And so it begins. The dark tanned face of our new man, Juande Ramos, could be seen in the stands next to Levy & Co.(molli) watching our half decent performance on Sunday but his work had already begun. A noted student of the game, he would have been scribbling mental notes if not actual ones and each player on the pitch was clearly of it. You could see their work rate upped by a good 50%. But that isn’t going to be enough.
My eyes are open. I’m done sleeping. I’ve not had enough but, with daylight piercing though the cracks around the blind and a hangover just waiting to kick in, that’s all I’m going to be getting. Lying on my back with LB in the crook of my arm, I stare at the ceiling a while twitching my nostrils in turn. They feel like they’ve been bored out to double their size. Crossrail could be making a stop in them by 2012; tourists pouring out of my nose asking me directions to the Olympic Park.
It’s a nice leisurely atmosphere down at the Lane with myself, Oog and my mate Charlie (a Yiddo through and through) sat together for a change. Blessed be the Cup Guarantee system, ITV’s rights to the UEFA fixtures and the resulting empty seats.
No time to write anything proper until later 3pm but for now let’s have one big open forum. All comments welcome on what id the biggest news for quite some time. No Jol, no Hughton, no Segers. Ramos, Poyet and when? Thoughts, feelings, gentlemen, ladies, let it flow…
In all the chaotic depression - can depression be chaotic? No, in all this nebulous depression (much better word) surrounding are performance on Monday, I’d completely forgotten about this…
I’m starting to wonder why I’m running across Clapham Common at 9.20pm on a misty, winter night when there’s only going to be 25 minutes left of an away game at Newcastle, which I’m sure we’re going to lose. The likes of Butt, Milner and Germemi will have bullied us out of the game and one of Leviathan Head Sam’s previously unheard of world renowned headers of the ball will have set pieced the Barcodes into the lead. Not a shred of confidence will be left, nor a any ankle left unscraped. So, I ask myself again, why am I running toward this fate when I could have just gone home? And then I remember, I’m a Tottenham fan and this is what we do. It’s just that when I did this for the past two seasons, it use to be fun. We used to win games.
My God, doesn’t the Premiership table look grim. I’ve been ignoring it under the idea that the season has barely started and what’s the point until we get a few games under our belts. Foolishly, I took a glance this morning, wanting to get a better look at the weekend’s action, having spent Saturday and Sunday with LB at wedding and a christening or someway between the two - neither were ours, by the way.
“I just parried it and maybe didn’t get enough on it. I was unlucky not to get the second shot.”
These aren’t the words of a confident keeper. If this were an incident alone, there would be no “maybe” about it. Did you get enough on it Paul or didn’t you? I don’t really know the answer either but then, I’m not supposed to. The goalkeeper is probably the most mysterious position on the field. For a start, what kind of people want a job where it’s so easy to do something wrong but so hard to get it right and even when you do, it’s generally just considered giving an adequate performance? But also, what do we really know about what a keeper should and shouldn’t do ouselves?
I suppose we should be grateful for any news of our beloved club on international crunch day for England, but the two major stories in the papers today just leave me going, ‘And?’
I’ve just received one of the worst bits of mail I’ve ever been sent. On some beautifully headed, lined, ivory parchment paper, the Red Debt Collection Services have sent me a polite request for £264.47 else they’ll send round the heavies with a fork lift truck to take away my possessions and no doubt some power tools for my knee caps when they found out there’s very little to take. I wonder what my body parts are worth on the open market these days? Perhaps I could donate my knees to Ledley, provided they’re not snatched in the next five days?
It turns out I owe HSBC the money from a credit card I had with them as a student after I quietly left my University town and mentally swept my student overdraft under the carpet as I went. Now, the overdraft I paid off a long time ago but this credit card I barely remember having. It doesn’t altogether surprise me though and neither does not remembering it. My housemates and I smoked A grade skunk like others breathe oxygen. I can understand why it’s taken the debt collectors so long to track me down. They probably broke into the house days after we’d all left, succumbed to the smoke and then forgot why they’d gone there at all. They’ve spent the best part of the last decade on our old sofas watching daytime TV.
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