Beef Bagel

The Boxing Day fixture is always a strange one for any set of home fans. With guts stuffed as full as the turkey was the day before and mind dulled from a little too much of the good life, it’s understandable that the spectators of this post Christmas treat are a little subdued.

The 26th at White Hart Lane was no different. The early kick off didn’t help any. The game had been advertised as sold out but the eight empty seats to my right said otherwise. The seats probably had been paid for but I could imagine one or two Christmas casualties still lying in bed nursing a bastard behind the eyes or spewing from both ends as an undercooked bird takes its revenge from beyond the grave. In this case I’m thinking of a minibus on the hard shoulder of the M11 and a group of eight Spurs fans, scarves, hats, banners and all huddled around the radio, waiting for the AA.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth…and where the hell does that saying come from anyway? Is a gift horse some sort of alternative to Santa Claus? Does it go trotting through the neighbourhood on Christmas Eve trying to squeeze its way down the chimney, saddle and all, before unloading its bags of presents with a quick swish of its tinsel tail, being careful not to leave its now sooty hoof prints all over the carpet? Perhaps this is where all the carrots left out for Rudolph actually go? Hang on a second…

Apparently, it’s all about being given a gift of a horse and not looking in its mouth to see how old it is before deciding whether or not you want it. I see, so just take what’s offered to you. There you go. Not just football that goes on here on Beef Bagel. Personally, it wouldn’t be so much the age of the beast that bothered me as to how the fuck I was going to stable the thing in my modestly sized Bakery, amongst all the ovens and the mountains of Spurs memorabilia. If it shits on my programs, I’ll have its head before it can whinny Godfather.

So yes, not thinking of anything to do with horses on this occasion, we took the opportunity to move up into some of the unrestricted view seats. ‘We?’ are hear you say and you’d be right to ask. In fact, I want you to ask. Ask.

It was my privilege, although actually hers, for The Bagel to take his very own mother to WHL, The Bagel Mother. Yes, The Bagel did not spontaneously spring from the chaotic void on the first day of creation. The Bagel was forged from doe, before being baked and fired into the fine figure of breadhood before you today. Think of The Bagel Mother as perhaps the wheat, from which I came.

The Bagel comes from a family of Spurs and it is indeed from this matrilineage, that the Tottenham passion flows. Although The Bagel Mother has only graced the Lane on a few occasions, it was her parents, The Grand Bagels, who were Yiddos through and through. Season ticket holders, through the Glory Glory days, Cup Final attendees, their eyes had indeed seen the glory but I digress.

I had never taken my mum to a game and was looking forward to seeing her reaction to the animal that her son becomes the minute the whistle blows and any opposition player dares to wrong Tottenham and The Bagel. As it turned out my transformation was not whole hearted. There was no need. The loveable Martin O’Neill said after the encounter that it had been another example of his team playing well but getting nothing out of it. I think we must have been watching different games because it seemed to me the main reason we won was that they were an even sorrier looking outfit than our fairly poor excuse for a home performance.

The back four had a good enough game but the space afforded to Gareth Barry for the goal was fairly unforgivable stuff. Safety First allowed the Villa captain to turn him all too easily but on the replay it does appear that Barry tripped our no nonsense centre half. Ledley gave his usual quota of legendarily smooth sliding tackles and the full backs were good enough, although the first forty-five was perhaps Chimbondabonda’s worst in a Spurs shirt.

The midfield was where we looked shaky with a distinct lack of urgency and desire to win the game that could have cost us against another team and usually does away from home. Didier Zee picked it up by the second half but there was very little ball winning from himself and The Man Mountain going on to begin with. Big Bad Tom may be a new revelation when it comes to possession play, distribution and long range shots but he does have to work on his tackling. I understand that it must look a very long way down from there but he never slides in and to be the complete player in the middle of the park, you’ve got to learn how to scrap and scrap hard.

Steed was continuing to look pretty reasonable, causing quite a few problems for the Villa defence but Boutros Boutros was an absolute shambles. The Bagel’s been enjoying the hard working Egyptian until late and this game was just a shocker. He’s good at getting forward with strong, direct, pacey runs but he’s starting to think he’s Zidane. He seemed convinced that Gavin McCann, Barry and co. would fall for his one trick to get past them, despite it not working on a single of the five occasions that he tried it. He lost us far too much possession and fucked up break after break refusing to play the ball through. Even my mum was getting pissed off,

‘What the hell’s he playing at?’ was probably the most polite words she used to describe the player’s performance. I was proud of her untapped passion and had a tear in my eye as she told the world that ‘You can stick Sol Campbell up your arse.’ The Spurs flows strong through our family.

But my guest and I were two of only four or five of us making any noise in our block. I’d left my usual seat to find two together and frankly the nearby Paxton just don’t sing up like the Park Lane do. Apologies to any North Stand regulars amongst you and perhaps it was your xmas stuffing that kept you quiet. You seemed more like the Paxo than the Paxton.

The crowd only really got going after Aaron Hughs had collided with the man only a horned hat and goaty leggings away from being a Viking, Olaf Mellberg, as they tried to stop one of our attacks. Hughs was stretchered off straight away and Mellberg a few minutes later, only this time on a flaming long boat. But the incident did afford our fans a five minute break to warm up our vocal chords with a round robin come medley of all our players’ songs. You can still see the smile on Berbatov’s face now that he finally has a way for us to show our appreciation. One day I’ll find the name of that tune that we use to sing his name.

If it had carried on the way the first twenty had gone, we’d have had a pretty dreary half to reflect upon come the interval but thankfully the boys had picked it up. Refreshment was a real treat. After half a day slaving over hot turkey that had been soaked over night in a bucket in perhaps some of the most ridiculous food preparation I’ve ever done, the left overs were mine to do with as I chose. What better way to enjoy the half time break than a little Spurs chat over a couple of home made turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce filled bagels? A big shout to Jimmy Stuffing (nee Skates) for the recipe.

For the second half we had the treat of watching the Lilywhites attack the goal at our end and the Little Yiddo did not let us down as he slid down to the corner, where we sat in celebration of his first goal. Dimitar Berbatov had put Jermain through with a sweet ball straight from most people’s top drawer but probably only the one where our new hit man keeps his socks. With a carefully placed shot to the corner and knowingly beyond the reach of the keeper, we went one nil up and a few sighs of relief were heard along with the cheers.

After 75 minutes the relief was even louder as for once we put daylight between ourselves and the visiting team. In almost a repeat of the route one move against Bucharest, a swift and pin point goal kick from Robbo found its way over the top to the Little Yiddo again, only this time via the head of a certain lofty Bulgarian. The net looked like it had the wind knocked out of it as Defoe hammered the ball home. He doesn’t miss those kind of chances, even with a defender on his shoulder. In fact, he’s probably better when he’s under that kind of pressure.

But of course, we at the Lane like to do things the hard way and had to sweat it our after Villa got one back with ten minutes to go. There was a nice incident as Robbo wrestled Barry for the ball, who was trying to do that smug run back to the centre circle with it tucked under his arm, forcing a swift restart. It didn’t exactly go either man’s way as Uriah Rennie intervened with a warning for both and instead took the ball back himself a little slower than the Villa captain would have liked.

We held on for the last ten a little more comfortably than O’Neill would like to admit and a little less than The Bagel would like to as well. The one moment of amusement amid the tension was the small Villa contingent thinking they had rescued a point when they were fooled by that wonderful thing, perspective, as the ball was struck into the side netting. They had already been derided with, ‘Shall we sing a song for you?’ and, ‘Is that all you take away?’ which always seems more like a question for a Chinese restaurant to me and so their false dawn was a nice little bit of salt in those wounds for them to lick on their way back up the M40.

‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’ from our whole ground was enough to see to that.

As the whistle blew to secure the points there was the obligatory cheer and peeling out of ‘Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur’ from the P.A. system and as I turned to look at my mum there was a huge smile on her face that was perhaps as big as mine as I sat dozing in a heated Lexus all the way home.

‘I’ll definitely come again,’ she said before I’d even asked and if you’re reading this Jermain, you’ve got a new fan. Apparently, you’re a very good boy. I hope your mother is as proud.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 12:35 am and is filed under Match Reports. 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.