Beef Bagel

I wasn’t going to bother with the Ramos quotes plastered all over yesterday’s pages because they seemed to ring of the same old crap. I don’t mean Ramos’s old crap. Juande’s a clever guy, he doesn’t talk crap and even if he did you could hardly be bored of hearing it after only half a season.

No, the same old crap I’m talking about is the old crap spoken by managers in general. It goes a little something like this…

“It wasn’t good enough and we all know that. It goes without saying that we owe the fans better than that,”

…and I was going to let it pass long with the rest of Our Leader’s statement on the website about winning the rest of the season and professionalism, but this time, it got me thinking. “We owe the fans better,” no they don’t. The players don’t owe me a thing. They don’t ask me to buy my season ticket. I do it because I want to, because I love Tottenham. I would like them to play well. It’s a lot more fun when they play well - although I must say I did reserve giggle for the Geordie fans when they sang:

“They’re here,

They’re there,

They’re every fucking where,

Empty seats, empty seats!”

Never heard that one before. But yes, it’s a lot more fun when Spurs play well but I came down when we were ghastly to behold. I’ll never forget watching the likes of Bunjy and Acimobitch, the Doc and Jamie Redpapp.

When the players move on, they play for another set of fans; they don’t owe any one group of us. If anyone they owe the institution of football in general for providing them with a wonderful way to earn a living as well as all the bling and WAGs they can eat.

The players don’t owe The Bagel, neither does the manager but Tottenham does, the club. They owe me, and what they owe me is respect. Respect in their dealings with their customers. The trouble is that they hold all the cards. We can pretend all we like that they need us, that they must treat us well but in truth it’d take something pretty severe for me to cut my ties with the club so deep inside my soul. I would have to cut out my heart. It would be the end of a relationship in which I was still very much in love. Moving to Milton Keynes could would be a step in that direction.

So Juande, I know you’re doing your best and I would never accuse the players of not really giving a shit, not on the basis of one performance. So, you don’t owe me anything. Just play and I’ll be there.

One place I’d love to be when they play is in Rotterdam in August where it has been announced that we shall be taking part in some kind of pre-season competition in Feyenoord’s back yard along with Borussia Dortmund and Celtic. I know a certain Yiddo who’ll be chomping at the bit. Sunshine, beers, football, a little shomething to shmoke and we all go back to MJ’s placsh for a crepe and pipe.

Another idea in the papers was for an exhibition game in India against Kingfisher East Bengal (great name) just after the end of the season on 18th May. The stumbling block here is that we’ve reportedly asked for £650,000 for the privilege but the man in club director Amit Sing came back with a good one saying that a club like Tottenham would only be paid half that much if we played out in South-East Asia. Nice diss. Does that mean Derby would be on expenses only?

To be the first Prem team to play on the sub-continent would be excellent from a financial point of view. Serious untapped market over there, even if cricket is the first love. Out of a country of 1.12 billion people, someone’s got to buy a shirt.

On the transfer front, the Chosen Juan has come out with a nice, bold statement today hammering the final nail into that best of British coffin.

“I like good players from all countries, including Russians, Italians and Brazilians,” he said. “I will not only concentrate on the Spanish league.”

Notice no mention UK players whatsoever. I’m fine with that. We’ve got enough of a stock of them to last us a while, at least until Little Aaron disappears in the summer with God knows who else. So who has our man got his eyes on, aside the entire dressing room at Sevilla? One name that keeps popping up who we’ve yet to examine is Cameroonian midfielder, Alain Nkong (pronounce that one with accidentley choking yourself). He’s a leggy 6′3″, 11.5 st and here’s his head…

…showing us his famous Time Henman impression.

If you followed the recent ACN, you may have noticed the forward thinking player netting a doozy in the semi-final against hosts, Ghana. It went a little something like this…

Nkong’s been hopping about the Americas for years now. At the mature age of 28, it’s about time he settled down somewhere and Juande’s hoping he can coax him over from Mexican club, Atlante, to give old Blighty a try. £5m is the price most bandied about.

He looks promising and we have one or two French speaking Africans to keep him company, quite literally depending whether or not Didier Zee and Benoit Who make it through the much forecast summer cull.

If you’d like to take a closer look at King Nkong, as they seem to call him, then take a look at this. Can’t say I’ve vetted it as I’m sans headphones at the mo but it looks informative and the travel graphics at the beginning say it all…

Of course, there could be a very close friend for Alain to buddy up with in the form the Cameroon and Espanyol keeper, Carlos Kameni. However, according to Espanyol head honcho, Sanchez Llibre, he’s received no word from North London at all. He said:

“No offer has arrived. He has told me he is happy and might like another four years here.”

Doesn’t sound like the most convincing ‘no’ I’ve ever heard but if there’s one thing I hate, it’s happy, settled players, apart from ours of course. Still, Super Al came around eventually and look at the smile on his face now, ear to fucking ear baby. Just don’t mention the Rangers quadruple.

Your parents don’t like what you do? Fuck you mom and dad. See how they feel when you’re making their fuckin’ bagel payments.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Bagel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.