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?



Dave Mackay - True Tottenham Legend

There isn't much (if at all anything) that Spurs can thank the Woolwich Wanderers for........but maybe one thing that we could give them the ever so slightest wafer thin slice of credit for is the signing of Tottenham legend Dave Mackay. The story goes that back in the day Bill Nicholson had his eye on a young welsh centre half called Mel Charles, but with the Scum stepping in to seal the deal our manager was left to look elsewhere for a new signing and that's exactly where Dave Mackay fitted in.

And what a stroke of luck that was.

The term legend is banded about far too easily these days and in my opinion it should only be used looking back on a career on a player who has left legacy through success and performance. In Spurs history Dave Mackay is one such player, he'd already had a successful stint in Scotland with home town team Heart of Midlothian (where he won every trophy going) before the bright lights of London came calling. Sir Bill would later maintain that he wanted Mackay all along, but either way he came to epitomise a Spurs side made up of grit and flare.

The iconic image of him grabbing Billy Bremner by the throat* (an image that Dave himself disliked) has given Mackay the hard man reputation in that great team of '61 but he had so much more to his game - threading passes through the midfield and scoring the odd hat-trick here and there he was in no way just a clogger he had class.

His presence and aura inspired his team mates, willing them on with a never say die unflinching will to win. Back in the days when tackling was still allowed in football George Best was quoted as calling Mackay "The hardest man I have ever played against – and certainly the bravest" and Old Big 'ead himself said that Dave was "Tottenham Hotspur's greatest player" and he should know after signing him for Derby County where the success story continued from player into manager.

Comparisons are inevitable in football, with a youngster coming through or a new signing arriving there are those that will hark back to a former player that the new acquisition is similar to just to add an extra burden on their shoulders. But while we look at today's team for a inspiration or a link back to our greatest ever team through Scott Parker I truly believe we will never see the like of Dave Mackay again @ White Hart Lane......

*The story behind that photo is that Mackay had just came back from his second broken leg (something that would have finished the career of today's lesser mortals) and was quite justifiably miffed with the little ginger tosser. Incidentally Sir Alex Ferguson has the exact same image hanging on the wall of his office, maybe the secret behind his success right there?

The Rise & Fall of Paul William Robinson

England's number one, so went the not most complicated of chants. Spurs history of 'keepers has been a slightly chequered one, from the greats of Ditchburn and Jennings through to the lesser well remembered Mimms & Keller.
Since possibly Ray Clemence Tottenham never again had a solid reliable stopper between the posts, this coupled with our then legendary dodgy and ever changing defence hardly helped matters.
If anything our goalies have been.....well....just above average....what they lacked in ability they made up for in crowd interaction (Erik the Viking) or an of the time trendy middle parting (Ian Walker)
Sure Walker was England's number one briefly but the way he smiled to himself every time he let a goal in didn't help but make him less than convincing.
Every top club had a top 'keeper, 'build from the back' is the saying isn't it? But it wasn't until the signing of Robbo that we felt at last we had found our missing piece.

I remember hearing of Robbo early on, Nigel Martyn was number one @ Leeds Utd at the time and was considered to be up there with David Seaman as far as goalkeepers went (he was even voted Leeds Utd's Best Goalkeeper of All Time by the fans), but some midweek cup heroics started to get Robinson noticed and when Martyn upset the then Leeds Boss El Tel  he stepped up and never looked back.

Robinson's last season up North wasn't the best - after all Leeds were relegated, but Spurs had obviously been keeping tabs on him, for the sometime maligned David Pleat was quick enough to snap him up for just £1.5m pounds.

Being between the sticks @ White Hart Lane makes a player the closest relation to the hard core support - both emotionally & geographically, we ask him the score, to give us a wave even, he throws his gloves into the crowd & a bond is built - I was there when the Park Lane faithful sang 'Happy Birthday' to him even unfurling a banner in his honour (sad but true!)
To have a decent 'keeper again was a novelty as a Spurs fan and how good was it to sing to any travelling set of supporters that we had "England's Number One" in goal?

Inevitably though confidence plays a huge part on a player's form and goalkeeper is a position where every mistake is magnified and analysed. Robbo just never recovered from his mishaps and it was a shame to see his decline. In a world of 'If onlys' a Paul Robinson in his prime could have given us that extra push we needed when Harry first took over and with our new number one Brad Friedel still going strong in his forties, who's to say we won't see Robbo's return?