Beef Bagel

“I can see a lot of different areas on your CV but nothing to indicate you would want this job. So, why do you want to work in finance?”

It’s the fifth time I’ve been asked this question, each time in a more different and more probing guise. The answer is, “I don’t,” and part of me wants to say it as much as my interviewers want to hear it. The concept of finance is not something abhorrent to The Bagel but this position is. The minute I walked through the door of this City office, these two clean-cut, clean-shaven men spotted me for who I was - someone with no interest in finance. But I’ve been sitting in this glass fronted board room for the last 45 minutes trying to convince them otherwise and I’ve been doing a good job. They know I’m not the man they want to hire.

“We’re looking for someone who’ll use this job,” the more senior of the two had said, his unwavering, stern expression matching his unwavering, regulation length, black hair, “someone who’ll wake up on a cold, Wednesday morning in February and want to come in early.” I thought he was going to stop at “in”.

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“Pardon, ou est ca?”

The 50-year-old Anderlecht steward with the kind of face you expect to see advertising Stella Artois turns to me slowly shaking his and rolling his eyes making the international symbol for “Forget it mate.” He pushes my ticketed hand away. I look down at my seat number and then back up packed crowd of the block I’m in. The Anderlecht hardcore have packed out their home in Block P. The aisles are stacked with bodies like the tube at rush hour. Each seat is stood upon by at least one fan, all of whom are in club colours, and even if I could work my way to any of them, they’re all complete with an oval groove in the orange plastic where the number has been removed. It’s a classic Euro free-for-all and myself and my mate Charlie, a Yiddo through and through, have turned up late to a party we’re not exactly welcome guests.

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There’s no two ways about it, it’s just plain weird being a Tottenham fan at the moment. Down at my local on Sunday afternoon with my mate Charlie (a Yiddo through and through) at a-little-too-early o’clock, The Bagel was definitely aware that our team are no push-overs but rather blank on who and what we are and do right now. We don’t quite look like MJ’s team but we don’t really look like anyone else’s either.

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2.55pm GMT+2. I know it’s not kick off yet my senses are naturally most heightened at 3 o’clock on Saturdays and Sundays no matter where I am. Why were dull in Tel Aviv. We’re not playing a whole lot better than when MJ was in charge, we just do so with a little more luck and steadily but surely, more belief. What the hell are we going to dish up today in a game that I wont even see? I wont have a chance to shout at the players, Wigan or Spurs, watching for any change in their play, the insults and advice of a thousand voices still ringing in their ears. I do hate missing a game. I feel powerless to help at the best of times but at two and a half thousand miles away, over 300 metres below sea level, lieing alone on a treatment table in a small room, covered in hot mud and wrapped up like tutankhamun’s human reefer, I think I’ve reached an all time low.

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It wasn’t exciting but it was most certainly needed. A win, a clean sheet - job done for game Juan.

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You know just how drunk someone is when they greet you for the second time in 10 minutes like it’s the first time they’ve seen you. That was the state of Jason when I got to his birthday drinks last night.

“Alright mate, come here,” he says as I repeat exactly what I said a few minutes ago, doing my best to make it sound fresh. I don’t have the heart to do it to him on his day, especially with such innocent drunkard’s smile on his face.

“How’ve you been?” he slurs.

“Yeah good, mate, really good. So much has happened since I went to the bar to get myself a beer.”

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I wonder what time it is. Now, if I open my eyes, if actually move, I know I wont be sleeping again but the problem is I haven’t set an alarm. It could 7am and I’ll be stuck here with a tired, sore head to toss and turn or more likely toss and toss until I admit defeat and face the world. Or, on the other hand, it could 12pm and I’ve got to peg it to the Lane. So, before I make either schoolboy error, in Through the Keyhole Style, let’s examine the evidence…

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This isn’t going to make you feel better. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t be here at all.

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I don’t know if it was he 36 hours rest, our loss in the UEFA Cup, the horrific scenes in Sevilla or the fact that playing Chelsea away this season is just a case of been there done that. Whatever the answer, there was certainly a rather large shadow of who gives a fuck over yesterday’s game against Chelsea.

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I’m sitting in the airport. The flight is delayed but that’s not altogether a bad thing. Myself, Nick The Gherkin and my mate Charlie (a Yiddo through and through) have been racing against time, bad weather and a car that wont do more than 60mph up a hill to get back to Murcia and catch the flight back home.

My head’s been buzzing since we hit the road fresh from being turfed out of bed from our hotel in Malaga a good four hours ago and it’s only now that we’ve made the check-in and cleared immigration that I’ve finally had the chance to unscramble my thoughts on what has been a very European experience.

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