Gazza

There's a DVD being released this week, it's the story of - for those Spurs fans of a certain age our last great player.
Gareth Bale may have shone on the pitch in recent years but this man attracted more adulation and genuine love from a White Hart Lane crowd like no one seen before or since.
Arguably the greatest talent to come out of the British Isles since George Best, Gascoigne had the advantage of playing for England. Meaning a place on the world stage eventually beckoned and it was @ Italia '90 that he came of age, with him England's dreaming almost became a reality, close but no cigar. But it was in his failure and resulting tears for souvenirs that Gazzamania was truly launched, scenes reminiscent of a boy band concert at White Hart Lane the following season were witnessed and he was everywhere from chat shows to Top of The Pops.
From the streets of Newcastle - and eventually starring for his boyhood team, he played the game with the same schoolboy enthusiasm throughout his career moving on the Tottenham after being scouted by the legendary Bill Nicholson. He could have gone elsewhere as recent stories reveal but a promise of a house and a car for him and his family* saw Gazza head down south and whisked away from that man Fergie's sweaty grasp.
From then on, we all know how it ended. He took us single handedly (or should that be footed?) to the FA Cup Final of 1991, providing us with tears of both joy and sadness along the journey and helped enable the club that we all love to survive - a movie script ending sacrificing himself so that others may live.
Though his career briefly peaked with a trip North of the Border @ Rangers and proved to be the Scots undoing with that goal @ Euro '96, from then on it was the decline, less appearances for lower teams, eventually lower leagues as well as abroad, someone really should have had a word with him.
It was obvious he was having trouble walking away from playing the sport he loved.
With his demons off the pitch that we couldn't possibly try to go into or solve on this blog, we see him now as a shadow of his former self with a tinge of regret of what might have been, but with hope that he is at last happy in himself that although he can no longer entertain on the pitch he can at least try to off of it as a pundit and storyteller.

*remember this was the pre-Levy years!

Vorm and Villa

We're at the business end of the season now, and by the looks of it we're gonna end up either 5th or 6th again this season, but keep those chins up as we've been able to blood a few youngsters and by the looks of it Harry Kane could end up being a world beater! By the way Terry you mug, voting for that average Liverpool player over Kane for Player of the year.. We know what you are and we know your game!

Anyway we welcome back Tim to the Lane today,  he split opinion amongst us fans but hopefully we will get the 3 points and the fans won't go too over board with the banter!

With Vorm likely to start in goal again today, it would be great for him to keep another clean sheet and prove his worth, as it looks more likely he will be our number one next season. Got a feeling DL will cash in Hugo during the summer (lets be realistic he has a history of doing it)

Anyway lets hope for a cracking game today and loads of goals!

We're going for a 5-2 Win to the mighty Spurs!

Is it just me?...... I don't love Stefan Freund

Jimmy Greaves, Dave Mackay, Danny Blanchflower, Gary Mabbutt...............all Tottenham Legends through and through.
Stefan Freund? Not so much.......not in my opinion, now I'm all for Cult Heroes and we have plenty of them but how Mr Freund ever got inducted into our Hall of Fame before true heroes such as our record appearance holder and twice trophy lifter Steve Perryman is beyond me.

Is it a sad indictment of our own club that a player who really didn't achieve much with/or for us should be so revered?

My memories of him mainly involve him running around the midfield like a headless chicken, bottling it when it really mattered against Roy Keane and not scoring in any competitive games for us.....oh and nearly being strangled by Duncan Ferguson (but that was for Leicester....but still made me chuckle!)

Does he really deserve that song when there are far  more important members of the Spurs set up going without?
Even poor Ledders had to make do with a song that mentions that scumbag John Terry!
The original song of course was first sang to Martin Jol, who I did incidentally love - albeit in a big fat dutch clown uncle type of way.

But Freund, I'm sure he's a pleasant chap and seems to be a bit of a laugh......but love?? That's a bit too much of a leap for me.

History

What a past few seasons we have had, from early 21 century mid-table wonderers... into a team fighting for honors at the right end of the premiership, if AVB can keep this squad together then our first title since 1961 will be a lot nearer than under previous bosses!

Last nights win over Lyon showed character, and although we left it till the last kick of the game to take a 2-1 advantage over to France, the fact is we are in poll position to push on to the next round, where we could end up facing Inter, the first time since Gareth Bale destroyed them in the CL Group stage a few seasons back! There are still some top-drawer teams in the Europa league, but on our day we can beat anybody! so could we dare dream of our first European trophy since 84?

The Glory days have taken a lot longer to return to The Lane than most would of liked, but we are on the cusp of achieving greatness, and for once i feel we will push on and stop being the underachievers, the oh-so nearly men!

Looking back through our history we have always had great individuals, from Greaves to Sheringham, Ginola to King, these individuals have brought us moments of pure magic, but for what ever reason we never hit them heights that we should of been hitting, Sir Bill sent the bench mark in 61, and ever since then we have never been able to regain that magic!

"It's better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low"

Our last major trophy came in 2008, which may only seem a few years ago but in them 5 years we have become stronger, added better players to our ranks and have almost got rid of that monkey off our backs when it comes to beating the big spending elite in their own back yards... The only ground we haven't won at since the premiership started is Stamford bridge... how AVB would love to put that right!

So as we head deeper into 2013 are we about to enter another period of them Glory days? COYS

Hot Shot Tottenham...........

With our first round proper tie against Coventry coming up in the New Year we thought we'd take a look back to the season of '87, when The Mighty Spurs hit the road to Wembley once more........

In these days of Champions League Football and top half table finishes it's easy to forget that we weren't always doing so well. For every piece of silverware in the Eighties there was the doldrums of the Gross/Francis/Hoddle era. Arguable our last great team with a chance of glory before the days of Jol and Redknapp was in '87, under David Pleat.

Pleat had worked wonders @ lowly Luton Town bringing through a batch of young English talent who played attacking, attractive football.
And while people have been quick to criticise AVB for his one up front policy Pleat's masterstroke was to have Clive Allen as the lone ranger with Hoddle & Waddle pulling the strings in a five man midfield he was supplied with a constant stream of balls which he banged into the old onion bag with relish.

At the back we had an England goalie between the sticks in Ray Clemence and in front of him a promising back two of Gary Mabbutt & Richard Gough - Gough had all the hallmarks of becoming another great for Spurs in defence in the mould of Dave Mackay, the team had makings of title contenders - and were fighting on all three fronts......... right up until March at least.

In the run up to the Final Clive Allen had beaten Jimmy Greaves' scoring record for a season with a couple against Watford's one time bar owner and stand in keeper for the day Gary Plumley, while Hoddle had signed off in the League with a superb solo effort against Oxford United.

Inevitably for Spurs it was a season of what could have beens - knocked out of the League Cup in the Semi by the Scum and fading in the League itself all hopes rested on the FA Cup Final.
Back when Wembley basked in sunshine for these occasions and the result really mattered, the '87 was one of the best of recent times. It'll be remembered though for a mix up of sponsored shirts, Keith Houchen's diving header and Gary Mabbutt's Knee......

Where are they now?

Richard Gough - Could have been one of our greatest defenders of all time when he came in from Dundee United but homesickness (his wife's apparently) saw him move back North of the border after just the one season and have a hugely successful career with Rangers. Homesickness cured, a few years later he came back down South with Everton.

Glenn Hoddle - Left for Monaco @ the end of the season to ply his trade in Europe (English Teams were banned), played under a manager that would come back to haunt Spurs on a number of occasions a fact made even worse with the revelation that Hoddle after becoming England manager recommended the Frenchman to David Dein!

Gary Mabbutt - The term Legend may be overused but for Mabbutt - a diabetes sufferer, it couldn't have been more apt. The deflected goal from his knee and disappointment that followed would be redeemed in the '91 Final which saw Mabbs lift the trophy. To have played @  a top club for sixteen years performing at the highest level week in week out as well as gaining England caps is a testament to the man - a model professional.

Is Levy the problem

Daniel Levy, some fans love him some fans hate him, but lets look into the facts over the last 24 months.

Flash back to when we had just beaten Arsenal at the Emirates. We we're going well in the Champions League, Bale and VDV we're pulling the strings and things we're looking good. A few weeks later the transfer window opened. Yet we didn't take advantage of it, had we signed for example a Scotty Parker or an Aguero, the latter not as far fetched as you may have thought! We more than likely would of made decent progress from the season before. Instead we carried on with what we had and we ended up finishing 5th and got to the quarter finals of the Champions league, which in fairness wasn't too bad of a season, compared to recent times.

That summer there was alot of unrest, 'Arry and Levy's relationship started to breakdown over the Modric situation, add to that the sales of target man Crouch, *who played a big part in getting us to the CL! 'Captain Keane' and our number one right back at the time in Hutton and you could see that it was going to be a long season. The arrival of Parker and Ade lifted the fans and we went on up to the new year with a shout of winning the title! That January again we we're all hoping to kick on from our strong position. We were all hoping for a Kaka, or a Tevez but what happened, 'Arry wasn't backed and we sold our no 3 striker in Pav, and replaced him with a free signing in Saha, add to the mix an aging centre back to cover the injured Dawson and that combined with off the field issues ment we missed out on the champions league by one point!

The summer saw 'Arry getting the chop, with the unconvincing AVB given the job at the Lane, throw in former Cult hero Steffen Freund as part of the back room staff *Can just imaging out of all the people AVB wanted as his no two.... Freund was his first choice! Now AVB has seen 2 of his big game players sold during the summer, and it was totally out of his hands, he can't be blamed for taking a job where the Chairman doesn't really want to spend the dosh if he can help it. So is it a case of AVB being sold a dud, or has Levy got it wrong with sacking the man that gave us wins against the might of the premiership and the giants of Europe?

Now we're heading into the final few weeks of 2012 and we are now looking more like a mid-table Spurs team from the mid 90's than a Champions league team of 2010!

Early doors.......

Never to go about things the easy way we @ Spurs have had to deal with another upheaval this Summer.

Harry's departure had happened and fans had had plenty of time for it to sink in, whether AVB was wanted or not by most fans was irrelevant he was installed and after all we support the team and don't necessary have to agree with appointments made by the club.

So we expected a few comings and goings in the transfer window at least, the Modric saga had reared it's ugly rat faced head again and would surely be done with enough time to spend some of that filthy lucre on a replacement............right?

A couple of fans favourites had also been touted for the off, Huddlestone on his way back from injury looked to be on his way to Stoke on loan (which made sense to me) and Micheal Dawson had been in talks with QPR after AVB now said he wasn't part of his plans (which didn't), Dawson was club captain with the imminent retirement of Ledders and played with an enthusiasm unmatched by no one else in the side, but in the cold light of day was he good enough to help Spurs go to the next level?

Of course this is Spurs so and it rumbled on and still wasn't resolved by the time our away game @ The Toon took place.
This game for me was witnessed via ESPN and we looked pretty solid I thought, maybe a lack of creativity, but the line up and formation worked away from home, we could be disappointed not to come away with a point. If there were any more cause for concern it would have been no Dawson at all not even the bench and VDV not starting or new signing Vertognhan

Obviously things would be different back @ The Lane......

West Bromwich Albion - 25th August

A proper Spurs fan will always approach a new season with caution, even when things are going well it's better to expect the worst, after all it's happened so many times in the past. And so the rumblings and murmurs around the pub beer garden were of the norm I guess on the verge of a new season @ WHL.
But this was only West Brom, a nice easy start, we should get a few today! Yeah they thrashed Liverpool the week before but that was fluke...........or so we hoped.
So as AVB, Ade, Siggurdson and Vertognhan were paraded on the pitch before the start, there was an apprehensive optimism.
As the game went on, we looked disjointed, not flowing as we had done before, five in the middle meant we were in danger of having to pay a congestion charge in midfield! We had chances, maybe not clear cut but we were on top, but when Benny's goal went in it was more of a relief than celebration.
We all know how it ended, one of AVB's old guard came back to haunt him (maybe we should have tried cheeky bid for Lukaku?). We've had games like this before, we are Spurs after all and not much changes. Should we panic? Blame the manager, the players or the Chairman. This was one game @ home, it's still early doors........

Norwich - 1st September

Okay, so we'd decided not to panic, but we did have a damn good moan on messageboards and social networks up and down the internet.
Everyone's an armchair manager, whether that chair is inside the ground or @ home in front of the box, we all know what needs doing and we're not afraid to share our wealth of footballing knowledge gleaned from Championship Manager whether you want to listen or not!
Like every loyal masochistic fan, we take the punishment week in, week out and come back begging for more, so another trip to The Lane was on the cards.
But there were added murmurs over a pre game Carlsberg this time round though, Luka had finally gone and we'd managed to squeeze blood out of the proverbial stone that is our Chairman and actually buy a few more players! Ok, maybe not all the players we originally set out to buy but still, it was a start.
So there I was, sat in front of some bloke who insisted on coaching the team throughout the game from his seat in the North Upper as it all unfolded again.
Friedal kept us in it early on and with the threat of an incoming Lloris looked to be staking his claim to keep up his consecutive appearance record. But still we played five in midfield! Yes it worked under David Pleat but we had arguably the most creative midfield in the league @ that time, why were we playing two defensive midfielders..........at home!
Bale was our main outlet but elsewhere we weren't exploiting the width of the pitch with neither full back getting forward much. Livermore who I thought played a nice simple game last time out had suddenly turned into Vinny Sideways!
It came down to one of our new boys to get us ahead, Dembele livened things up and with his first attack put Spurs one up. Now the floodgates could open...........but of course they didn't and again the game ended in frustration and an equaliser. Two games @ home two draws, maybe not the start we'd hoped for.

Maybe Reading away will give us that first win we crave?