More Than Half A Page Of Scribbled Lines

The date is February 8th 2042 and the Chairman Of The Tottenham Football & Entertainment Ltd shuffles around his office at the stadium he personally built back in the 2010's to open the blinds and see how the preparation for the latest mega event is going. He then shuffles back to his desk where he slumps into his vast leather executive chair. Today is his 80th birthday. His children have had an enormous cake box delivered to the office for him this morning. The pride he felt as he opened it and realised his kids have taken on board everything he'd ever taught them (promise the world but ultimately disappoint) as it contained only a lonely looking cupcake, gave him a warm fatherly glow.  Far below him down on the pitch men and machines scurried about building a stage at what people used to call 'The North Stand' end of the complex, all in preparation for the fifteen night run of Taylor Swifts 'I Can't Believe I'm Still Doing This Either' World Tour. ...

I suppose its in keeping with the way this season is going that the team that has lost at home to both Ipswich Town and more recently Leicester City should go with a still depleted side to Brentford (the side who've scored the most home goals) and come away with all three points and a clean sheet. Of course the general narrative is that our defence is rubbish. They have kept more clean sheets than both Aston Villa and Chelsea this season but we won't let little things like that get in the way of a good narrative. Lets hope they improve when more than 20% of them are available at the same time. Anyway, in my opinion Brentford are in possession of one of the best front three's in the league in Wissa, Mbeumo and Schade. All three are pacy, intelligent and interchangable in attack so looking after them is always going to be testing. The fact is Spurs did this despite the additional loss of Radu Dragusin who was injured in the win over Elsborg . Its subsequently been revealed he...

I'm trying to listen to as much new music as old these days.It suddenly occured to me early last year that I've, give or take, been listening to the same music since just prior to the Millenium. As I career through my fifties I feel I need to start keeping a record of this new this stuff. If for nothing else its because my memory is getting worse and I might end up listening to something thinking its new when I've already heard it. The new year / new album thing kicked off with this: 2nd January Cartoon Darkness - Amyl & The Sniffers Released October 2024 This one was on my list for last year but I never got around to listening to it before December closed out. I'm glad in a way because it was a cracking start to the years aural pleasure. I haven't really listened to anything like this for quite some time because middle-aged men are not necessarily the target audience for the likes of the Amyl gang but I'm really pleased I did. For  a start its 33 mins which...

Lets be honest, there wouldn't have been many Tottenham fans thinking that the last fixture in stage one of this years Europa League was going to be straightforward. Certainly not when you think of what else has been going on this season, let alone during the Europa games. Still, a couple hours later and we were all wondering what the fuss was all about. Obviously it wasn't a run-of-the-mill 3-0 home victory, because with Spurs it never is or can be. In fact, what happened in the last 20 minutes or so was quite remarkable. Damola Ayayi celebrates his goal. Any write ups I'd seen regarding the opponents , Elfsborg FC, described them as defensive. This was evident from the kick off where from the start they stuck 10 men behind the ball / parked the bus / employed a low block. Please delete to show if you're Gen X / Millenial / Gen Z. It also appeared from the start that the chronically struggling for form Son had his full back on the proverbial toast. He really was just t...

Its a sad fact but my greatest night as a fan of Tottenham Hotspur happened nearly forty one years ago. Sometime late into the evening of Wednesday 23rd May 1984 a relatively unknown 21 year old goalkeeper Tony Parks saved a penalty in a shoot-out at the Paxton Road end of White Hart Lane to secure the victory in that season's UEFA Cup. This was not only the clubs third European trophy, it was the third major trophy Spurs picked up in four seasons. The starting eleven for that match was ravaged by injuries and suspensions in a time when squads were much smaller than now. Ray Clemence, Steve Perryman, Ossie Ardiles and the clubs greatest ever player Glenn Hoddle were all unavailable although a barely fit Ossie did make the bench. If only I'd realised as me and Dad made our way back to my Nans to collect the car and make our way home up a completely log jammed Great Cambridge Road that things would never quite the same again. The manager of six years,  Keith Berkinshaw had much e...

There's this really handy display option on the dashboard in my car that tells the driver approxiamately how many miles worth of petrol he or she has left in the tank. The risks of ignoring this information are two fold. Firstly, eventually you'll end up running out of fuel and be parked up on the side of the road while everyone else passes you on the way to their chosen destination. The second risk is much more damaging in the long run. What will happen as the tank empties is that all of the muck and impurities from the fuel will end up being sucked into the engine and potentially cause long term damage to the efficiency and performance of that engine. When Spurs returned to the training ground at 3am on Friday morning after the victory over Hoffenheim in the Europa League, the coach would have metaphorically rolled into the car park literally on the last on the fumes from the fuel. I know that Hoffenheim are an even bigger basket case this season than Spurs have been but its ...