Beef Bagel

“If we go to bed together, I promise you nothing will happen.”

The words echo in my mind as I reach over for a glass of water to soothe my red raw throat. I really meant it at the time but the two spent condoms lieing limp on an unfamiliar bedside table tell me otherwise. My bottom lip is cushioned against the hard rim of tumbler by a layer lip smee over an inch thick. The creamy matter squishes against the glass and I wait for a second to find out if it’ll cool me as the water trickles into my mouth. It’s like I’ve a blunt razor lodged in my throat ripping at a little more flesh every time I swallow. I’m going to get a cold but then what can you expect for night, a morning asleep with cocaine blocked nostrils and my mouth wide open, breathing any would-be bacterial and viral assassins.

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Freezing my buns off down at WHL to watch us get knocked out of the FA Cup in front of far too many Chelsea fans was not my idea of a good night at the Lane. It still hasn’t really settled in. How can Wembley ever be finished until we’ve played there?

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It was a very relaxed Bagel who arrived at White Hart Lane for the rarity that is a 3 o’clock Saturday fixture. Despite turning up to find our big guns playing cards on the sidelines we were all still looking to administer a healthy spanking to the club resting firmly at the base of the table or as we later put it ‘Going down with the West Ham. It became clear very quickly that this wasn’t to be.

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I hear the floorboards creaking in the Bakery, the stumble of a man, a tired man, a man in need of a leak. I know that decision. Your head is pounding, your mouth dry and you really don’t want to move. Movement could be painful, lethal but how long can you lie there too tired to rise, too damaged to sleep while the drip drip of urine collects in your bladder. How long can you hold it in?

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When a striker, who’s been waiting all season to score a goal, opens his account against your club, you just know it isn’t going to be your day. But then when a side with a good squad and a good manager are playing with such astounding relegation form, you know that not even an eight goal cushion would never be enough. So was the ballad of West Ham vs. Tottenham.

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‘Do you ever tell them that they’ve already got perfect breasts?’ I ask as I dip a stubby green vegetable into the pinkest of taramasalata.

‘Well no,’ answers my old school friend, now a junior surgeon in plastics, ‘but sometimes we say a prayer for their passing…In loving memory of a perfect nork that will sadly no longer be, Amen.’

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That, ladies and gentleman, was an away day; four goals, a clean sheet and a damn good sing song. It must gave been lucky pants all round. I can’t work out which bit was my favourite; Keano’s first, his second, Berbatov’s cheeky finish for number four or just they way they stood there in front of us with their arms out after we got the second, that wonderful moment when all eleven of them and 4,000 of us knew we were on our way to Wembley? We sang it then, on the way out, on the streets of Fulham, all the way down the Piccadilly Line home and you could even here us doing it on the background of Robbie Keane’s interview on Sky Sports,

‘Wem-ber-ley! Wem-ber-ley! We’re the famous Tottenham Hotspur and we’re going to Wem-ber-ley!’

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Oh yes. Yes, this feels like match day all right. My mouth is like leather. My tongue more like that of a shoe, a Clarks t-bar sandal as it goes. My hand reaches out in the uncertain hope that I had the sense, no the arse, to pour myself some water before diving for the comfort of a mattress. Eyes closed, the familiar sound of a nearly knocked glass halts my search and I realise I’ve found gold, liquid gold, something better; close by refreshment allowing my brain to go under again before I force it awake, before a trip to the kitchen and all the time and thought it would take to interrupt my dreams, my unconsciousness and let the seeds of a pounding hangover begin to take root in my mind.

Today’s started well already. Glass of water, shoes off, contact lenses removed and I’m able to drift away again to the land of a painless slumber.

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I remember the morning Michael Carrick left the club. With heavy hands I wrote that daily bread but by the end of my report my heart felt all the better, my soul a little cleansed. I’m hoping the same as I write this now.

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Apologies once again for being AWOL on Thursday but I simply…well, I think you got the message. Naturally, we weren’t exactly feeling full of beans first thing the morrow after as the filthbags snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat but The Bagel wrote no official match report for once good reason. Why write up the game when we’ve only reached half time? There’s plenty of drama as yet to unfold but more on that nearer the time.

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