But I did have to look at Marca just once hahaha !!!
A girl asks the White Hart Lane tour guide, "Is Bale going to stay?" The scene takes place in the home team dressing room, the last stop before heading out onto the turf after a 90-minute tour through the heart of the historic northeast London club – one which featured only English players until the '80s, when the Argentineans Ardiles and Ricardo Villa arrived, at the very height of the nation's furore amid the Falklands conflict.
Just as devout followers go to saints asking for miracles, the fans pose in front of their hero – the adults among them well aware that Real Madrid, the big European multinational, has come for their star and little can be done. "Only the owner knows about Bale," says an employee, whilst the veteran guide tells the story of Bill Nicholson.
Nicholson and Bale perfectly define the conflicting elements of the evolution of sport – one signifying the romanticism only understood by children, the other ambition, opportunities for success and business. Nicholson was a Spurs man since he first started out at the club aged 16 until the day he died in 2004 at the age of 85. He was a player, coach, manager in the golden decade of the '70s, and president. He always wanted to live a stone's throw away from White Hart Lane. "And he never signed a contract," recalls the guide. Some 10,000 people stood in line to pay tribute to him on the day of his funeral.
Bale has barely been at Spurs for five years, but he has become a massive icon and the fondness which the children have for him is moving. But these are new times. Beyond the Isles, only the erudite would honour the fellow right winger of the '50s.
