On the one hand I look forward to the international breaks as just that, breaks. I’ve got no problem whatsoever with being in four competitions at once but last season it made nearly 60 games and that’s a lot of time spent up and down to the Lane as well as on writing match reports and let’s not even start on how much the whole adventure cost. So, it’s good back to sit back for a couple of weeks every now and then and take a little breather.
Does anyone know what these security measures for our away trip to Tel Aviv are all about? If you hadn’t noticed, the club is refusing to sell tickets to the game without flights as well in a move to protect Tottenham fans. It looks as if the flights out to Israel will be charter flights from Thompson for fans and officials only. Is the idea to make these safe from suicide bombings or is it the game itself that’s the potential target? I’m not quite sure how this is all supposed to work? Would it not be easy enough to get a ticket for the game in the home end? I’ll have to tap up my contact in the ticket office and find out.
I’m starting to like Steve McClaren. He’s only gone and named Robbo as England’s No.1 for Estonia on Saturday. That’s five days early for those of you without an abacus or any fingers, and our man in black (or sometimes green) is the only player that the England capo has named. He said:
“Paul Robinson’s form does not worry me at all and he will start. Sometimes players go through bad spells, sometimes they have bad games. You have to have belief and trust in players and if they have performed well for England in the past, that has to be taken into consideration, too.
“I have not had the time to talk to Paul about my decision, but I made it early because I try to treat players as I would like to be treated. Everybody is human, everybody makes mistakes, but I feel I can put my faith in Paul – if I did not, I wouldn’t pick him.â€
Er…yes, Steve. Whatever you say Steve. How alarmingly sound of him. No longer shall he be Eriksson’s bib and cone man. Now he is Scholarly Steve. Look…
Sometimes there are things that are more important than football. I figure that you’ve got to miss the odd game each season otherwise you never really get anything done in your own life. Well, that’s what I said to myself when I’d failed to organise my time well enough to fit watching Liverpool vs Tottenham into my weekend schedule. I felt rather different as I ran for the bus to get me back to the Bakery in time for the second half.
I’m going to play five a-side football this afternoon. My chances of survival are not good. Exercise for me is getting up to change channels when I’ve lost the remote or running to the Lane when I’m late. I am concerned. My footballing skills are very mediocre, so I usually adopt the Michael Brown approach - run everywhere, shoulder people off the ball and just leather it on site of goal but I’m not sure how effective this will be without any level of fitness. I can imagine that it would hamper Browny’s game somewhat if he had to spend every five minutes out of ten on the sidelines coughing up a lung. The game’s down in Brixton but perhaps I should take another leaf out of Michael Brown’s book and leave half way through and go to Fulham. There’s some lovely pubs along the river down there.
Foreword by The Bagel
There’s a new feature in town and Marshal Bagel’s here to introduce it. We share a lot of views here on each and every game. The majority are from Spurs, many from the other side of north London - some more welcome than others - but rarely are they from the other fans representing clubs at the other end of the pitch. So today is the first of The View from the South-West Corner, where the opposition give us their point of view. In Beef Bagel tradition, the idea is to avoid the childish slagging but instead to talk about your experience as a football fan as the drama that is the game unfolded in front of your eyes.
If there are those amongst you who wish to write a piece after your team has just played Tottenham, then send me your words to thebagel@beefbagel.com and I’ll post the best article I receive. As for this inaugural article, without further do I hand you over to Jonny Villain as we cast our eyes back to Monday night…
It was only a passing thought catching me unawares this morning that made me sit up and go, ‘Hang on, we’re playing the other leg of the UEFA Cup today.’ I’ve been lying next to a lightly snoring LB waiting for my alarm to go off in that worst of ways when you wake up around 15 minutes before it’s set and then have the choice of nodding of for what seems like a second before being cruelly woken or admitting defeat and raising your weary body a little ahead of schedule. It was the thought of our reserves trip to Cyprus that sprung me into action with all the will of a Leopard but the actual motion of an asthmatic sloth with back ache.
There’s something not quite right about this piece of toast. I’ve not long bought the bread from Lidl (yes, times are hard) so I don’t think that’s what it is but then, I’m thinking as I continue to chew with suspicion, I am taking about produce from the world’s grottiest supermarket. It’s the only shop I’ve ever been to where they don’t even bother with shelves. The forklifts just dump down the pallets and heard the tinned euro-goods into a great ridges from the foot hills of long life orange juice to the two minute noodle mountains. Every item must be checked carefully to see that it is what it appears to be. Always remember to keep it simple. If it looks to be easy, to good to be true, then that’s because it is. Breakfast in a can is a great idea but the execution left me with processed fried eggs repeating on me for days. I sent an old lady into a coma when I offered to help her with her shopping. You could actually see my breath as it went up her nose. The rest just dropped to the floor.
It’s matchday. No, not matchday. It’s our 125th anniversary matchday and yet all the talk on the news wires is still about our managerial paradigm. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since the original news actually broke but you’d think a momentus, money-spinning event like this evening should take precidence in the papers?
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