Theory Crafting
Spoiler; this is me trying to shift my brain and heart into a combined state of comfort with a balanced perspective and a slice of honesty chucked in for good measure. It’s all I seem to write about (deep thoughts) because the week-to-week football coverage doesn’t inspire me at all. Mainly because I’ve settled on this being a transition. A waiting room for the next locomotive to choo-choose us. Until then, we’re stuck with a handcar. The transition is the result of aiming high. If you don’t fly, you fall and it’s a fair distance from the heavens to the earth.
This is me writing. Scribbling. Scraping grey thoughts off the surface off my mind. Got an itch I can’t quite scratch. You’ll have noticed I’m not quite prolific with my match report output these-days. Bit Spursy that. There’s no point in churning out a postmortem after every game. In fact, there’s also no reason to keep repeating the same think piece epics about our crisis every other weekend. Every month though? I can muster that, no problem. It’s the same point that needs to be made each time, different words, and it needs repeating ‘cause why the hell not? Most fans spend every week screaming the same expletives over the uninspiring football, seeking to scapegoat. I do wonder what sport people actually enjoy more.
I'm going to run with my emotions, tinged with a splash of pragmatism and perhaps even dip into my darkest inner thoughts and say something uncensored that I’ve yet to truly dissect (a bit like coming to a conclusion before the final chapter has been read). But do not expect anything life changing by the time you get to the end of this wordy Chernobyl of a blog. This is therapy. Brain dump redux. Somewhere in here is the answer to the question. I just have no idea what that question is.
The reason I love to do this, these articles, is because I'm a multilayered, mostly broken man. I spend a few hours every week contemplating that there are more patterns of connections with neurons inside our brains matter than there are subatomic particles in the universe. Some will breeze through life and their biggest concern will be whether they should have bought the Gucci handbag instead of the Louis Vuitton.
At the other end of my spectrum (somewhere between Nihilism and the Simulation Theory) is the beautiful game. Football is a simplistic game savaged by the complexities of perception. It's the same source material but it's punctured by the medium of our minds. It's a congested, hypocritical and volcanic eruption of spitting lava. Yet it can still melt our hearts faster than Mount Vesuvius erupting ash and pumice over Pompeii.
Football is undoubtedly the only religion that consists of a high percentage of atheists. The rest are believers, cults, separatists, fundamentalists and so on. It’s a cauldron of chaos. That makes me a preacher.
Welcome to my sermon of spin.
So where do I begin?
I’m going to start in the 1980s.
Football back then was a visceral experience. It was Fight Club before Chuck Palahniuk birthed Tyler Durden. There was a cathartic cleansing when attending games. Being pushed around on the terraces, avoiding the punch from behind outside in the streets. These were different times. Not great even if nostalgia demands a white lie. Times when coopers could give you a clip round the ear. I remember one of the teachers at my school locking us in the class room when he had to leave for a few minutes so nobody could do the same. Imagine that happening today. Everyone was a bit naughty and they combated it by being naughty themselves.
Football didn’t cost that much to watch. There was no money in the game back then. It’s nowhere near comparable to the modern age. Players would buy pubs when they retired. Today they can afford to buy an island. The same can apply to seasoned fans. Everything was more affordable because football wasn’t really marketable or sexy. It was for the proles. The great unwashed. The corporate beast was yet to be fully realised.
Today, the quality of football has improved along side the experience (if we’re going to discuss the cultural and social progress we’ve made since the 70s and 80s). Especially in terms of match-day shifting from the raw and working class escapism to the not so cheap entertainment product it is today. It belonged to us back then. Today we pay to get a vanilla version of that very same escapism. It’s inclusive. If your wallet can survive the damage. It’s safe. It’s like going to a very expensive cinema where you’re not quite sure how the narrative will play out or if you’re even going to enjoy the 90 minutes you’ve paid money for. You know, ‘cause you’re a customer first, supporter second.
Nostalgia distorts plenty for sure. The racism back in the golden days, the hooligan element and as cited, the low quality bruising football tempo. If you theory crafted and played around with the fantasy of say a Peak Poch Tottenham playing back in the 80s, we’d have wiped for the floor with most. It’s a pretty irrelevant and irreverent day dream this. But take that same side and stuck them in the 90s or early 2000s. Or even in the season just before Poch’s arrival. Again, it’s subjective and unnecessary but the clumsy point being made is that we were bloody brilliant and could compete and probably should have won something for our troubles. In another season perhaps.
No cups but there was genuine belief and what is more important in the midst of worship in your chosen religion? Miracles don’t often happen. Science will tell you there’s no such thing. What about mathematics?
Cup wins post ENIC v Cup wins pre ENIC? Is the difference negligible? We often lament the lack of silverware under the current regime, and yet we’ve had countless semi-final defeats along with three final losses too. This season might be the first for some time that we fail to reach a cup quarter-final (and qualify for the UCL). We can (always) with hindsight and with evidence, claim with strong objections that we failed to consolidate, to solidify. But this isn’t the 1980s. Which is why our owners are maligned. Play by the rules of today and not the morals of yesteryear.
In the 1990s the Sky Sports era opened up a gulf that did consolidate those that had cemented their quality already. We were nowhere near challenging for anything above mid-table.
1991 was the very definition of what it is to be Spurs. A football club down on its knees, set to perish for the mistakes made by the OG of football branding, Irving Scholar. He floated us and we almost sunk to the depths. It's mostly forgotten about in today's frenzied social media echo chamber. The only thing floating today is something that can't be flushed.
Levynomics.
Yet you have to admit, for a club that doesn’t win stuff all the time and doesn’t challenge for the league season in and season out, we’re pretty much a billion pound entity. This isn’t a club ethos that demands to be sat beside a Nicholson or Blanchflower quote. It’s just a fact. It’s one that does ask the following question; If Spurs, without the on the field success, have made it to the upper echelons of the financially rich super elite clubs imagine what we could have achieved if we matched the ruthless tenacity of brand building with incisive movements in the transfer market. Imagine. It’s more of a statement than a question.
Of course, maybe it isn’t possible to balance one with the other. Maybe, an investment company is going to invest in the very thing it bought to make profit from. But in doing so, as custodians, it leaves Tottenham in a position to always be in with a shout at the very top. That’s if existing or future owners chose to turn the club into a plaything rather than another investment. Or they took a gamble and invested heavily in pushing for sustained success (that might follow on with more). Imagine. A football club that wants to win things as the barometer for achievement.
Regardless, it’s always going to be an investment. Nobody truly cares about the essence of the club more than its supporters.
But what are we then? What is this billion pound entity?
Where are we going? What do we want? What is our definition of what it means to be Spurs today? Is the game about glory? Stylish football? Is the game about having to dig deep when times aren’t so good? The bad times make the good times better etc
How much of what we value as important shifts and changes based on the here and now and the want and desire for instant gratification? Surely there is no need for philosophy and existentialism when the bread and butter of the game is about winning cups and the moments that build towards doing so?
Sure, as aforementioned, the playing field isn't level anymore. This is defo not the 1980s. You wanna play? Spend the money. To be brutally honest, not everyone can't fathom the possibility of winning a cup or title. It's hardly bread and butter. It's caviar. Most of us won’t get a taste. Very few can afford it. Those that can aren’t even guaranteed a chair at the table.
Can we sit at the table? And if so, why are we holding back from booking that reservation? Especially if the business model is fuelled by the football itself. It’s literally win-win. More success on the field, more of it off it. What grows a brand name more than a great product?
We're hardly dining in a cafe scoffing on a fat-drenched fry-up. It's a posh restaurant but the calculators are out alongside the coupons when the bill drops. Let's not forget the hair in the soup*.
* You can decide what this analogy means.
As for the fanbase, we know and understand clearly why we’re here (in this transition). It’s a cliche but it’s purgatory. A different type. There’s so many types being a Spurs fan. It’s one that feels gut wrenching because of the fine dining we’ve been spoilt with in recent seasons. We’ve gone from rival fans actually admitting “I think Spurs might win the league soon” to whatever the f**k is going on right now.
I might be about to contradict a few things I’ve shared on social media in recent weeks, but hey, my head is spinning with dizzying reason corrupted with hyperbole.
It's a mess. We can at the very least agree with that. Everything is a mess if it isn’t what we’d love it to be and we’re nowhere near that peak Poch togetherness that had redefined what it is to be Tottenham for many.
Many have proclaimed Poch achieved nothing at Spurs. Possibly a vocal minority tbf. They used this as a weapon to bludgeon our cuddly Argentine philosopher during his final days at Hotspur Way. These supporters wanted him gone. Which is OK because it was the end and we ruined it all by prolonging the goodbye. But surely be respectful, right? Alas no, there is always room for point scoring.
I’ve always had a problem with revisionists that (due to their insecurities about what they value as important) decide to re-write history and proclaim everything was actually sh*t cause we got no open bus parade and that’s the only criteria of merit when it comes to belonging to a football club.
These very same fans heralded the arrival of a ‘serial winner’ and now bemoan the football on offer but skip past the appointment of Jose Mourinho and settle back to solely blaming Mr Chairman. Even though many praised Levy for sacking Poch and bringing in the Spacial One (‘cause there’s so much space in our defence…AMIRITE?)
This, in a perverse way, proves how much the social media singularity of what constitutes success has done to supporters and their perception of the game and following Tottenham.
That this collective were willing and encouraging a sacrifice of identify just to be able to state they support a successful club. Even if this logic is demented in the short term compared to long term ambitions. The journey by Poch or the shortcut by Jose? We’re paying him £15M a year so whether he’s rebuilding/getting one last push out of the players - it’s a means to an end. Momentum will spur you onward. Short term can breed the long term but if it’s a rebuild we wanted, then Mourinho is the very last person to call upon.
Jose has never really inspired me. It did feel surreal when he was appointed and I’ve entertained the idea of him doing bits for Spurs. But at the same time, it leaves me feeling cold inside. But I have to want the best for my team. Which means waiting for next season and a Jose summer transfer window. Then I can judge with clarity and evidence. Then we can all pass judgement on him and the chairman. Not that I’ll be stood on a soap box telling everyone ‘I TOLD YOU SO’. The cult of kingmakers isn’t something I enjoy being part of, but for many it’s their economy online.
That prolonged wait, the patience required (be it one more summer and one more full season)…for some it’s too much to accept. The football we’re being treated to is the antithesis of an aggressive press. The only sting here is us trying to throw punches at the swarm of bees opposing us (which at the moment is any half decent team we’re competing against).
Is this football the best the squad can produce at the moment because we’re a broken mess? Because it’s not too dissimilar to the football we played under not-so-peak Poch in the last year or so.
Do you see how it isn’t black and white?
It’s a grey area. A cloudy, brooding storm, more dark than light and I’m still scraping it off the surface of my mind.
Let's also not pretend that losing Kane and Son hasn't crippled us along with not bolstering our forward line in the Jan window and for that matter, in the summer window. As for Levy not spending in general, we have spent. The two dead windows before our splash of cash are the reason we are in this transition. So, that pretty much has left us spent (getit).
We don't have the foundation to hold the new bricks in amongst the old wall. We’re better off knocking it down. All we can muster is a new lick of paint and watching it dry is not in the slightest entertaining (shock horror).
I've not taken a side here. We've discussed this before. Poch is equally liable along with Levy. We got the contingency wrong by not having one. Our model wasn't to conquer the footballing world by being unequivocally focused on doing so. What we did was to punch above our weight, not realising others had cut their own weight. The opportunity was to go for the KO but instead we persisted with sparring.
We created the momentum. But we didn't own it. We just borrowed it for a little whilst others bulked up. We've now missed weight altogether. No championship up for grabs.
Jose has inherited a mess and it isn't instantly fixable. That short term solution was a way to deflect towards a new beginning to mask the not so fitting finale of that last 12 months and the CL Final. Where it should have ended either way; in glory or a faint echo of one.
Jose has never managed a club like Spurs because there is no other club quite like us. We're not elite yet we gatecrash the parties. Our very essence is to always want to reach out for those stars in the night. Always. Other clubs don't have this perpetual privilege (torture). Others have bought it. Tottenham are still that group of lads standing beneath the lamppost on the High Road. Dreaming about something grand.
The other (Jose) problem is that, he’s not Spurs. He’ll never be Spurs. He doesn’t want to be. It’s Jose Mourinho and Tottenham Hotspur. ‘We’ are not one with him. Now I think there’s validity in being critical of certain players that are not performing but to continually target them publicly is distraction 101. It deflects, it pushes the subjective matter of blame elsewhere. The only siege mentality is the one he’s bestowing on himself. This is the self-preservation society, made up of one man and his ego. That’s if I’m being cynical. Which is a fair perspective for me to have considering he’s the king of the cynics.
Maybe the truth is to not accept it as your badge of honour. I’m talking about picking a ‘side’ within a club. Be it pro-Poch, anti-Levy, anti-Jose, pro-Jose, whatever. Maybe I was too young but I knew nothing about the economics and politics of running a football club when I started going to White Hart Lane in the 80s. Being constantly scathing is almost a sport itself, such is the commitment to a particular digital narrative (to dare is to agenda). It’s not that you hide the truth away and pretend it doesn’t exist. You accept the truth and then you invent a version of one that protects you and thus gives you the freedom to keep going rather than festering in pious rhetoric that is often done for vanity and further fragmentation of blame.
Not sure if I was talking about Spurs Twitter there or still on a Jose rant.
Tottenham, their cycle, came to a natural and abrupt end. Even in our downfall we could have ended with a UCL final win (faint echo). We didn’t. We then imploded. If there is one certainty in football it’s that there’s always tomorrow. There’s always a new beginning. The end is never the finale. We sing, we win, we draw, we lose.
There’s no epiphany to end this stream of consciousness. I did warn you.
For a long time Spurs were mismanaged and a calamity on the pitch. We sometimes played with swagger and did limbs but we were consistently inconsistent and marvellously mediocre. The clowns of calamity. No spine. Push overs.
Then it slowly changed and we changed our expectations. I’m glad we’re angry. And hungry. I’m glad supporters are raging. Yet all of this, this article, your Twitter timeline and any given think piece you read behind a pay wall or on some third rate click bait blog - it means nothing. Nothing. Aside from the reality that unlike the 1980s, you don’t need to make your way to a fanzine store in Soho to read some random Tottenham supporters thoughts. It’s all instantly accessible alongside the almost infinite pornography. Rejoice the internet where everyone shares their unfiltered thoughts without regret and regardless of whether you asked to know them.
It all still means nothing. Just words. Just exaggerations.
Is there anything that means something?
Yes. This:
Tottenham are a bit meh
That’s it. That’s your TL;DR.
No togetherness or discipline. No style. Just damage limitation that encourages more damage. It is what it is. A fair few supporters said Poch was the wrong appointment at the time. What do any of us really know? Nothing. We just like to commentate on everything and then go quiet when we’re proved wrong. But nobody notices because we’re doing well where it matters most. On the pitch.
But even if this is a bit meh, this ain’t Tottenham. I’m not asking for the clowns to return along with the capitulations (although we’ve had a few in recent times). But that lack of style, that almost fearful containment? It’s a bit George Graham. It’s not what I want from my experience of belonging to this club that loves a soundbite (game, glory etc).
We set a benchmark and we need to be beating it. We flipped our culture and we should be upholding it.
Even in the midst of mediocrity, 8th spot is also not Tottenham. It doesn’t feel right, even though it’s what our football deserves. Playing expansive football when you don’t have the players to do so across the spine of the side is probably not a good idea too. This ain’t Spurs but since when have I been so entitled? Repeat klaxon…take the bad with the good. Grow some b*llocks. Everyone needs to. This won’t last forever. Nothing ever does.
See what just happened there? I went from practically asking for good attacking football cause that’s what we’re about to admitting the crap we're witnessing isn’t quite as avoidable as I’d like it to be.
Here I am Spurs, stuck in the middle with you.
Silver lining? We’re a bit sh*t, like I said, but it’s okay, cause we’re pretty good at sh*thousery.