Glenn Hoddle,

“but the second hal was just the opposite.”

Conquering Europe

Martin Chivers (above) was the hero o Spurs’

UEFA Cup success in 1972. In what was the

inaugural UEFA Cup tournament, Tottenham

aced Wolverhampton Wanderers in the nal,

winning the rst l eg at home, 2-1, courtesy o

a Chivers double, the second o which was a

20-metre screamer. They held on in the away leg

or a 1-1 draw to become the rst British side to

win two dierent major European trophies.

The People’s Club

Spurs became the rst ootball club to foat shares

on the London Stock Exchange, doing so in 1983.

Gross error in judgment

The British tabloids were rubbing their hands in

delight shortly ater the arrival o Swiss manager

Christian Gross to the club, during the 1997-98

season. Gross inamo

underground transpor

press conerence, to w

“I want this to become

by Underground beca

the ans eel coming to

am one o them.” Th e

when Spurs lost two o

the ollowing season, G

Six decades of s

Tottenham beat Chels

League Cup in 2008,

pain or ans who had

or some silverware. J

time header gave them

champions and it also

a trophy in each o the

achievement matched

among English clubs.

Bale brilliance

On May 5, 2010, Spur

rounds o the Champi

in their history. The hi

a pair o stunning per

rom Gareth Bale (bel

Bale scored a hat-tric

reigning European ch

with two assists as hehome win against the

(YouTube:Gareth Ba

Goals and glory

Way back in October 1958, with new manager

Bill ‘Mr Tottenham’ Nicholson enjoying his rst

game at the helm, Tottenham won a ph enomenal

contest over Everton, 10-4. Just 14 months later,

in February 1961, they beat Crewe Alexandria

13-2, and went on to claim the League-FA Cup

double the same season.

Selling a Sol

The club’s bitter rivalry with Arsenal is perhaps

best summed up by the story o ormer Spurs

captain Sol Campbell (above). The ex-England

international let Tottenham on a ree transer to

the Gunners, making him public enemy number

one among Spurs ans, who quickly dubbed

him ‘Judas’. Campbell later came in at No.1 on

a list o ‘ootball’s biggest traitors’ in an English

newspaper, while in 2009, our Tottenham ans

were banned rom grounds in England or three

years ater directing oensive chants at the

deender while he was playing with Portsmouth.

Wheeler dealers

Current strikers Jermaine Deoe and Robbie

Keane are both in their second stint at Spurs,

with the club having paid a total o A$66m or the

pair. Deoe was sold to Portsmouth or $9.7m and

bought back at an expensive $25.6m. Keane was

the better business – sold to Liverpool or $33m

and bought back or $19.5m.

In Hod We trust

White Hart Lane has been a virtual revolving

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