It's been a fair few days since I last blogged. I've spent past International Breaks drafting and crafting articles to amuse and entertain whilst waiting to welcome back Spurs. Can't say I've been that inspired this past week. Less so for the sake of keeping up appearances. I apologise for that. It's not like there hasn't been any worthy points of discussion.
Spurs spy
The whole Olympic Stadium debacle can be summed up as follows:
"We're going to hide our bullshit by covering it up with your bullshit"
"That's what we're going to do"
That's basically it. Since when has anything not been susceptible to corruption? 14-0 suggests something in the bidding process was shady, not that I'm complaining personally being pro-NDP. Politics and business, dirty tricks and deflections...are we shocked? End of the day, we're not moving to East London and Gold and Sullivan are going to remain despondent (running track) even if Brady continues to churn out propaganda about 60k+ West Ham fans turning up at Stratford.
Whether Levy took it too far or not remains to be seen.
Boris ITK
A regular of Glory Glory dot co dot uk had a conversation with Boris Johnson. He shared the main discussion points on the forum, with photograph included. No cryptics. Spurs annual report out soon so we might see an update on where the NDP stands with the government. The main jist of the ITK:
An offer of £7.5m has been tabled to Tottenham Hotspur, from the Mayors office to help with regenerating the area and jobs if they stay in the area.
A new station will be built in close proximity to help with congestion.
Daniel Levy is being very stubborn apparently!
Not sure about that figure quoted (hence stubborn chairman I guess) but would dearly hope and pray the new station becomes a reality.
N17 > the sheer volume of people in and around Stratford station on a weekend
Gazza
Did you manage to catch the Paul Gascoigne interview? Ignoring the host, I tuned in regardless. Gazza was the player I idolised when growing up. Even before he signed for us, I was a tad obsessed. Powerful, mesmerising and a genuine personality back when football was football, before it started to self-mutilate. You can cite sadness and tragedy and pity but I prefer to remember his time at Spurs and 1991 in particular when he practically dragged us screaming (with joy) to Wembley before self-imploding on his second visit. He hasn't had a drink for a while, hope he never has one again. Fake breasts practical jokes aside, they don't make footballers like him any more.
I love you Paul.
England
Discussed this on Twitter, I just don't get that emotive kick out of watching England any more. It's not that I'm not patriotic or not proud, just there's a lack of spark and no excitement when we take to the field. Other than perhaps crossing fingers that Scott Parker doesn't get injured. Italia '90; every time I see flashbacks to it, hairs stand on the back of my neck. Euro '96 too. I don't know, perhaps modern football has left me a little disillusioned thanks to my dislike of so many of our untouchable internationals. There is so much wrong with the whole England set-up from grass roots to the FA and the media that I have some how managed to marginalise myself.
The media have always built us up to knock us down and perhaps as underdogs we'll perform better (England Expects no more) but there's a sense that club football has surpassed national aspirations. For me at least. Once upon a time had you asked me 'World Cup or Spurs title win?' - I would have struggled to answer it. I probably need to go away and think about this in more detail because I know it seems like I'm abandoning my country but I'm not doing so because we're 'not that great' or always under-achieve. I'm seasoned at disappointment, considering what the 1990s were made of supporting Spurs. Even under Graham and the pre-Jol 'era' before Martin rebooted us, I never considered turning my back on my club.
Why have I allowed myself to turn my back ever so slightly on my country?
Death and taxes
Jan trial for Harry. No surprise there. Either they're p*ssing in the wind or have more than enough evidence to make an example out of him. Will be embarrassing (considering how high profile Redknapp is) for the HMRC to go to court only to see the case thrown out or found in favour of England's next manager©. Harry has always been confident, laughing it off. Bravado I'm sure. Fact is, I can't influence or change anything relating to this court case and anyone associated with the club (manager, coach, player, whatever) are simply custodians of the shirt I adore. Daniel Levy appointed him and it has worked a treat. We have stability and we have swagger. Regardless of what happens (he could be found innocent of any wrong-doing, he could be found guilty, he could be found guilty and be sentenced, etc) and whether he is with us next season or not, the club will still be looking forwards. Levy, no doubt, has had contingency plans drafted for months and months.
And let's be honest. This is THFC. It wouldn't be THFC if there was no drama unrelated to football at some point.
The window; can you feel the draft?
Bale to Barca. I'm sure I saw a few 'headlines' covering this. That's the Jan transfer window gossip-puking machine being switched on, very gently humming as it builds up to full motion come 2012. It's November, if its early enough for Coca-Cola to start showing their Xmas ads then its early enough for half of our players to be linked with moves away.
Movember Update (day 14)
Movember update.
Visit The_Fighting_Cock 'My mo space page'.
We've also been updating the page and the thread over at The Fighting Cock forum with weekly photos and updates on the growth and styling of our majestic moustaches.
To donate or join the team, click on the link and ‘donate to my team’ or ‘join team’. Rejoice the 30 day journey of moustachery.
Almost at the half-way mark of the month now, and I'm still sporting the Lemmy look that is being mistaken for the Village People Blue Oyster club moustache. Classy.
The Fighting Cock
It's a podcast. It's on itunes. It's also hosted here on DML but its the website you need to be visiting - click here to see it. You can listen to the pods, sign up to the forum and generally get involved with all the debauchery. Your mother is welcome too. Blogger wannabes/contributors also most welcome. Our fledgling community accepts all lost souls. We all know how fragmented Tottenham fans are (especially on-line) so if you've been rejected from one of those forbidden closed off message boards or simply want to mix your football with topical matters such as how to execute the camp-fire method, feel free to pop in and say hi.
16 episodes in we've decided to have ourselves a logo make-over which will go live later on this evening (click on the image below for a countdown...yes, a countdown because we're nerdy like that).
@RickyTFC @ChicagoDanTFC @Flav_Bateman @tehTrunk
@TheloniousFilth @Alex_Prole @Spooky23 @sibsTHFC
www.thefightingcock.co.uk
Not that we actually have a logo at the minute. Hence the necessity. If you listen to the pod and can't get through the first 10 minutes of random chat but take the time to post your abuse about not liking it, remember its not you rejecting us, its us filtering you out ;)
Love the shirt.