The Tottenham Tumble Dryer (or how I channelled Partridge to deal with this mess)

This is it. This is LITERALLY ‘IT’.

Finish third and the history books will have this down as a glorious campaign; a fight against all odds to secure a position behind the 2 teams that gave us a walloping in the first couple of rounds, only for us to dust ourselves off and fight off the challenge from the best of the rest. Perennial Champions Leaguers, the ‘South London Migrants Select XI’, and said competitions current finalists Nazi FC, while also seeing off the extraordinarily spirited effort of the Mag’s from Geordieland.

Finish fourth with Third Reich Rovers winning the champey pot (slash) finish fifth, and it’s been an unmitigated disaster. A lesson in exactly what not to do when poised for achievement. Salvaging utter incompetence from the jaws of very very unincompetence.

Inches, my friends. This game is measured in tiny margins, as Al Pacino sort of said in that film about Americanised Football.

There are those that will say that they and everyone involved at Spurs would have taken this scenario after the first 2 games ‘all day long’. There are others who, walking away from the Newcastle game with a conviction that this team could be something a bit special, now feel a bit guilty/stupid/angry for finding their hopes thrown into a big, sort of football related tumble dryer, with no idea what will come out. Will it be the warm, soft, automatic 3^rd place denim shirt (put on an ‘extra cupboard dry’ cycle and a sheet of ‘bounce’ which makes them smell really, really nice and easier to iron) that keeps us cool, and looking razor sharp over the  summer months, or will it be the shrunken, smelly (bounce-less) vest t-shirt that should have been thrown away a long time ago but I just haven’t got time to go shopping for under garments that nobody other than my wife ever see, that will intermittently embarrass us until it’s time to cross swords again?  

For what it’s worth, I think Woolwich will get a draw. I also think we’ll match that result, meaning we’ll need Everton to get a point at home to the Mag’s. Which they probably will.

Who knows what’ll get served up on Sunday. I’m almost beyond caring at this stage, but know it’ll be my only focus come 3pm Sunday. One thing I’ve learnt this season is that I have literally zero effect on the outcome of any match, there or not, watching or not. There’s always a tiny part in the back of each of our minds, a little ego perhaps, that tells us our attendance or our viewing of a game will somehow affect the outcome. Surely it’s not just me? We’re all just socks in the giant Tottenham Hotspur tumble dryer, thrown around at the whim of whether Gareth spent too much time in Faces the night before, or whether Harry thinks Parker for VdV is a good idea. Sometimes we win (warm jet of air- still with the tumble dryer motif), sometimes we lose (buffeted against other potentially wet/odoured socks), and sometimes we draw (collision near a warm air jet).

Another Typically Tottenham season.

Bayern Munich scarves at the ready.

Uncomfortably Numb

Wellity, wellity, wellity.

It’s everyone’s favourite Uncle, but at least Harry seems alright about it:

‘’Yeah, it was me all day weren’t it? Wasn’t it? I even had a tenner on meself. Not really. Or did I? Been on the blower to Frank loads over these last few weeks, was after JT’s autograph, wanted him to put in a good word with the other English Lions they’ve got there. He’s a lion isn’t he? Top, top pro. Nah, just kidding, not spoke to Frank in a while. We were knocking up formations when I was round there for dinner the other day. Great if they won the Champions League wouldn’t it? Although it might ‘urt us. Let’s hope we both win. Nah, but seriously, didn’t really want the job anyway, but I would have loved it. Nah, not really, I’ve got a great job here. Where am I?’’

He might not have said any much of that, but here’s a bit of the word nourishment he provided his starving press children from his Range Rover:

‘’I am very fortunate…, I am just so lucky to be working here with fantastic players… I will just get on with my job… Champions League… that’s where my focus is and always has been’’

Etcetera.

I wonder if Harry reads those comments to himself as he cries himself to sleep, wiping his nose clumsily on his St Georges cross bed spread, lovingly clutching the John Terry and Bobby Moore collage he made himself from back issues of 'shoot'. ''I really love it at Spurs'' *sob sob*. ''I've got a great job'' *sniff*. ''It's a great club'' *bottom lip quivers*. ''Just focussing on getting back out there on the training pitch with this group of la...'' *drives off* *self harms*.

It’s most difficult to find the energy to concoct blogulations when the management and playing staff seem to have given up so completely on what promised to be such a successful campaign. There are some brave souls in the blogosphere that find the words, somehow, to summarise what the flip is going on; offering some wonderful summarisation of what us fantabulouses are feeling. Unfortunately, the bitter disappointment, manifesting itself as feelings of deception and being well and truly betrayed, make it difficult for this blogger with other ship going down, to lift my flaccid footballing spirit to the heights of rallying calls or even make sense of the collapse we’ve all had to sit and watch. Most frustratingly, with a reasonable grip on what’s going wrong and what needs doing to rectify it. It’s not rocket surgery.

Uncomfortably numb.

Us humans have a finite amount of energy we’re able to muster on a daily basis, and sometimes there are times when things like watching the team you love become so rudderless and left to coast off the edge of a cliff is just too much. I watched the first half of the QPR game only, safe in the knowledge that there was no way we were going to score in the second. I had a ticket for Blackburn on Sunday but didn’t go. I’m going to go kitchen shopping with my wife and child in an attempt to make real life more pleasurable, rather than tuning in for whatever is going to be served up by Tottenham at Bolton tonight. Energy needs redirecting to a more positive place.

Supporting Tottenham is life itself. Mostly really hard but the good makes it all worthwhile. When a metaphor for life encroaches on everyday reality and takes more than it’s fair share, just how hard is it to separate the emotion from the grand plan, and do you even want to? A football Succubus, as opposed to… a much nicer kind of bus.

Or we might just need to play 2 DM’s.

Whatever.