Bands won't play no more

Hi. Enjoy. It’s a bit messy, excuse the less than smooth transitions and typos.

Lockdown

This town (town) is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place (town) is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor

Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang, and the music played in a de boomtown…

I know, I know. We’re being asked to stay indoors. It ain’t that difficult a task people. It’s not like we’re all sleeping on a London Underground station platform, whilst bombs are dropped from the sky. We’ve had all that we take for granted pulled away from us. The small things. The big things. All the stuff we couldn’t be arsed to do. Now we’re being forced not to do any of it.

The routine eats away at you too. It’s the same thing, every day. Home schooling, a walk in the forest, bit of lunch, bit of dinner, Netflix, music, books, PlayStation and so on. I guess if I’m going to look at the positives, I’m spending quality time inside with the missus and the kid. I’ve even done a bit of gardening, dug two shallow graves…just in case, right?

Every odd job and DIY and spring clean that hasn’t got done in five years has now been accomplished within the first two weeks of the lockdown. What remains particularly offbeat is this pandemic is impacting every single one of us. For the first time, we all have the same topic on our minds. You can strike up a conversation with any given stranger (two metre rule please). The suffering is shared and when this is all over, we will forever talk about that time we pulled together to combat a virus that flipped our way of living upside down.

Of course, other countries have terrorist attacks, civil war and other religiously induced atrocious all year round, sometimes day to day. I’m grateful for my life and my country. I look forward to its return at some point in the near future.

Just remember, whilst you’re doing your spring cleaning or that spot of gardening or sleeping on the sofa…there’s a nurse out there caring for dying men, women and children and knowing she/he might suffer the same consequence if she’s infected.

So please stop gathering in parks and cycling groups you moronic t**ts.

Levy, the PR own goal and footballers moral obligations

The club should have made a statement of unity, accepted the hardships of this pandemic but then supported their non-playing staff without ambiguity. They didn’t. This was a fairly thunderous own goal. On the volley, into the net.

Now I’m going to play that game where I dissect my reasoning and confuse the emotional hell out of myself. Firstly, some highlights from the Chairman’s Message.

When I read or hear stories about player transfers this summer like nothing has happened, people need to wake up to the enormity of what is happening around us. With over 786,000 infected, nearly 38,000 deaths and large segments of the world in lockdown we need to realise that football cannot operate in a bubble. We may be the eighth largest Club in the world by revenue according to the Deloitte survey but all that historical data is totally irrelevant as this virus has no boundaries.

I love the humble brag, shoehorned into the above. What hits hard is the ‘football cannot operate in a bubble’ statement. It’s existed in a bubble since the Sky Sports / Champions League era took the game to a level beyond our imagination. The rich got richer and the poor waited for the miracle of investment from playboys and oligarchs. That bubble is the protective layer between us (customers > supporters) and the millionaires that play, manage, coach, own and represent.

The only ordinary workers inside of that bubble are the ones doing the dirty work. The valued and appreciated graft. The work that can be replaced with anyone with the desire (experience) to do it. From low wages to modest ones. The people at the bottom of the hierarchy. It’s worth noting that non-playing staff also includes all the suits on loadsofmoney. Everyone lives within their own means, right? But if your income was very high to start with, you’re going to be less stressed for the next few months.

We have seen some of the biggest clubs in the world such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus take steps to reduce their costs. Yesterday, having already taken steps to reduce costs, we ourselves made the difficult decision – in order to protect jobs – to reduce the remuneration of all 550 non-playing directors and employees for April and May by 20% utilising, where appropriate, the Government’s furlough scheme. We shall continue to review this position.

This bit is the bit that got many (not just Spurs fans) to bite. A billion pound entity asking for tax payers money to support their payments to those lowly bottom of the hierarchy peeps (which actually includes some mid-tier peeps too i.e. scouting). I’ll get to the details shortly.

We hope the current discussions between the Premier League, PFA and LMA will result in players and coaches doing their bit for the football eco system.

This is also important to the wider discussion.

I have no doubt we will get through this crisis but life will take some time to get back to normal. I hope we will never take for granted so many basic things such as getting off the train at Seven Sisters, walking along Tottenham High Road, entering our stadium with our family and friends, and buying a beer and pie ahead of watching Spurs play at home.

I would like to hope that this crisis DOES change us. As a society. I can already envisage how immense the first Spurs game will feel when we get back to it properly. I think it’s a very British thing to just move on and get on with it. However, this pandemic isn’t something we’ve experienced before and it’s one that everyone is suffering with across the world. It’s surreal and pretty f**king scary. I’m personally looking forward to getting off at Seven Sisters and walking along the High Road next to Mr Levy as we both enter the stadium together. Enjoy a beer and a pie and then sit in the back row of the tier snogging passionately, two bald heads becoming one shiny egg.

If you’re interested in Levy eroticism, WTF is wrong with you?

Many families will have lost loved ones, many businesses will have been destroyed, millions of jobs lost and many Clubs whether big or small may struggle to exist. It is incumbent on me as Chairman to ensure we do everything we can to protect our employees, our fans, our partners, our Club for future generations and - equally important – our wider community where we have such an immense sense of responsibility.

This is the type of statement that polarises. Mainly because Daniel is on 300k per week (pre-20% cut). But for me, it’s because I don’t run a football club. I can’t even imagine it. The sheer complexities of the everyday, forecasting and planning. I don’t want to go off on a tangent here but let’s consider one truth that is often side-stepped in the whole ‘ENIC OUT’ rhetoric. Football, across the board in the upper echelons, has left many of us (it’s generational) feeling disenfranchised. But not enough to not want to go and see your mates and down a drink or ten. ENIC are, after-all, an investment company. How often to you get a ‘fan’ running a football club?

Please don’t use Roman over at Stamford Bridge as a benchmark for ‘doing it right’ but then here’s the paradoxical nature of this game. Fans are willing to rationalise (in their favour) a particular standpoint to suit their comfort. So had Roman not taken a helicopter ride to the West, we might have ended up with the special version of Jose back in the day and won titles. We’d have lapped it up, all the hypocrisy alongside the glory. But ENIC were in the midst of a long-play. Build it up. And they did. Be it a platform for concerts, sporting events, NFL, whatever…the club (before this current coronavirus crisis) was worth in the reign of £2B.

Because of ENIC.

Because of Levy.

Joe Lewis is a silent partner, has a nice %, but can we please move on from him being relevant in any discussions? These people are business men, they are money makers and their legacy is in that. It’s harsh, it’s not romantic. It’s barely football.

Again, this isn’t me dying on a hill for either of them. I’m just looking at this pragmatically. When this club/brand/entertainment giant eventually gets sold, do you really envisage the next owners (a US consortium more than likely) will be any different? If anything, they’ll be further detached from what we want and expect. Whether you believe Levy cares about ‘Tottenham’ or not, the next lot won’t be buying us because of our heritage or tradition. They’re be licking their lips over the profit that can be made.

No matter how we’ve got to this position of wealth, it wasn’t just a necessity to stand a chance of one day prioritising the actual football (as a means of generating more money through on the field success) but it was also inevitable. We’ve been around for a long time, not won as much as others, but that heritage and tradition counts for something. The moment that’s gone, the soul of the club has gone. It stays if we as a fanbase stay loyal. Testing times, but we’re simplistic creatures. Win stuff, play good football - and all the politics evaporate like a light drizzle from a single cloud on a sunny day.

Damn, that ended up being a tangent.

Back to Levy directly (and this pandemic). Do you think a man that negotiates down to the pound in transfer fees and payments is not going to accept government help and cut back expenses - any expenses - he can during this time of economic stress? Just stand outside of the human element here, because businessmen don’t tend to give a sh*t about these numbers (the commoners) compared to the ones that drop into the clubs bank account. He’s going to protect Spurs which in-turn protects his investment which in-turn protects the club. Ouroboros. Down to that last penny.

He should have topped it up though. That was the PR own goal. We should be considering the human element. Remember when Spurs sacked Keith Burkinshaw? They went from a club that was focused on people to one that resembled a suited up corporate establishment. I remember a conversation I had with a cabbie in the Cheshunt area a few years back. He was a coach for a youth team where Spurs academy would play (during the 1980s). He told me how he could walk up to reception at White Hart Lane and meet Keith and walk freely around.

When Keith left the club, the cabbie (coach at the time) could’t get past reception and fobbed off. Times change. They changed a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean they can’t change for the better and landing a £3M (deferred) bonus for the stadium build, considering the saga and delay, has left many with a bitter taste in their mouth.

Levy could have, momentarily, shut a few people up by protecting the staff. Going against the grain, regardless of the £5M match-day revenue we’re missing every (other) week. Should he be cutting costs with the bread and butter men and women at the club?

But then that’s why I don’t own a football club or run an investment company. That’s why he’s immensely successful in doing something other clubs, our peers, have failed to establish - regardless of the silverware issue; He’s created a billion pound entity. It ain’t debatable. He - for the sake of money - won’t make that moral statement, that elevation of vanity and top up the 100%. That’s how centric he is to his role at the club. He probably even believes he’s doing the right thing too.

In these times where many of us are suffering with loss of income, it would have gone against everything we know a modern day football club to be. But Levy gives zero f**ks what we think.

Liverpool have topped up the 80% furlough to a full 100% so their non-playing staff are protected. But they’re still getting stick for using the government safety net. Can we, for a moment, pretend to understand that although we’d like sacrifices to be made as a means to display empathy, that these clubs are essentially big business. And most big businesses will protect their financial infrastructure to the penny. That 2 billion valuation won’t remain that high if we’re stuck in isolation all the way through the summer and beyond.

Sure, we spend money (millions) on player transfers and wages and sometimes we (the club) make a loss or a mistake with an acquisition. It’s a gamble, it’s how the sport functions. But this isn’t something we can bend in reality from a war chest to disposable income the club can just write off.

‘Moral vandalism’ it’s been described as. Us, Newcastle, Liverpool. Man City are apparently charging the NHS to use their premises (and laugh out loud at Real Madrid making donations and being applauded for it - a club that has been bailed out by their own government more times than the banks have been bailed out for creating recessions).

Others will follow. Other businesses outside of football are doing the same. Others that make millions in profit are dismissing low-paid staff or making them redundant or getting the Tories to pay them 80%. It’s no different really. But football is more than that for many and because the content is grown men kicking a ball about for a bit - it seems chairman and owners and players are not quite beyond reach like CEO’s of other non-sport corporations.

Many can’t actually fulfil their jobs because, well, nobody is bloody working (i.e. scouts, cleaners, anyone and everyone). People that are still working (the developers or eCommerce department or website admins and obviously the groundsmen) are having to endure that 20% cut. So, please don’t think I’m defending the big fat greedy cats at the top of the food chain. I just appreciate that morally, the right thing to do isn’t the same thing that ends up happening.

PAY FOOTBALLERS NHS WAGES

As for the players? Levy applied pressure on them to take a wage cut too. Barely pressure. It wasn’t quite Matt Hancocks half hour. The talks with the PFA and their members has been ongoing for a while and it seems likely the issue is a combination of legal logistics and, well, they probably prefer to donate rather than take a set cut. Even if it amounts to the same thing. The Premier League and the PFA are a little at odds with each other over this.

We’re not asking others (hedge fund billionaires) to take pity on the great unwashed. We’re not asking the banks to, well, bail us all out (they’re helping but just wait until this is all over see how much sympathy they will have). We’re asking footballers because this sport is traditionally a bond between itself and the community. Much like the 1980s we are far too gone to claim this romanticised notion still exits.

Footballers are easy targets. PAY THEM NHS WAGES. It’s the meme that doesn’t align to real life if you strip the satire away from it. We perceive players to be these men that are stealing a living. That they’re doing something easy and not noble and selfless like NHS doctors and nurses. I’ve never got to grips with this argument. Much like the one that suggests soldiers should be paid footballers wages. I guess it’s a Facebook generational trend that I’ve purposely stepped away from. Soldiers are often left with PTS and mental illness and are discarded by the country they proudly fought for. BUT BLAME THE FOOTBALLERS CAUSE THEY GET PAID LOADS.

I’m fully Wayne Rooney on this. Matt Hancock isn’t doing it for political deflection, he’s just jumping onto a trend to score a few points with ‘the great British public’.

Players are maligned because, yes, the sport is daft when compared to the sacrifices and graft others stick in when saving lives - but the same can be said for for hundreds of different jobs and roles within sport and entertainment. Football itself, not the eco-system, but the actual system - is rich enough to support all. If they wanted to. All the lower league grassroots clubs and non-playing staff across England and Europe. They could bail everyone out. FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League.

But alas no, let’s target footballers that are mostly lower class kids that dream of success that few will achieve (if we’re talking about elite or top two divisions). Is it easy to be elite? No. In any given field. Quite how the government thinks it can deflect attention away and put the onus on footballers is beyond me. Football isn’t publicly funded either ffs.

Danny Rose donated 19k to a hospital. Many footballers are already involved in charities. But that won’t make front pages because the tabloids prefer to tell us about the latest player blowing into a balloon (although I have no issue with the Kyle Walker making headlines, the horny moron). Are they all meant to come out and state they’ve given money away? I can see it now, the criticism from some corners that they’re being a bit crass, a bit detached from the common man.

Of course, having said all this, if they did take a cut and that money was used in a positive way - it would help the countries moral. It would spark a connection in this time where I think many of us are losing one. Stuck indoors, having too much time to think and analyse and react. But that cut, is more signalling. That cut will include less money paid to the tax man and thus less money going to the government and the NHS.

The crux of this is simple. The government should have created a clearer and more definitive solution that protected workers and gave less power to the super rich to take advantage. Let’s be honest now, Spurs are not going to face bankruptcy if they continue to pay their non playing staff. Clubs far removed from the Premier League might. So this entire model doesn’t fit or work and is open for abuse. Which it has suffered aplenty already.

At the very least, the government should set boundaries for furlough (in this case, super rich clubs have to continue paying 100% for x amount of time before shifting towards government support). I’m just making stuff up at this point. Economically, I’m not sure the dots connect. Other businesses (owned by million/billionaires) have used the furlough and they far exceed the profit margins of some clubs. But, well, you know…footballers are overpaid brats.

What makes football different from other businesses is the relationship between clubs and their supporters. But if you strip that out, the clubs (as a business) should not be held to a different standard.

Regrading the tax issue: The PFA shared some logic re: tax contributions already paid towards the government. Seems the PFA and the Prem League are at odds with the proposal they put up regarding the 30% salary deduction (that’s £500M in way reductions and a loss in tax contributions of over £200M).

See, the system in place is already working but what we want is that moral contribution. From the sounds of it, the players are already seeking to do just that.

Let’s see what they do exactly before we judge further.

ENIC OUT

When the season does restart (in one form or another - but not behind closed doors), it will be great to see all the boycotting and non-attendance at Spurs. All the self-isolating people are having to do now will be good practice for them to remain home on match-day and thump their keyboards in protest.

The fans taking satisfaction out of this Levy controversy with 'I told you so' gloats...er, you told us what mate exactly? You Nostradamus? Fans mostly (on Twitter) hate and criticise everything and everyone, so they are bound to get one or two things right. Stop making it about yourself proclaiming to know something before it’s considered gospel by the rest of the vocal minority.

Oh wait. It is about you. Numbers and likes and retweets and virtual pats on the back from other like minded individuals. An echo chamber of constant projected hate.

I think it’s driving people bonkers. Remember pre-Poch and during the first six months of his tenure? Plenty of ENIC OUT (Poch out) chit-chat doing the rounds. Then the football gets good again and it all goes silent. Those beers and pies are hard to stay away from.

I’ve seen plenty of hate too for the new stadium and a ‘everything is sh*t’ culture igniting more negativity. Look, White Hart Lane will never be replaced. It was the final chapter in Old Football. It will never be replaced, except it has. Whether we like it or not, it’s our responsibility to make sure the next generation of fans make it their home away from home. Like the Lane was for us.

When we moved into the new gaff, most gushed about it. It is an absolutely magnificent place. Let’s try not to emulate them lot down the road and allow New Football to dictate how we feel about THFC itself. Existential klaxon…the club is the supporters. It’s up to us to own this sh*t. Not to push ourselves further away from it. Home invasion. Go against the grain.

Then there’s the current badge of honour for the ENIC OUT brigade, comparing the past 20 years under Levy to the 20 years before. Without including any context at all. I’ve written about this before. Does it need repeating? How can you possibly compare different eras of football? How can you pretend Irving Scholar didn’t happen? The club on the brink of administration? The Sugar/Venables debacle? The hardship of playing catch-up to the ‘Top Four’? To suggest another chairman would have guided us to this point is also highly debatable. Okay, we might have won more League Cups and had days out, but come on. We gonna dance to this tune every time the football gets a little bland?

You get those treasured moments with winning things. Memories. The history books record the score and it’s there in black and white to brag about later on. But is that what you desire? To make numbers out of those moments? How about the ones that don’t get noted in record books? The resurgence. The ascendancy? The last minute limbs from a last minute winner? The swagger and togetherness? The connection with a set of players, a team, a philosophy? The belief that drives you on? The accidental journey that takes you within a touch or two of the type of silverware we never thought we’d flirt with?

The biggest highs in football are not always associated to cup finals. These highs should not be rendered irrelevant. If you think record books with a line on a page makes history, you’re doing it wrong. History is that moment when a player strikes with practically the last kick of the ball in injury time to score a hat-trick and take you into a European final. These highs are football at its very peak and they are treasured by the less fortunate as defining moments. The moment you step over that threshold and you’re winning things season in and season out, they are lessened. But I won’t lie. I wouldn’t mind experiencing the other side at some point in my lifetime.

Premier League season suspended

"The Premier League will not resume at the beginning of May – and that the 2019/20 season will only return when it is safe and appropriate to do so. The restart date is under constant review"

I know we all want it null and void so Liverpool can’t win it or perhaps just give it to them with a massive asterisk accompanying it. I don’t care about the integrity argument. Especially after Arsenal came out and said it was imperative to have the season conclude on 38 games played. Yes, Arsenal. The only football club in top flight history that illegally secured their promotion through bribery and corruption want to maintain integrity? COVID-19, please wipe us all off the planet. I’m done.

It’s great that there’s money being sent down to the Football League and National League clubs experiencing ‘difficulties’. This is why so many of us are p*ssed off with Levy. That sense of community has to exist for the people - the fans - and the clubs that don’t dive into mountains of gold coins, Scrooge McDuck style.

I have no idea how we’re going to kick start things again. Perhaps in the summer? Then next season starts a little later and finishes a little later and continues like so (and helps us phase into the winter 2022 World Cup).

At the moment, it all seems so unnecessary. The discussions. Playing behind closed doors is also such a weird acceptance in terms of a solution. It’s a spectator sport. When it eventually goes back to normal, we’ll have had our routines deconstructed to such bare bones during 2020 that we’ll appreciate everything so much more and maybe even learn to love this game of football again.

Harry Kane non-story story

"Obviously I get asked this question a lot," he said. "It's one of those things – I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no.

"I love Spurs, I'll always love Spurs but I've always said if I don't feel we're progressing as a team or going in the right direction, I'm not someone to stay there for the sake of it.

"I'm an ambitious player, I want to improve, get better and become one of the top, top players. It all depends on what happens as a team and how we progress as a team.

"So it's not a definite I'm going to stay there forever but it's not a no either."

Kane’s best opportunity to move on would be this summer. The footballing Gods move in mysterious ways. He didn’t say anything he hasn’t said before, but him having to repeat it, is where I get a little sick in the belly. He’s saying it because he doesn’t quite believe we can match his ambitions. He’s preparing us. He’s actually grown up and has realised there are far easier routes to winning things by going elsewhere. Is he wrong? At the moment, no, he isn’t. I can’t blame him.

God, imagine the memes and the abuse we’re going to get if he moves and wins something in his first season. Gonna quit football the day we sell him.

I’ve not spent that much time thinking about Spurs since this has all unfolded (the pandemic). I lost my job, I lost opportunities immediately after with interviews and offers. In a blink of an eye, the lock-down shut everyone down and now we’re in state of unprecedented anxiety. Financially and with health. Levy’s message got everyone back to Tottenham chat (and away from slagging off people having picnics in the park).

So in recent days, I have considered the impact on the footballing side of things. In a perverse way, will this break work in our favour because, Christ, was our football God awful? Players will return from injury, fresh and eager. But how long will take everyone to get fit again and how does that even work logistically, if they need 3/4 weeks of a preseason? What knock-on effect will this have with the next season and the actual pre-season and transfer dealings?

Do I care?

I don’t. Which is way my sentiment is to null and void it and start over when we are free to do so. I know what I’ll be doing when the lockdown and virus is gone. Getting smashed off my face with my mates, hugging strangers in the road. I think the aftermath of this will initially be one you’d come to expect at 3am in the morning on a dance floor in Ibiza. The long term will no doubt involve more hardships and that expected recession. What will this mean for football and match-day revenue? Is this what Levy is considering and forecasting?

As for the football itself, Jose Mourinho has an opportunity to start over again. If the same turgid slow paced football is the main course, then don’t expect dessert. If Levy doesn’t back him in the transfer window (the one that the chairman has already dismissed) then get ready to snooze in your seat.

I miss Poch. I hate that we sacked him but understand why we had to. I don’t have to like it. I’d welcome him back tomorrow. Jose isn’t Tottenham. He never will be. But much like the people slating Levy that probably voted Tory, fans will say anything to save face.

The football season will return behind closed doors no doubt, at some point in June. The lockdown will relax by the start of May and people will be allowed to return to work (how that will work with tube travel and pubs, I have no idea). I guess only office workers and plumbers/electricians etc will be allowed out whilst we all continue to abide by social distancing rules. I haven’t got a clue. Not sure the government has one either. The best we can hope for is McDonald’s reopening its Drive-thru in a couple of months.

A mate (politics nerd) informed me we can’t possibly go beyond a six week lockdown because the economy would be unrecoverable in the short term (and for a long time after). I guess the clue to this thinking is echoed by the governments two month support structure and the option for a third month if required.

All I know is, that Kane will be stuck at Spurs by the time we’re back at it and we’ll have him for the season after that. I’ll finish there with a positive.

Say at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives. Epstein didn’t kill himself.