On... Spurs

To dare is to die?

“C’mon lads, it’s Tottenham.”
(The second) Sir Alex.

As a Millwall fan, this isn’t easy to admit. But I’ve always had a soft spot for Spurs.

It started in childhood.

The first match(es) I went to saw a mega pre-season double-bill at the old Wembley called the Makita Cup, featuring Spurs v Arsenal, and Rijkard / Van Basten-era AC Milan v Bayern Munich... you can imagine the experience.

Later, my cousin, another Millwall fan, picked out a classic Holsten-era Tottenham shirt for me as a birthday gift… it sat alongside my Euro 88 Koeman Holland top, Van Basten Rossoneri kit and 1988/89 Millwall jersey, and I loved them all.

Then I saw Spurs come down to the Old Den… and the newly-signed Gazza playing up to the crowd. In the warm-up, I remember him picking a ball up and sticking it on his head and pulling his shirt up, pretending to be a baldy-heed like the nearby steward.

I think our crowd’s answer was to throw Mars Bars (and probably a few coins) at him.

Spurs annihilated us that day. A five-nil loss — at home. You can watch the highlights here, and I suggest you do, if you want to see peak Chris Waddle, Paul Stewart, Paul Walsh and Paul Gascoigne given the freedom of the borough of Lewisham. There’s also an elongated video with just Gascoigne that game. What a player. And look at those tackles!

I wanted to leave early that day, but my Dad wanted us to stay, because it was a proper Spurs team then; a spectacle. Glamorous, exciting players, attacking football, a little bit of swagger, a lot of skill, the kind of thing you actively want to watch.

And when you think about the other great Spurs moments and players, it’s the 1991 ‘hand holding’ cup final with Venables’ eleven v Clough’s Forest, Klinsmann’s dive and the Romanians and that Sheffield Wednesday game, Ginola, Ardilles and Villa, the speed of Son… it’s skill, not structure, danger, not discipline. Headless kamikaze attacks that look like they are going to work, that put them in the lead, maybe win a game or two… before the inevitable self-sabotage… which is why they always, always lose.

It’s an identity. It’s personality. It stops Spurs being a cardboard cut-out team. And to every fan of whatever club, it is identity which is much more important than results, because it gives us something to cling to, because a team with an identity represents who we are and how we act, and what we love.

It’s why we’re so behind this Millwall squad. They act like Millwall; not the best team in the division, but offering maximum effort, superior aggression… a team that is direct, that raises our game against the best because ‘we fear no foe’.

I don’t expect finesse from Millwall, I expect endeavour. That’s our identity.

And for Spurs, speedy wingers, fast-footed trickery and a defence that leaks like the Costa Concordia is who they are. It’s their DNA. And it’s why Big Ange was perfect for them.

So why would you want to change it?

But some Spurs fans, and let’s face it, they are a strange species, seem to want more. The levels of delusion are off the charts — who do they think they are, expecting, and even demanding, some form of Premier League challenge? Spurs are losers, always have been, always will be. They disappoint. They fall short. They are ‘a good cup team’. They are the football fan equivalent of a man who spends his week’s wages on a new pair of Gucci loafers, who books a table for two at the best restaurant in town, and then comes home and finds his Mrs in bed with a builder.

The true aim for Spurs is to achieve glorious failure, not a league trophy, or a damp squib drop into the Championship. Trying to win through thrilling football before throwing it all away and achieving absolutely zilch year after year and decade after decade is what success for Spurs looks like.

But this season, they’ve been going out with a whimper. They’ve become un-Spurs, and diminished themselves, indeed, shamed themselves, as a result. Relegation is no dishonour, but failure to live up to identity is. They’ve tried to be pragmatic, when it’s just not who they are. They’ve actually tried to win. They’ve lost their way. They’ve lost their soul.

They should have stuck with Big Ange and gone out with style and a bang and a goal or two.

Because that’s the true Spurs. Stampeding Man City and surrendering to everyone else. Dribbling past everyone, getting done in the second half. Thinking they might win, getting close to winning, but losing… always losing, forever losing… because being a Spurs fan means being a loser, an also-ran, an excitable chump. And it’s hard to admit, and I’m sure it’s hard being a Spurs fan*, but that relentless commitment to exciting, endless, abject, laughing-stock failure is why we love having them around.

What do you think of Spurs?

*One of my Spurs fan mates is actively trying to get his son to support another team.

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I’m stupid…

To think, just to think, that the first few times I listened to Make up is a lie, I wasn’t sure.

What an imbecile! What a faithless wretch!

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PS: Another thing about Spurs. They hate Millwall.