Beef Bagel

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?

George has made a break for it. He’s made the choice and it’s the right one but that cold bathroom floor will be chilling his duvet warmed feet and I’m not surprised that his journey back to bed is all the quicker as I hear him dive back to safety. I look at my phone. 9 o’clock. I could wait. I could let him sleep a little longer but that’d be cruel. We’ve got to get up, no matter how we feel. No matter what last night’s half processed booze is telling me; the pints on pints, the whiskey chasers and that dirty Colombian beer. We’ve got to get up now.

I’m on my feet in a flash, well, it seems like one but then each thought seems to take five seconds on its own and what I considered to be an easy journey is only saved from a sidestepping to tumble disaster by a well placed wall and the clutch of a window sill. Steadied, I walk into his guest room at the Bakery before my friend is back to sleep.

‘We got to get up,’ I croak with one eye open as I press my palm against my aching forehead, trying to quash the riot inside. The angry mob want water, salt, sugar and a promise never to touch alcohol again. I’m willing to meet their demands but a little negotiation may be required. I soften them up with a cup of tea and one for my friend with protestors of his own.

He wanted the full bagel, he’s got it. A night spent jumping from bar to bar in Upper Street, of all places far too close to arsenal, until gone three in the morning has seen to that. George has taken a risk, a big risk in choosing this as his first live Spurs game and he wants to do it right. Like the players he’s done his preparation. While they’ve been running the drills, he’s been learning the songs and while they were tucked up safely in bed, George was out getting lashed with The Bagel in our own pre-match preparations.

Bodies decrusted and lucky pants secured, we appease our screaming stomachs with bacon and sausages, the final terms of our rioters agreements and start the long journey underground from North East to South West.

The tube is sickly warm and crowded and I don’t want to ask my friend if he’s feeling as bad as I am. It’s not going to make either of us feel any better. I’m breathing the close, carriage air in through the nose, out through the mouth and concentrating on that next stop ahead, just one at a time and we’ll make it without me apologising to some poor tourist as I pick the pieces of semi-digested sausagemeat out of their hair.

The passengers change stop by stop as tourists too lazy or stupid to walk about the West End are replaced by shirts of Chelsea blue and Lilywhite. A redheaded fan with a freckled meat face and a neck disappearing into shoulders taps out a absent minded tell tale rhythm on the bars of the District Line, so close now to Fulham Broadway. Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. ‘Yids!’ I think, as I finish off his Morse code chant.

Up the escalators and out to freedom, the ginger and his mates test out the crowd,
‘Hello, hello, We are the Tottenham Boys, and if you are a Chelsea fan surrender or you’ll die, we all follow the Tottenham!’

Not a Chelsea mouth replies.

Out into the blazing sunshine on this beautiful March day and the familiar streets of the Broadway are confused with the flow of the crowd. George has never been to Stamford Bridge before but then, neither have I. Year upon year of defeated Spurs and legendarily expensive ticket prices going straight to the coffers of our enemies have always put The Bagel off this fixture. Thia is a new experience for both of us and something I hadn’t really condsidered.

The inside of the stadium with its walls of evil mid blue are softened by the songs of the Yid Army. Their real live warm up form the final lesson of my friend’s education. Standing there, with lager in their hands in a warm up ritual of their own, who should we see but the Lads in Front, unbelievably tall now that I have no terraced height advantage. My hung over head, my shock at their stature and their beer fuelled excitement make for the strangest of meetings made stranger as not only Penfold and No Name but the one who looks like my old mate George stands opposite my old friend George.

‘You know Robbo and Keano and out,’ says George (new version of my old mate)

‘What?’ I stand there in shock. I haven’t heard the news. ‘So, we’ve got Cerny?’

‘He looks scared. Don’t worry mate, you’re better than Robinson. I reckon we can still get something out of this,’ says George look-a-like and we wish each other luck before myself and the real McCoy make our way out onto the stands.

George (real)’s face lights up as he sees the pitch for the first time, the noise of the crowd, the echoing p.a, the arena unfolding but it’s hitting me hard too and in a way I just hadn’t considered. Never have I been surrounded by so much filth. The thousands in their enemy shirts, the Chelsea blue seats and structures, the curved soap dish of a modern ground giving it the look of a perverse, adulterated White Hart Lane. With only 6,000 more seats it’s of a comparable size but it’s just wrong. I feel unclean.

But my sickness is soothed as Spur by Spur we fill the stand until we occupy the whole of the Shed End and make our presence known.

‘We are Tottenham, we are Tottenham, super Tottenham from the Lane, we are Tottenham, super Tottenham, we are Tottenham, from the Lane!’

Nothing though is complete until the final two Yiddos arrive. My mate Charlie, a Yiddo through and through and his mother Gillian, a mother through and through, come racing in to take their seats next to George and I just in time for kick off.

‘Come on you Spurs! Come on you Spurs!’

The view is strange from this unfamiliar angle, right by the corner flag but from here it looks like we’ve started well. Zokora, Tainio and yes, that’s Ghaly, they’re throwing themselves about the field, hacking at the Chelsea, chasing everything down. There’s a fury in their play, a raw will to take this game to the league champions by simply wanting it more. We applaud each fresh Tottenham tackle and every transformation of a Chelsea move into Spurs attack.

And then, the ball doesn’t come back. At the other end we see play between Defoe, Lennon and a Berbatov shot and then…goal! We look from man to man for a second to check we’re not just seeing things and as our players run round to celebrate we know it has to be true. Thousands of Spurs are jumping like mad men, the four of us amongst them with wild disbelief in our eyes. 5 minutes gone, one goal up and we’re doing the Yiddo Dance at Stamford Bridge.

‘Yiddo, yiddo, yiddo, yiddo! Yiddo, yiddo, yiddo, yiddo!’ we shout as we punch the air with out arms.
I’m thrilled to see my mate doing his first dance with his eyes alive and his mouth wide open and cheering.

‘I’ve completely forgotten my hang over,’ he says above the crowd as our songs change to a different tune.

‘Dimitar Berbatov! Dimitar Berbatov!’ we call to the great Bulgarian. He’s taken us to the promised land again.

With the Spurs midfield’s pressure paying off they redouble their efforts. They can see the way to win this game. Blue shirts are hunted by the lions in Lilywhite and the home side try to take it up that extra gear. This is not going to be as easy as they had thought.

They come at us with Robben the major threat, winning free kicks outside our area for Lampard to take and Drogba to bash in but all too close to the Shed End stand for a certain player’s comfort.

‘Lampard,’ we sing to ‘Blue Moon‘, ‘You let your country down, you let you’re country down, you let you’re country down!’

He may say it doesn’t get to him in interviews but it obviuosly does because at the end of the day, he did.

The Tottenham back four work hard to clear their lines as the big Chelsea bodies are thrown into the fray with the smaller predators waiting on the edge of the box for the ball to bobble to them and every now and then it does. Ballack takes a strike well wide but in typical Lampard style, the Chelsea team get a goal back as he catches the shot on the slide. It was good play to be there but still a lucky touch and not a chance for Cerny.

The porky player runs along the Tottenham stand kissing his badge with his hand in the air and the home fans cheering him as he eventually reaches them but it hasn’t changed anything as far as we’re concerned and we let him know.

‘You let your country down, you let you’re country down, you let you’re country down!’

‘That’s why we’re champions, that’s why we’re champions!’ sing the Chelsea crowd to ‘La Donna e Mobile’ or really ‘Dimitar Berbatov’.

‘That’s why you’re wankers, that’s why you’re wankers!’ we correct as we point it at them, spitting venom on every word until we find a better response:

‘Where were you when you were shit? Where were you when you were shit?’ (to ‘You’re not singing anymore‘) and for this, of course, they have no answer.

‘Next year, you’ll support Man U! Next year, you’ll support Man U! Next year, you’ll support Man U! Next year, you’ll support Man U!

Play is stop start as Drogba goes off for attention and we hope, the rest of the game but unfortunately it isn’t so.

The ball disappears up the other end for a wonderful length of time and once again we take control. Little Aaron runs off with the ball and makes for the line.

‘Skin him! Skin him!’ we all shout to our favourite hunting man and to our hesitant elation and absolute joy he doesn’t even need to. Lennon’s low ball in is turned into the net by Michael Essien in a move that only comes clear on the replay. We’re not sure it’s been allowed for minute. I’d hate to celebrate if it isn’t true but there’s no flag, no whistle and it is. It is! We’re up again!

‘Yiddo, yiddo, yiddo, yiddo! Yiddo, yiddo, yiddo, yiddo!’ We dance our happy dance.

‘Spurs are on their way to Wembley, Tottenham’s going to do it again!’

But as the game restarts we’re under pressure once more. Chelsea don’t like it when they go behind at home and within minutes in what seems like the slowest of motion Paul Stalteri has to clear one off the line as a Robben cross is nearly deflected in off one of our own.

‘He’s Tottenham player,’ says Charlie as he points over the Chelsea winger, ‘he’s so Tottenham, he just doesn’t know it yet.’

He is an excellent player, a left-sided Lennon with a much better shot and his equal and opposite ‘I’m a little teapot’ run, but there’s one extra thing that Little Aaron doesn’t have and it nearly costs Chelsea the game. Outside of our box, trying to weave his way in, Arjen Robben swan dives between two of our players, palms up to the air, from a light grazing of his sock.

‘Oh fuck off!’ I shout as the Dutchman hops around on his knees pleading to the referee in feigned outrage and while he looks away and I look away, Hossam Ghaly is away up the pitch, away with the ball. Like a man reborn, there is effectiveness to his positive play today and we look on in wonder as all the Spurs realise he’s baring down on goal. We can only guess he’s close as he slows from his sprint. The ball is struck. Our eyes widen. Cech goes down and the crossed netting ripples as the ball nestle safely in the back of the goal.

Chaos. Pandemonium. Wild delight on every Tottenham face not least of all our ecstatic four. Spur bundles Spur, arms flail people hug, kiss and practically fuck. Everyone’s thought is the same. Two goals up at Chelsea, half time in touching in distance. The game looks like it’s ours. We mock our hosts with a song once made for us,

‘It’s so easy, it’s so easy, at the Bridge, it’s so easy, it’s so easy, it’s so easy at the Bridge!’

You can feel that Chelsea know it too and they try in vain for the rest of the half to get another back.

‘That’s why you’re wankers, that’s why you’re wankers, that’s why wankers, that’s why you’re wankers!’ we shout to complete the pantomime as the Chelsea frustrations turn to cynical challenges or complaints to the referee.

The whistle blows and we turn to each other with amazed expressions.

‘This is excellent,’ says George and I just hope we can finish the job off so he’ll know just how excellent it can be.

Stats roll around my head that I daren’t mention in case they don’t come true. No team has won here in domestic competition in three years. No one has put three past them. So very, very sweet if we could do it today. Every other sentence between us involves how it’s in out hands and how we want the game to end now but we all know we’re just going to have to shut up and shit it for 45 minutes.

The interval seems to go on for ever as we await our fate like men on death row. By the time the second half begins we’re all so drained and nervous that we’ve lost some of that crucial belief and I fear deep down that the players have to. It’s about that next goal. We all know it’s about that next goal. If we get it, Chelsea are buried and if they do, they’ll have the momentum.

Our fans are quiet as we wait for a sign from the team. We’re held mute in suspense, powerless to help our boys when they need it the most.

When play restarts they’re coming at us harder than we are at them but the team are holding firm and slowly we come back to life as after 50 minutes we’re off the back foot to be denied twice in a goal mouth scramble that seems to defy logic. Lennon is through on Cech. It rebounds out to Ghaly and again to Defoe but we just can’t turn the ball home. We’re left clutching our heads as disbelief turns to pain when we realise how close we came to finishing off this tie, here and now.
The game inches agonizingly along. Already I’m checking the clock on a minutely basis and the bugger just won’t tick. Cards are doled out left, right and centre as we continue with our taunts.

‘That’s why you’re wankers, that’s why you’re wankers, that’s why wankers, that’s why you’re wankers!’

Berbatov has a free kick in prime West Ham scoring country but his last chance is deflected high off the wall before, to our horror, our champion is subbed off the pitch and Mido runs on. The directive is clear as he runs to our corner with the ball and holds off two Chelsea players as they push and kick at his legs. 25 minutes left on the clock and we’re trying to keep out the billion dollar team. The Spurs about us are not impressed with MJ’s tactics and neither really are we.

Chelsea have gone three up front and we know they’re just going to lob the ball into the box. Even though Mido’s strong in the air, he wont hold play up the field as long as Berbatov can and that’s where we’ll be in trouble.

The ball disappears from our end and we watch corner after corner while Chelsea advance up the pitch unchallenged.

‘Push up,’ we shout, ‘come out to them,’ but our players are too far off to hear by now. We stand and pray that we can hold on.

The first blow comes on seventy minutes, a loose corner drilled home by Lamplard. 3-2. The game kicks off again and we wait. Lennon goes off to leave us bare, at the mercy of Mourinho’s men and we wait. Essien comes close from distance with 10 minutes to go and we wait. Gardner comes on for Ghaly, a luxury now as they pepper our goal and we wait. Five minutes to go and we wait. We’re still waiting.
After 86 minutes we wait now more. You can see it’s going to be a goal even before it’s got to Kalou. By now we’re familiar with this view and the depth of the game, the way the ball floats, the anticipation as it hangs in the air and sure enough the strike is true and Chelsea’s come back is complete. 3-3. Our victory is stolen. The home fans erupt and the p.a. system confirms our horror.

‘The third Chelsea goal scored after 86 minutes by Salomon Kalouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!’

I turn round to Charlie as I did at Fulham when we snatched a point from the jaws of defeat. ‘We’re going to nick it,’ I say and we so, so nearly do when Jermain Defoe stumbles through the blue shirts just two minutes later, in perhaps his most dangerous position. Just inside the box, at a bit of angle with no time to think and no backlift from his powerful little legs he unleashed a Yiddo special right from the sweet spot and our hearts jump to our throats as we realise the shot has beaten Cech. It beats Cech, but it doesn’t beat the bar. Jermain drops to his knees. He did everything right. From the middle of his foot, he hit it so nearly, so perfectly.

The whistle blows for the end of the game with Chelsea the happier for a replay and an unshakable low from the Spurs as deep down we think we’ve missed our chance.

It’s not till many hours later that I realise it just isn’t so.

‘We’ll have to beat them at the Lane,’ says George with proud realisation that he’s used the word ‘we’.

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘but I can’t help feeling that that was it.’

‘Not if we play like that again.’

‘Yeah but…but…yeah. You’re right.’

See, the problem is we feel we were lucky. Perhaps we were lucky to beat them at home but we were better than lucky at Stamford Bridge. They were lucky. Our team is gelling. Our players are strong, and at home, we’re a match for any team. So when they come down our Lane on Monday night let’s show them who we are. The squad may be looking to the game against Braga but it’s Chelsea I want to see and this time The Bagel wants blood.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 2:43 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.