I normally love watching the latest act of idiocy on Tyneside, be it calls for a “boycoutt” or another fumbling screw-up from Mike Ashley. I hate the ongoing media love-in over the Geordies and their football, the way we’re always being told we “don’t understand how much football means” in the North East, and I enjoy watching them being taken down a peg or two. But the sacking of Chris Hughton has absolutely appalled me, and not just because of Hughton’s Spurs past. It’s such a ridiculous decision that I can’t help but be outraged, and for once, I really do feel sorry for Geordie fans, who had thought there was finally some stability and pride back at their club, only to see the chubby purveyor of jockstraps who calls himself their owner needlessly ruin it all again. And their obvious confusion and anger sent me on a trip down memory lane to our own dark days of “we want our Tottenham back” misery. Haven’t heard that sung for a while. Remember singing it at Leyton Orient before going absolutely mental when Gary Doherty scuffed an injury time winner? God, we were pathetic.
Football is a fickle game, and as we cruise into the CL knockout stages, we should remember one thing – until very recently, we rivalled Newcastle as the biggest circus in the Premier League, and one day we probably will again. Right now is an absolutely sublime time to be a Tottenham fan, and we should enjoy it while we can.
Just in case you’d missed it, take a look at Pot One for the upcoming Champions League last 16 draw:
Schalke 04, Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Shaktar Donetsk, Tottenham Hotspur.
There we are, one of an elite eight clubs at the pinnacle of global club football. It’s what we’ve been waiting for, for years and years and years. Who would have imagined it that day on the terraces at Brisbane Road?And yet I’ve noticed that some fans seem to have already started taking it all for granted.
Against Werder Bremen a couple of weeks back, I was stunned to see fans leaving in large numbers well before the final whistle. We were about to qualify for the Champions League last sixteen, having never before been in the competition at all, and yet people thought beating the traffic was more important than clapping the team off? Are we already so infected with “Big 4” arrogance that we can’t appreciate what we’re seeing, and give this side the love they deserve?
This season has seen us come from behind to beat the Scum away, destroy the reigning European Champions at the Lane, witness one of our players become one of the most talked about midfielders in the world, top the Champions League scoring charts, break records and set Europe’s top club competition alight. It is, to borrow a phrase, Schoolboy’s Own stuff. Let’s make sure that the atmosphere at the Lane reflects that, and let’s think very, very carefully before we bitch about anything, because before you know it we could be appointing Alan Pardew.