Spurs can win the title

Finally some real success! I was reviewing some footage on youtube yesterday including this one I posted from the end of the Carling Cup final (the one where we won, not the one we played magnificently in then lost because taking a good penalty is embarrassing or uncool or something)
[ contains clearly audible swearing- you have been warned. It wasn’t me, it was the bloke next to me]and I realised that the Champions’ league is all very well, if still annoyingly mis-named, but what about actually winning something? Then I found that Spurs are one win away from winning the league. It’s the Spurs Ladies but credit and straw clutching where it’s due. COYSL!

Score prediction

I'm often less than optimistic when it comes to predicting Spurs results. When we are playing someone like Doncaster in the Carling Cup I imagine complacency, fluky goals and humiliation. It may have happened on relatively few occasions but those moments are seared on each Spurs fan's memory and tend (in the mind of the pessimist) to overshadow the times of triumph. I do sometimes (usually foolishly) lurch from pessimism to optimism but tonight, at the thought of Spurs' challenge in the San Siro, I am laughing much like a man condemned to death. I feel a 3-0 or worse coming on. I know Rafa has replaced Jose but can't get past our defensive frailties.

(something you're aiming for) you're having a laugh

The snow started at about 4pm as I was driving home from work. By 5.30 it was quite thick on the ground and we knew that it'd be an effort getting to Elland Road. Accidents and scared drivers made it a painful approach but we managed to dump the car in a car tyre sales place in a gloomy industrial estate in Leeds. At this stage everyone seemed pretty friendly and jolly but, from what I've read this morning, they weren't feeling quite as jolly after the game and decided to 'hang around' in a menacing way outside the away end, and this was why the police kept us in for a full 45 minutes after the end of the game. The walk back to the car was a little more edgy with very brave Leeds fans giving us the throat cutting sign from behind the glass of the pubs they were in.

They were in a no lose situation as far as I could see. They did themselves credit on the pitch and the vast majority did the same from the stands though the talk this morning on forums like 606 suggesting the Spurs fans were quiet is embarrassing sour grapes I think. My ears and sore throat attest to amount of noise we were making and everyone who saw it on TV said that noise from both sets of fans was great.

The result was right, the quality difference was also about right for the gap in league positions but the once mighty Leeds made it hard work by running their socks off for a good 150 of the 180 minutes that the tie spread over. Rightly so too. This is what makes the FA cup so good. No doubt we'll take a fall at some point in the future to lower league opposition (later rather than sooner and PLEASE not to Bolton) but last night showed some of the quality in depth 'top' clubs are supposed to have. Without Palacios, Assou-Akotto, Lennon, King, Woodgate and (thank God) Keane we dominated possession and as Harry rightly said, should have scored 6 or more. It wouldn't be Spurs if they didn't make you wince and clench though and, sure enough, with a little help from a myopic Linesman, Leeds got back into the game on half time after Defoe got the first of his hat-trick with a bit of a lucky chip from all of 5 yards.

Second half was great- Spurs fans singing 'Oh when the Spurs....' in that slow, almost choir-like way that seems to irritate opposition fans; Leeds fans singing 'We all stand together...' or some such (I think it's their version of that Paul McCartney frog song though I need to listen more carefully next time) then a second goal from Defoe that helped us all unclench for a bit. They never really threatened second half and some players really stepped up the mark. Apart from Defoe, whose third goal at the end made up for a miss from a similar situation in the first half, notables were David Bently and Gareth Bale. Both played well, especially in the second half and the more they used the space on the wings, the more Leeds look unable to cope.

I am so glad they dumped out the other United and will watch with interest their results over the next few weeks in the fizzy pop league. All joshing aside, they are too big a club to be languishing down there in the 3rd division. When you look at the attendance Wigan got on Tuesday night for their FA cup game it makes it all seem topsy turvey.

I won't be going to the Bolton game being as it is on Valentines day. And it's in Bolton. It's interesting that it was already earmarked for a live TV coverage- just shows that the TV people were really hoping for another fairy tale. Even though Leeds blokes have a habit of calling one another 'love', there won't be any fairy tales at Elland road for at least another season.

ps. I only took one of these pictures.

me, the boy and S gave the following ratings to the Spurs players (we would have done Leeds too but couldn't rememeber any of their names apart from Beckford). I think these are what we said but it was late and I was driving in rotten conditions , drunk from euphoria and over-singing.

Gomez 6, Bale 8, Bassong 6, Dawson 7, Corluka 7, Huddlestone 7, Jenas 5, Kranjar 6, Bentley 7.5, Crouch 7, Defoe 9.

COYS!!

White Supremacist Lane

We're used to the odd Chelsea "fan" giving the Nazi salute at the Lane even now (My grandad didn't of course when he came with us a few months ago!). This is something else though. I've seen pics of the England team doing the Nazi salute in an international in germany but I had no idea this had happened. I think it speaks for itself and the various ironies don't really need spelling out.

You can read the match report here:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/englandfootball/story/0,9565,540784,00.html

an extract: "having seen several of the matches that England plays, as each December comes around, one inference may perhaps be advanced without harshness, and this is that football is a game more suited to the Anglo-Saxon and the Teuton than to the Latin race."

vertigo

Tension gone, the win at the Lane yesterday against a surpirsingly rubbish West Ham means that all of a sudden we can all breathe that sigh of relief that we've been waiting to let out for months. I'm grateful it didn't have to wait till May. I've been all doom and gloom this season so the boy, my girl and my Spurs buddies will all be grateful too. After Blackburn last Saturday it looked as if we might go on a bit of a dodgy run but no; London clubs no longer have some kind of hoo doo. We lost only to Fulham this season and, frankly, they're such a fluffy and likeable club that I don't begrudge them the points at all (with or without Andy 'I'm not nearly as good as I think I am and I dive a lot' Johnson).

Now we can only look up. We're 8th. What a stupid, beguiling game this is. COYS.

noise

I know I keep banging on about this but the noise at the Lane was impressive on Saturday. The whole ground joined in the 'Oh when the Spurs...' and that was before we scored. I can't find video of the Chelsea game but this gives a bit of a taste. It's funny that this video is by someone I have never met but he was stood about 10 yards from me and the boy and our voices are part of the sound you can hear here. I guess if you had CIA/ MI5 gizmos you could probably find us in the video too.

Post script: I've just noticed from the still that it looks like everyone's doing a Nazi salute. They're not.