City 2 Spurs 1

This morning I received a review copy of 'The Biography of Tottenham Hotspur' by Julie Welch (via Vision Sports Publishing). Can't wait to get stuck into it. I've only had time to read the press release info where I found one or two things staring back at me with a heavy hint of irony.

'...the club has a proud tradition of ambition, excellence and of playing football the right way, 'the Spurs way'. It is an unspoken but implicit prerequisite that means that the teams who pull on the famous lilywhite shirts will always endeavour to entertain and exhilarate the club's fans with fast, quick-passing, attacking football. "The game," as the great Spurs captain Danny Blanchflower so succinctly put it, "is about glory"...'

It's part of our character, our tradition. It's also been part of the problem, forever trying to emulate a period of time that will never be emulated, simply because football is not the same game it was back then. Spurs, under Arthur Rowe and later on Bill Nicholson, innovated. Created styles, iconic moments in history. Defined what it means to be Tottenham Hotspur.

In these modern times we desire a restoration of a classic when we should be attempting to paint an original. Our current predicament finds our painter with a variety of missing colours from his palette. Both ears still on his head, but I'd hardly blame him for cutting one of them off.