Friday 11 May 2012

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 3rd 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.

4 comments:

  1. Like it Rio and that's a pretty high class tumble dryer you have there.
    If we all wish hard enough and long enough at 3pm on Sunday we certainly can affect the result and don't let anybody tell you different.

    Don't forget to take the babygrow off the baby before throwing it in the dryer or it might confuse the lads.

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    Replies
    1. But how else are we going to get the baby dry? And if it were, will the undampened child of Champions League football be appealing enough for the absent fathers (Bale, Modric, Adebayor) to stick around for the folding and putting away?

      This is getting a bit too strange.

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  2. It's not just you. Sometimes when we lose, I think - just for a second - maybe if I hadn't watched and had done something else, the result would be different. Just a thought..,

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  3. You're not alone in such thoughts.

    There is a sense of one's own insignificance when you do stumble upon the realisation that, as a fan, you have nothing to do with the final outcome of a football match. I can only liken it to the feeling we all had when Prof' Brian Cox intimated that every single human on earth is as important (perhaps less so) than a particle of space dust. Terrifyingly comforting.

    A terrible nirvana.

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