GGG...man in a raincoat. Discuss HONESTLY!

[thfcsteff]

Off the bat, fellow mods, if I am out of order here please merge in an appropriate thread (I looked through and couldn't find one)...this was in the Levy-worst-decisions thread, but frankly it was such a long fudging answer I'm sure fellow listees would've used it to rest on longhaul fights.

So...that being said...

George Graham (I feel dirty typing it)...GGG...man in a raincoat...

...I am so 100% biased and irrational on this, I'll just come clean and say that Gooner scumbag should NEVER (and I mean NEVER) have been in charge of our great club. Tony Adams had the dignity and respect for BOTH sides to understand that as a proper, died-in-the-dirty-wool goon, he could not EVER wear our colours (as a coach even!) or take our paycheck.My respect for him increased tenfold right there. There are very few who are 'lifers'...Mabbsy was one for us, C*******, Perryman, Glennda...and for them, Adams, Rice, GGG, Wenger, Seaman...probably a couple more, but aside from ONE dirty traitor, NONE have taken the other paycheck.
In fact, the ONLY exception I can think of is Pat Jennings, and it is both a tribute and a measure of the man that he is still (rightly) revered here. of course, he'd never have even sniffed that side of North London had it not been for Terry fudging Neil (the ****).

So I hated GGG with a passion, I hated him speaking of us, I hated knowing he was using us to get back at his 'true love' and I hated the smell of him around our corridors.
Total. Irrational. Dislike and rejection.

I was happy we won the CCF of course, but I didn't go (even though I had a ticket).

When he was sacked, I jumped and punched the air. I know I know, wrong decision-might have been motivated to beat the Arse, etc, etc. But fudge it. Who cares! THAT was an audere est facere moment CAPTURED, because it was absolutely death or glory, and I still remember how fudging EXCITED I was when Glennda, Chrissy and Gorman all walked out at Old Trafford for the warm-up. Three YIDDOS!

When it didn't work out for Glennda, a tiny, tiny piece of my Spurs heart was irrepairably broken...I genuinely believe that at both club and national level, he is the lost genius. Indeed, if England had proper balls, they'd have given him the job this time!!!!

 

[billyiddo]

at the time i went to Spurs with my old man, who is quite the old skool kind of supporter and he never accepted Graham and from what i could tell neither did any of his friends or any of the people that sat in the south east corner of the ground - part of me thinks Levy got rid of Graham and replaced him with Hoddle as a kind of way of showing Spurs fans that he was one of them and understood what they wanted, what with being new to the job it was an easy way to get the supporters on board.

 

[Jordinho]

Seeing GGG I can't help thinking something completely different.

 

[Spurs7891]

Well, if you couldn't accept GG as the Spurs maneger due to his Arsenal connection, I bet you cannot accept Gallas and Adebayor as well. With Adebayor being our only other striker apart from Defoe, wonder how you are going to follow Spurs for the rest of the season.

I will always rank GG and Ramos higher than Jol and Redknapp as they won us trophies, albeit in the League Cup. If not for both, we would have no trophy to show for in the last 22 years. I am convinced GG would have made us stronger in the league if he had been at Spurs longer. The only thing I never liked about GG was his treatment of Ginola.

 

[milo]

Well, if you couldn't accept GG as the Spurs maneger due to his Arsenal connection, I bet you cannot accept Gallas and Adebayor as well. With Adebayor being our only other striker apart from Defoe, wonder how you are going to follow Spurs for the rest of the season.

I will always rank GG and Ramos higher than Jol and Redknapp as they won us trophies, albeit in the League Cup. If not for both, we would have no trophy to show for in the last 22 years. I am convinced GG would have made us stronger in the league if he had been at Spurs longer. The only thing I never liked about GG was his treatment of Ginola.

Do you mind me asking you where you are from, how long you have supported Spurs and why you support Spurs?

 

[Mulletperm]

Well, if you couldn't accept GG as the Spurs maneger due to his Arsenal connection, I bet you cannot accept Gallas and Adebayor as well. With Adebayor being our only other striker apart from Defoe, wonder how you are going to follow Spurs for the rest of the season.

I will always rank GG and Ramos higher than Jol and Redknapp as they won us trophies, albeit in the League Cup. If not for both, we would have no trophy to show for in the last 22 years. I am convinced GG would have made us stronger in the league if he had been at Spurs longer. The only thing I never liked about GG was his treatment of Ginola.

WUM surely?

 

[Hully]

I disliked GG because of the turgid football his teams played, the Arse connections just made it worse. It was a bad time, best forgotten. A travesty against what Spurs are all about. To dare is to do.

 

[markysimmo]

I remember 4 0-0's in a row under GGG, entertaining stuff !!!!!

 

[Hully]

I remember 4 0-0's in a row under GGG, entertaining stuff !!!!!

I've managed to forget.

 

[markysimmo]

I've managed to forget.

It was in my 1st year of having an ST ill never forget hahah

 

[Nutter-Naylor]

I am trying hard to recall if I actually attended a home game under the Goon. I will have to do some research but if I did I was no more than 2.

Filth. And as for the poster above - I will back the two gooners who are at the club mentioned but I would rather they never came.

 

[jts1882]

Well, if you couldn't accept GG as the Spurs maneger due to his Arsenal connection, I bet you cannot accept Gallas and Adebayor as well. With Adebayor being our only other striker apart from Defoe, wonder how you are going to follow Spurs for the rest of the season.

You miss the point. As the opening post clearly explained there are certain players and managers who are either lifers or become irreversibly associated with a club. Graham was an Arsenal man through and through as player and manager and the man responsible for the style for which they became famous and which is remembered in its own chant. He is an Arsenal man and the antithesis of a Spurs man.

Gallas and Adebayor were never associated with Arsenal in the same way. Both severed their relationship in acrimonious style, with Adebayor's exit encapsulted in that moment at COMS. Neither were products of the club or there for a long-time. Neither symbolised anything about their club the way Graham, Adams or Hoddle did.

We are moving away further away from the time when players were so strongly associated with a club. In recent times there are few lifers. Giggs, Scholes and Neville were part of an unusual group. Gerrard, Carragher and Terry are also ending their time. Sadly we have to acknowledge that Ledley only stayed with us because of his injury problems.

P.S. The hiring of Rafa by Chelsea has to be mentioned in this thread.

 

[Danners9]

I was ashamed of my club for appointing this man.

I don't know what went through the Chairman's head when he was drawing up a list of potential new managers. Sugar was meant to be a Spurs fan (although his gonads twitter posts are questionable at times), and to do this?! surely in the worldwide land of football there was someone else?

Of course I liked winning the League Cup that one time. However, it just felt wrong. Not tainted because of GGG but wrong that he should be Spurs manager. I went to the 4-4 with Leeds just before he took over, one of the first games I went to by myself, and seeing Leeds fans unsure of which team GGG was managing that day, Ridsdale going over to them to calm them down, and knowing what was about to happen... he was going to be our manager, wasn't he?!

GGG is an Arsenal man. Fact. Player and manager. He is Arsenal. He epitomised everything about their 80s and 90s team. Adebayor and Gallas have been mentioned higher up, but they are players. Arsenal was not their club, just a club they played for. They had teams before and after and I doubt they will return to Arsenal. GGG is intrinsically linked to AFC, 6yrs as a player and 9yrs as a manager. He shouldn't have been anywhere near Spurs.

 

[Jimmy-g]

I am trying hard to recall if I actually attended a home game under the Goon. I will have to do some research but if I did I was no more than 2.

Filth. And as for the poster above - I will back the two gooners who are at the club mentioned but I would rather they never came.

To be fair Ade and Gallas are mercenaries not gooners, Wiltshire, Graham, Smith, Nicholas and the biggest prick of all Merson they are gooners, the influx of foreign players as diluted "old firm" rivalries, when you think back to Adams, Dixon, Brady etc that was when it meant something it's all watered down now.

 

[Baleforce]

not sure how long I've been a spurs fan, first game I remember though was the 87 cup final

when Sugar appointed him we had been a shambles for a couple of years and he had worked wonders up at Leeds, I thought it was brave of Sugar bearing in mind the obvious goon connection but I was prepared to give him a chance as I thought he could bring us success, I remember listening to the press conference and being impressed by him, it might just have been his accent, he's from the same part of the world as my mum, but he certainly charmed me

he did well for a bit, it wasn't always pretty but we became very difficult to beat, we beat united, we beat arsenal and we went to wembley and beat a Leicester side that had been embarrassing us on a regular basis, there were occasions when we played very very well, he got the best out of Ginola, Carr Ferdinand and Anderton, then latterly Sullivan and Rebrov, it wasn't all route one

then it started to go wrong, and he had to go, league performances were disjointed, on occasion we were easily torn apart, the defence seemed to revert to their Francis/Gross ineptitude, heads dropped early and there were rumours of players wanting out, Enic moving for Hoddle was definitely a good thing

despite this we were flying in the FA cup, we thumped Charlton and Stockport then were brilliant (mainly due to Rebrov) against west ham, we appeared to be charmed on that cup run and for that alone I'd have let him hang around until the end of the season and see if he could get his revenge on his former employers

overall the club was in a far better state when he left than when he joined and personally I'll forgive pretty much anything if a player or manager improves us, it's what they do at Spurs that matters, everything else is irrelevent

 

[Spurs7891]

Do you mind me asking you where you are from, how long you have supported Spurs and why you support Spurs?

Not sure what you are trying to say. I hate ManU more than Arsenal but won't mind even if Ferguson manages Spurs. I think it shouldn't matter who becomes the manager or how we play as long as we get to win trophies. Afterall, Spurs as the team should be bigger than any individuals.

 

[Spurs7891]

not sure how long I've been a spurs fan, first game I remember though was the 87 cup final

when Sugar appointed him we had been a shambles for a couple of years and he had worked wonders up at Leeds, I thought it was brave of Sugar bearing in mind the obvious goon connection but I was prepared to give him a chance as I thought he could bring us success, I remember listening to the press conference and being impressed by him, it might just have been his accent, he's from the same part of the world as my mum, but he certainly charmed me

he did well for a bit, it wasn't always pretty but we became very difficult to beat, we beat united, we beat arsenal and we went to wembley and beat a Leicester side that had been embarrassing us on a regular basis, there were occasions when we played very very well, he got the best out of Ginola, Carr Ferdinand and Anderton, then latterly Sullivan and Rebrov, it wasn't all route one

then it started to go wrong, and he had to go, league performances were disjointed, on occasion we were easily torn apart, the defence seemed to revert to their Francis/Gross ineptitude, heads dropped early and there were rumours of players wanting out, Enic moving for Hoddle was definitely a good thing

despite this we were flying in the FA cup, we thumped Charlton and Stockport then were brilliant (mainly due to Rebrov) against west ham, we appeared to be charmed on that cup run and for that alone I'd have let him hang around until the end of the season and see if he could get his revenge on his former employers
overall the club was in a far better state when he left than when he joined and personally I'll forgive pretty much anything if a player or manager improves us, it's what they do at Spurs that matters, everything else is irrelevent

And don't forget it was the year that ends with "1" and we were fated to win the FA Cup until Levy sacked GG. English managers have such a shyte record that they rarely win any trophies and so Hoddle and Redknapp duly fecked up 2001 and 2011 editions. We will have to wait until 2021 to see if we can win the FA Cup again.

 

[Lily White]

It wasn't just the strong gooner connection but the awful turgid, boring football his teams played. All fans of other teams at the time chanted 'boring boring Arsenal' for very good reason. Watching his teams defences constantly push up the offside trap made me want to stick forks in my eyes. When he was appointed I felt completely sick, the man was the complete antithesis of what Spurs are all about. Maybe I'm a bad supporter of the club but while he was our manager i didn't go to a game, infact I didn't watch on Tv apart from the cup final and even then I didn't feel the sense of joy and pride that i had done so before.
Its all completely irrational but football fans struggle with rational.

 

[Gordinho]

I was ashamed of my club for appointing this man.

If you want a reason for being ashamed of your club then appointing Graham pales into insignificance when you consider the way Spurs treated Bill Nicholson.

 

[milo]

Not sure what you are trying to say. I hate ManU more than Arsenal but won't mind even if Ferguson manages Spurs. I think it shouldn't matter who becomes the manager or how we play as long as we get to win trophies. Afterall, Spurs as the team should be bigger than any individuals.

I'm trying to put what you say in context. I assume that you do not have a connection to north London.