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Thank you AVB

I always liked AVB the man, I Wanted him when we got rid of Harry and was really happy he joined us. Even though attacking wise its been pretty dire in patches. I did enjoy the fact that we could go to almost any ground and dominate possesion. After spending so many years watching spurs teams get shat on it was nice to see us control matches. That said we needed to do more with it obviously.

I still think he could have turned it around, but he really needed to stop being so stubborn about certain things and show some flexibility. I was generally down yesterday from his sacking. I Wanted him to succeed, I like him as a man and a coach from what i have seen of him. He was proffesional and dedicated. After getting rid of blabbermouth Redknapp it was nice to have some one who knew how to treat sensitive information. I like the fact that he was a young coach, I wanted spurs to have some continuity for a lengthy time. We have had so many managers in the last 30 years its getting ridiculous.

I am confident he will do well somwhere else. I Can imagine him in the italian or spanish league being very succesful. I have portuguese family connections as well so it was nice that Spurs were focused on a lot due to having AVB as a manger and loads of our games are shown live when I am there.

Just dont know who this supper manager is that we think we can get and do the work Levy wants. Harry with 2 4th places sacked. AVB with our hights points in a season and at that average this year and sacked. ITs getting way out of hand.
 
Like others have said, AVB seems a decent guy. It didn't help him that he lost our best players to Real two years in a row. Maybe part of the decision to replace AVB is that Levy wants someone who will play all of our shiny new expensive signings on a rigid basis. Whatever the case, good luck Andre!
 
Gutter Boy said:
That's too long. With the Christmas fixture concentration, we could be down in the bottom half and out of both domestic cups in that period.

If Levy had nothing but this plan z in place, he really does need to fall on his sword.
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Serious Relegation Fears?
 
Not trying to be a poet or a R&B singer or anything but in some ways I'm sad in others I'm glad.

I liked him as a person, despite some insecurities which seemed to carry over with him from his time at Chelsea, and really wanted him to do well. Last season I was convinced we'd have a great future with him but this season it seems that the influence Bale had on us last season was really displayed through our lackluster performances this season. He had his formation and plan but seemed unable to come up with any sort of alternatives when his style was clearly not working. He was very stubborn and kept playing in the same predictable way, which was not only easily exploited by other teams but also incredibly dire to watch.
 
what I don't understand and was discussing this at work, you bring in 7 new hires in a workplace etc at the same time, would you instantly expect them to jell and fully integrate within 3 months. Everyone is on about the Lamela signing due to the transfer fee, he only 21, yet more experienced players like Bergkamp, Henry took a while to adjust to the game over here, that isn't AVB's fault.
 
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spitshine said:
what I don't understand and was discussing this at work, you bring in 7 new hires in a workplace etc at the same time, would you instantly expect them to gell and fully integrate within 3 months. Everyone is on about the Lamela signing due to the transfer fee, he only 21, yet more experienced players like Bergkamp, Henry took a while to adjust to the game over here, that isn't AVB's fault.
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The nail in his coffin, seriously that's it. For some reason the people that didn't really know about football (Lewis, Levy) expected a title challenge even knowing the scale of change we enacted, while Baldini and AVB thought we would still have to push for top 4 (if Burt and Castles are to be believed, and they should be as they've been reliable).

If everyone was pulling in the same direction and not suspicious of each other, AVB would probably still be here. It was like they built him up as some amazing manager expecting him to deliver the moon on a stick instantly and that guy just does not exist. He would have been great for us, had he been given just another couple of months to let those foreigners settle IMO.

And the other thing is AVB would have rather had smaller amount of quality signings, rather than a larger amount of lesser quality signings (again, if we believe Burt and Castles). He wanted evolution, not the revolution we saw by all accounts.

Incredibly sad and frustrating story for our club that has shaken my faith in Levy when it was previously unshakable.
 
Craig_J said:
Not trying to be a poet or a R&B singer or anything but in some ways I'm sad in others I'm glad.

I liked him as a person, despite some insecurities which seemed to carry over with him from his time at Chelsea, and really wanted him to do well. Last season I was convinced we'd have a great future with him but this season it seems that the influence Bale had on us last season was really displayed through our lackluster performances this season. He had his formation and plan but seemed unable to come up with any sort of alternatives when his style was clearly not working. He was very stubborn and kept playing in the same predictable way, which was not only easily exploited by other teams but also incredibly dire to watch.
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spot on!
 
I have a sense of pride that we don't have a so called oligarch/middle eastern benefactor bank rolling the club to the tune of millions, and we are generating our profits to use to compete with Emirates Marketing Project/United/Chelsea. So, we have to strive for stability and other means to be succesful yet we get rid of managers so easily with the board having a misplaced sense of entitliement to a top 4 place. We might as well sell our soul and club to an overseas investor, sell the naming rights to our ground and be join the rest.

AVB gave us some memorable things in the short time he was here. I hate what football has become at times, instant success or bust. Just look at Wenger, they could have got rid of him after the Villa game but longevity and stability is key for that lot and it appears to work.
 
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BrainOfLevy said:
The nail in his coffin, seriously that's it. For some reason the people that didn't really know about football (Lewis, Levy) expected a title challenge even knowing the scale of change we enacted, while Baldini and AVB thought we would still have to push for top 4 (if Burt and Castles are to be believed, and they should be as they've been reliable).

If everyone was pulling in the same direction and not suspicious of each other, AVB would probably still be here. It was like they built him up as some amazing manager expecting him to deliver the moon on a stick instantly and that guy just does not exist. He would have been great for us, had he been given just another couple of months to let those foreigners settle IMO.

And the other thing is AVB would have rather had smaller amount of quality signings, rather than a larger amount of lesser quality signings (again, if we believe Burt and Castles). He wanted evolution, not the revolution we saw by all accounts.

Incredibly sad and frustrating story for our club that has shaken my faith in Levy when it was previously unshakable.
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I disagree with this entirely. You and others thought ( and probably still think) AVB was the football messiah and that given just a little more time, he would have delivered. On the other hand, myself and others ( probably including Levy) saw no actual EVIDENCE of this grand design and were sceptical given what we had seen of his ability to deliver success.

All I have heard is excuses for AVB and that is not the manager I want for our club. If he didn't want some of the signings, he should have been more resolved, if he wanted others, he should have been more resolute, if he wanted attacking full backs we should have signed one, if he wanted an Ade type option, he should have patched it up with him or sold him and got another one in. Too many excuses, not good enough. Simple as.
 
From the ever excellent 'Dispatches From a Football Sofa'.

http://dispatchesfromafootballsofa.com/2013/12/17/can-i-have-my-spurs-back-an-epitaph/

Can I Have My Spurs Back?: An Epitaph

That it was Andre Villas-Boas that suffered the inglorious fate of dismissal is largely irrelevant. His was just another face that Daniel Levy in his infinite wisdom had lost faith in. This of course, despite the empty platitudes that are lavished on any incumbent manager when he begins his tenure at White Hart Lane. For Harry Redknapp, see Glenn Hoddle. For Ramos, see Jol. Then look up Santini. Now AVB joins the fools’ gallery; a roll call of men hailed as the key to unlocking Spurs’ ‘potential’, each consigned to the scrapheap by a club in thrall to profit, with little thought for sustained long-term development.

As a consequence of all this, in their desperation to gorge themselves on the riches that come with being part of an elite, the individuals that manage my club have systematically stripped it of all the pride it once had. Oh, how they love to parade Danny Blanchflower’s famous quote about glory at every game. It’s a hollow sentiment now. Broken. It evaporated into nothingness the very moment Spurs led football’s stock market charge that so emphatically put greed-on-the-cheap above its fans. First Irving Scholar, then Alan Sugar, now ENIC presiding over this parade of avarice, sucking the marrow out of the carcass of this grand old institution.

And what of those fans? They are just poor saps who line up obediently at the club shop, year in, year out, to buy the cheap toot that some child worker has stitched together. We’re told that all profits go to developing the team. That we’re making a contribution. Meanwhile, our club’s doing deals with ticketing agencies allowing people to hike up prices to astronomical, self-serving levels. But that’s ok, right? After all, they’ve re-invested the cash for Bale on lots of fabulous new signings. Who cares if most supporters had never heard of them? Seven players, after all. Simple economic rules: quantity over quality. That’ll paper over the cracks for a bit, shut them up for a while. Until next season at least.

Like maniacal evangelist preachers, they promise us heaven in return for our continued faith, just so long as we empty our pockets and keep their champagne flutes flowing, haw-hawing from the cosseted safety of their glass boxes in the West Stand. And when their promises are shown up for the sham they are, they placate the faithful with non-existent devils for us to rage against, shielding themselves from blame. If it’s not lasagne, it’s Chelsea winning the Champions League.

Chelsea. How we love to take the moral high ground when we compare ourselves to the noveau riche morality of our London neighbours. We mock the Oligarch for his impatience and his propensity for wielding his managerial axe with impunity. How are Spurs any different? At least Chelsea have an ever-growing trophy cabinet to justify Roman’s policy.

But at least we’re superior to Arsenal, right? Are we that deluded to place ourselves above a club that has always invested its faith in its managers for sustained periods whilst also successfully managing to build a wonderful modern arena that stays faithful to the club’s community and roots? What do we have? A board that sought to move a North London club to East London on the cheap and is perennially procrastinating over completing a stadium next to where the current one stands.

How many more humiliations do Spurs supporters have to suffer? How many more players will we have to sell before it finally dawns on us that we are a selling club? Imagine if Carrick, Berbatov, Modric and Bale had stayed. Isn’t that the kind of team that we deserve? But I don’t blame those players for leaving. How can I when it’s patently obvious that there is a clear directive at the club to purchase cheaply and sell for more. These players wanted to win trophies after all. To play for more illustrious clubs. To compete at the very highest level. It pains me to say it – but we’re through the looking-glass now so let’s speak a few home truths – Spurs will never be that club.

We can’t delude ourselves any longer that we are a Big Club. We’re a high mid-ranking one with delusions of grandeur. Intermittently successful but ultimately doomed to being also-rans. How can a club that has won two League titles in its history pertain to be bigger than clubs like Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, both European Cup winners? A trophy every ten years or so is admittedly better than many clubs but they are just passing glories.

The infrastructure for an era of success has never and will never be there because we have a hierarchy in place that doesn’t have the backbone to stick by the decisions and choices it makes. As fans we were entitled to criticise AVB for the abject displays his team put in against Emirates Marketing Project and Liverpool. It’s our club, nominally, and we care. However, kowtowing to pressure on Levy’s part is either cowardice of the highest order or another clear indication that he knows very little about football. AVB, Jol, Ramos, etc deserved more time, whatever the fans may say. After all, we didn’t appoint them. Levy and his acolytes did.

And so the farce continues. How arrogant of Tottenham Hotspur to assume that other ‘lesser’ but more cohesive clubs will relinquish their promising young managers because of the allure of White Hart Lane. A year and a half from now and ENIC will have to feed the GHod of money again. Fire and sell. Fire and sell. And we’ll keep turning up, keep spending, keep believing because we love our club. That’s what we do.

That mythical Keith Burkinshaw quote has been swirling round my head since yesterday’s news broke. Leaving White Hart Lane for the last time, he turned and remarked, “There used to be a football club over there”. There still is. It’s just their club. Not ours. A club run by financiers and hangers-on who turn up on matchdays and scoff their puff-pastries and spend the majority of the game in their suites glugging free beer, lolling about when the game finishes so their spoilt brats can pose for anodyne ‘selfies’ with the players. What grand days out they must have.

My family aside, I love this club more than anything but like a beaten wife who constantly takes back her abuser, a breaking point is eventually reached. The dereliction of duty by those gutting my club has brought me to tears today. How much more can anyone take? Years of emotional investment and obsession, all built on a lie. I used to actually believe all that ‘my eyes have seen the glory’ rubbish. Not any more. My eyes have finally been opened. And I am so very sad.
 
Pirate55 said:
I disagree with this entirely. You and others thought ( and probably still think) AVB was the football messiah and that given just a little more time, he would have delivered. On the other hand, myself and others ( probably including Levy) saw no actual EVIDENCE of this grand design and were sceptical given what we had seen of his ability to deliver success.

All I have heard is excuses for AVB and that is not the manager I want for our club. If he didn't want some of the signings, he should have been more resolved, if he wanted others, he should have been more resolute, if he wanted attacking full backs we should have signed one, if he wanted an Ade type option, he should have patched it up with him or sold him and got another one in. Too many excuses, not good enough. Simple as.
Click to expand...

I thought he was a man with a plan and given the time to get it sorted with the players settled that would have shown.

The thing is, there you can no more claim there was no evidence of his plan, or that his plan was boring football, by citing our poor home performances as I can that our ultimate plan was to play good football consistently home and away by using Sunderland away as an example. But fundamentally I just don't believe that his plan was to play boring at home and good football away, I think the plan was to do good home and away but some kinks needed to be ironed out first. If his plan was to be boring we'd see it every game, not just a selection of home games.

I understand people think he is stubborn, and refused to change, but last season he played a deep line loads. He changed it up quite a lot. This year a lot of investment had been made to get the squad how he wanted it so you can kind of understand him wanting to play his way now and he probably thought the best way to get them accostomed to playing how he needed as quickly as possible was to not give them the safety net of changes but to teach them through experience. Wenger went to Old Trafford and lost 8-2 because he didn't change his system but guys like he and AVB don't change. The difference is Wenger has multiple times through different bad patches of form been given the opportunity to put it right. We never gave the same to Andre.

Anyway, I don't think it is as simple as saying 'he should have been more forceful' if he wanted certain players. He maybe could have been, but we'll never know the dynamics of the transfer process at the club to the extent that we can draw proper conclusions there.
 
Hard to disagree with any of that article Dubai. Very sad. A lot of my faith that the board always works towards our best interests and knows how to move the club forward has been taken away. Even if we do somehow achieve whatever we want to achieve, I don't believe it will be anything more than blind luck at this point. One of their punts will have finally worked, when a bit of backbone could have seen us where we want to be years ago. Very sad.
 
Quite frankly, I am shocked with this decision!

I have read in various places that Levy made this decision on the Monday morning during a meeting in which AVB was very belligerent.
I truly hope that's how we got here, because if not we are trying to act like Chelski but without spending like them!

Thank you AVB for making me believe we could go toe-to-toe with the league best sides.
Thank you AVB for shaking off our inferiority complex at grounds like Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge etc
Thank you for trying to actually build a squad and not just play the same 11/13 players.
Thank you for attempting to allow players to recover fully before just throwing them back into the team (only to break down again, this causing more long-term problems)
Thank you for the hard work and it's a shame near the end the previous flexibility you showed seemed to evade you.

Best of luck in your next role (no doubt in Italy or Spain where your approach will likely be more appreciated)
 
DubaiSpur said:
From the ever excellent 'Dispatches From a Football Sofa'.

http://dispatchesfromafootballsofa.com/2013/12/17/can-i-have-my-spurs-back-an-epitaph/

Can I Have My Spurs Back?: An Epitaph

That it was Andre Villas-Boas that suffered the inglorious fate of dismissal is largely irrelevant. His was just another face that Daniel Levy in his infinite wisdom had lost faith in. This of course, despite the empty platitudes that are lavished on any incumbent manager when he begins his tenure at White Hart Lane. For Harry Redknapp, see Glenn Hoddle. For Ramos, see Jol. Then look up Santini. Now AVB joins the fools’ gallery; a roll call of men hailed as the key to unlocking Spurs’ ‘potential’, each consigned to the scrapheap by a club in thrall to profit, with little thought for sustained long-term development.

As a consequence of all this, in their desperation to gorge themselves on the riches that come with being part of an elite, the individuals that manage my club have systematically stripped it of all the pride it once had. Oh, how they love to parade Danny Blanchflower’s famous quote about glory at every game. It’s a hollow sentiment now. Broken. It evaporated into nothingness the very moment Spurs led football’s stock market charge that so emphatically put greed-on-the-cheap above its fans. First Irving Scholar, then Alan Sugar, now ENIC presiding over this parade of avarice, sucking the marrow out of the carcass of this grand old institution.

And what of those fans? They are just poor saps who line up obediently at the club shop, year in, year out, to buy the cheap toot that some child worker has stitched together. We’re told that all profits go to developing the team. That we’re making a contribution. Meanwhile, our club’s doing deals with ticketing agencies allowing people to hike up prices to astronomical, self-serving levels. But that’s ok, right? After all, they’ve re-invested the cash for Bale on lots of fabulous new signings. Who cares if most supporters had never heard of them? Seven players, after all. Simple economic rules: quantity over quality. That’ll paper over the cracks for a bit, shut them up for a while. Until next season at least.

Like maniacal evangelist preachers, they promise us heaven in return for our continued faith, just so long as we empty our pockets and keep their champagne flutes flowing, haw-hawing from the cosseted safety of their glass boxes in the West Stand. And when their promises are shown up for the sham they are, they placate the faithful with non-existent devils for us to rage against, shielding themselves from blame. If it’s not lasagne, it’s Chelsea winning the Champions League.

Chelsea. How we love to take the moral high ground when we compare ourselves to the noveau riche morality of our London neighbours. We mock the Oligarch for his impatience and his propensity for wielding his managerial axe with impunity. How are Spurs any different? At least Chelsea have an ever-growing trophy cabinet to justify Roman’s policy.

But at least we’re superior to Arsenal, right? Are we that deluded to place ourselves above a club that has always invested its faith in its managers for sustained periods whilst also successfully managing to build a wonderful modern arena that stays faithful to the club’s community and roots? What do we have? A board that sought to move a North London club to East London on the cheap and is perennially procrastinating over completing a stadium next to where the current one stands.

How many more humiliations do Spurs supporters have to suffer? How many more players will we have to sell before it finally dawns on us that we are a selling club? Imagine if Carrick, Berbatov, Modric and Bale had stayed. Isn’t that the kind of team that we deserve? But I don’t blame those players for leaving. How can I when it’s patently obvious that there is a clear directive at the club to purchase cheaply and sell for more. These players wanted to win trophies after all. To play for more illustrious clubs. To compete at the very highest level. It pains me to say it – but we’re through the looking-glass now so let’s speak a few home truths – Spurs will never be that club.

We can’t delude ourselves any longer that we are a Big Club. We’re a high mid-ranking one with delusions of grandeur. Intermittently successful but ultimately doomed to being also-rans. How can a club that has won two League titles in its history pertain to be bigger than clubs like Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, both European Cup winners? A trophy every ten years or so is admittedly better than many clubs but they are just passing glories.

The infrastructure for an era of success has never and will never be there because we have a hierarchy in place that doesn’t have the backbone to stick by the decisions and choices it makes. As fans we were entitled to criticise AVB for the abject displays his team put in against Emirates Marketing Project and Liverpool. It’s our club, nominally, and we care. However, kowtowing to pressure on Levy’s part is either cowardice of the highest order or another clear indication that he knows very little about football. AVB, Jol, Ramos, etc deserved more time, whatever the fans may say. After all, we didn’t appoint them. Levy and his acolytes did.

And so the farce continues. How arrogant of Tottenham Hotspur to assume that other ‘lesser’ but more cohesive clubs will relinquish their promising young managers because of the allure of White Hart Lane. A year and a half from now and ENIC will have to feed the GHod of money again. Fire and sell. Fire and sell. And we’ll keep turning up, keep spending, keep believing because we love our club. That’s what we do.

That mythical Keith Burkinshaw quote has been swirling round my head since yesterday’s news broke. Leaving White Hart Lane for the last time, he turned and remarked, “There used to be a football club over there”. There still is. It’s just their club. Not ours. A club run by financiers and hangers-on who turn up on matchdays and scoff their puff-pastries and spend the majority of the game in their suites glugging free beer, lolling about when the game finishes so their spoilt brats can pose for anodyne ‘selfies’ with the players. What grand days out they must have.

My family aside, I love this club more than anything but like a beaten wife who constantly takes back her abuser, a breaking point is eventually reached. The dereliction of duty by those gutting my club has brought me to tears today. How much more can anyone take? Years of emotional investment and obsession, all built on a lie. I used to actually believe all that ‘my eyes have seen the glory’ rubbish. Not any more. My eyes have finally been opened. And I am so very sad.
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I shouldn't have read that. ****.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Quite frankly, I am shocked with this decision!

I have read in various places that Levy made this decision on the Monday morning during a meeting in which AVB was very belligerent.
I truly hope that's how we got here, because if not we are trying to act like Chelski but without spending like them!

Thank you AVB for making me believe we could go toe-to-toe with the league best sides.
Thank you AVB for shaking off our inferiority complex at grounds like Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge etc
Thank you for trying to actually build a squad and not just play the same 11/13 players.
Thank you for attempting to allow players to recover fully before just throwing them back into the team (only to break down again, this causing more long-term problems)
Thank you for the hard work and it's a shame near the end the previous flexibility you showed seemed to evade you.

Best of luck in your next role (no doubt in Italy or Spain where your approach will likely be more appreciated)
Click to expand...

My thoughts as well, i am gutted.
 
**** it - I think we should also call out on the players who we think in the end shat on AVB's plate.

I'm naming my list of douchebags:

Dembele - well you played in your position a lot since Emirates Marketing Project; where were you vs Liverpool? Did you even try tackiling?
Verts - you play where your manager wants and put the f-ing effort in wherever that may be!!
Dawson - How lucky were you to play so many games AND be captain? You are 30 years old now..you should be able to organise the back four by now. Also you didn't have a problem with the high-line much before, why now??
Walker - you certainly showed heart, but how f-ups can a player in your position continue to have?
Paulinho - was that your final goodbye kiss via Suarez' chest??
BAE and Ade - you may have hated AVB but hang your heads in shame after that post-Liverpool tweet and picture. Poor taste.

Ok rant over!
 
glorygloryeze said:
**** it - I think we should also call out on the players who we think in the end shat on AVB's plate.

I'm naming my list of douchebags:

Dembele - well you played in your position a lot since Emirates Marketing Project; where were you vs Liverpool? Did you even try tackiling?
Verts - you play where your manager wants and put the f-ing effort in wherever that may be!!
Dawson - How lucky were you to play so many games AND be captain? You are 30 years old now..you should be able to organise the back four by now. Also you didn't have a problem with the high-line much before, why now??
Walker - you certainly showed heart, but how f-ups can a player in your position continue to have?
Paulinho - was that your final goodbye kiss via Suarez' chest??
BAE and Ade - you may have hated AVB but hang your heads in shame after that post-Liverpool tweet and picture. Poor taste.

Ok rant over!
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So, would you say, he lost the dressing room? Seems like a lot of players not buying in to the grand plan.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Hard to disagree with any of that article Dubai. Very sad. A lot of my faith that the board always works towards our best interests and knows how to move the club forward has been taken away. Even if we do somehow achieve whatever we want to achieve, I don't believe it will be anything more than blind luck at this point. One of their punts will have finally worked, when a bit of backbone could have seen us where we want to be years ago. Very sad.
Click to expand...

It's symptomatic of a wider malaise affecting football as a whole, not just our club or even the Premier League. I've railed enough against rich owners with the blood of migrant workers,protestors, and starving ex-Soviet citizens on their grubby hands, but one consequence of their spending is that they have limited the opportunities available to 'ordinary' teams like us. Where once we could console ourselves that there would always be next year, now failure to qualify for the CL or win a cup or finish top six will mean your best players will leave for the teams flashing money at them, setting you back a season if you're lucky, three or four seasons if you're unlucky. So now that opportunity goes from 'every year' to 'once every three or four years', and boards have consquently gotten more trigger-happy, more nervous, more desperate, more willing to do anything to seize that opportunity during the few times it rolls around. And so, patience, and all that comes with it, goes out the window in the name of reckless dream-chasing. While the big clubs guffaw and the rich clubs sneer. Sigh.

Levy is admirably stoic in his determination to avoid gambling it all away in one or two swipes at the cherry, a la Leeds. I'll always be grateful to him for that. But even he is affected by these attacks of nervousness and desperation every now and then, and the results...well, Andre found out the hard way what the results of said bouts of nervousness tend to be. The problem is, I don't think Levy was entirely wrong in sacking AVB: we were looking absolutely shattered, devoid of confidence, shape or any idea of how to play against Liverpool, and I'm not sure AVB could have reversed that even if we did give him time. But my simmering discontent at this whole charade remains. All our talk of dynasties, long-term plans and steady progression, thrown out the window at the first hurdle. Sigh.

I can't make a definitive judgement one way or another on what Levy's just done.So I just remain here, sad at the events that have transpired and wondering where we go next, always assured of the fact that what I think matters less to the club I love than it ever has. But that doesn't mean I can't derive some joy from following this club, and, unlike in my youth... it doesn't come so much from on-pitch events anymore. It comes from talking to Spurs fans in a pub or online and laughing, arguing and commiserating together, independently (and yet, sometimes because) of the result. It comes from wearing my Spurs jersey down to indoor soccer games and sharing banter with other, similarly jaded fans, laughing at the idea of us being united as hopelessly intractable followers of teams thousands of miles away and yet gently divided by the colour of our shirts. It comes from reading about our players (and management) going to hospitals and cheering up the ill and unfortunate, or helping inner-city kids escape falling into a life they don't deserve, or just making some bloke's day better by wandering over post-match for a handshake or a hug or the gift of a match shirt. It comes from remembering the good old times when Spurs weren't such a ball of complexity and woe, when my fanatical ten year old self would run down to the local television (we only had one that showed the games in my building) at ten at night with my parents running behind me yelling at the top of their voices and demanding that I skip the damn match and go to bed for once. And yes, despite all that it does come from the buzz of sitting down in front of the telly, beer in hand, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck tingle as 'Oh when the Spurs' reverberates around your living room or the bar of some noisy restaurant and the players come running out onto the pitch, ready to give everything they have for the full 90 minutes as the bronzed old ****erel smiles down on them from far above.


It comes from the little things, more than it does from the big things. :) I'm sure that someday, that will change, and the world will turn again. Supporters will again be the lifeblood of any football club, the players will be connected to the shirt they wear and the fans they play for, and Spurs might finally win a title that has been cruelly denied to us by fate and circumstance time, and time, and time again. But until then, all we can do as supporters is find joy in the little things, and remember that the club might be disdainful towards us, the snooty upper class might dislike us, the players might be moving further away from us...but we're all united by that one tiny thread, nonetheless. :) And one day it'll come back.
 
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