The Timothy effect

As my head was held to the ground and the gravel started to imprint on my flushed cheeks, acceptance took over me. I was stuck, the grip was vice-like, with anger in full flow his strength was limitless. Powered by anger hate and my general acceptance of everything thrown at me by Spurs, my opponent was too powerful.  A voice sounded from above me, I couldn’t hear it, but the force of his words were tapping on my skull like Morse code.

“You wanted this, now taste it, now eat dirt.”

My mind drifted off, I sought a place of happiness. I found memories, I found the past.

It began sometime ago, or you could probably say it ended sometime ago. Liverpool had pulled Spurs’ pants down and given them a through spanking. All of us were smarting, none of us could sit still, so the moment AVB was strapped to a Levy rocket and fired Russia bound, not many complained.

In had strutted Tim Sherwood. Blue eyes, St Albans cockney accent, a Mike Bassett swagger and four-four-f*cking- two. Some hated him for his simplicity, others for his attitude and others for an Arsenal love and rumoured tattoo. I like a few others just shrugged my shoulders and gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Broken and drained from AVB and his failure to unite the squad, I couldn’t do anything but accept Sherwood, or at least be apathetic towards him. I had seen worse managers in my lifetime.

Pain immediately causes me to resurface.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can.”

The ball bounces inexplicably over the head of Kyle Naughton, World Cup hopeful Jay Rodriguez nips around and slips it home. Another mistake. Another goal created and gifted to the opposition with the Tottenham Hotspur seal of approval.

At Spurs we don’t just concede goals, we make them, wrap them up and get high class strippers to deliver them on a bed of ice cold beer served with the finest side orders known to man. At Chelsea we had seen the same professional courier service and hosting Southampton we had spared no expense for our guests.

We sink ourselves with gold plated ammunition and bespoke weapons.

Minutes later a nothing ball, it drops from the sky with a threat level of Harry Kane, yet somehow we manage to create a goal. Naughton once again at the epicentre of the nonsense. Two nil. Game over. Heat in my ear as my torturer leans in close.

[linequote]Another mistake. Another goal created and gifted to the opposition with the Tottenham Hotspur seal of approval[/linequote]

“There you go. Apathy rewarded you should have rebelled. This is your reward. You wont find a bigger Spurs fan than him. Pah! You wont find more pain than the one I am about to bestow upon you. Clench!!”

Images flash into my mind. I should have stood up. I should have tweeted, should have blogged, thrown my two pence out there and rebelled. Why didn’t I take that Photoshop class and try and create something humorous. I deserve this pain, presenting myself like a female Labrador on heat I allow the pain to wash me away but it doesn’t.

Something changed. A minute vibration from somewhere in the distance. It was slight, but it happened.

It started against Arsenal, in amongst the impotency there were flashes of resilience. Where once we may have crumbled, there we stood up and showed our metal. Had Nacer Chadli buried the open goal and saved himself from sleepless nights perhaps Wenger’s rumoured demise would have started a week earlier, but emerging from that game something had clearly changed. Initially I thought it was the crowd, but it wasn’t. It was us reacting to something on the pitch.

The grip on my neck starts to weaken ever so slightly.

In Lisbon those flashes took on a different form. Denied our key players we went into the tie stripped naked, yet instead of bashfulness we took on something from our manager and his cringe worthy press calls. Perhaps it’s ignorance, or a failure to fully understand our predicament, but we went out onto that field and went for it. We played like we had something to prove not to the press or media but to ourselves and our inefficiencies meant very little. We played like Tim and as scary as that sounds, I quite liked it.

[linequote]Had Nacer Chadli buried the open goal and saved himself from sleepless nights perhaps Wenger’s rumoured demise would have started a week earlier[/linequote]

Dossier burnt, the weight of people’s opinions shed, 4-2-3-1, high line or sit deep, tactics were set aside for 90 minutes.

Benfica are a Champions League outfit masquerading as a Europa League team and we pushed them to the limit.  Had fate smiled upon us, perhaps we could have made it through but there was no doubting we had discovered something lacking for close to four months.

Spirit.

The sheer determination to not accept things. We may lack tactically and  technically, but we have developed this balls on the plate attitude. Its not pretty, its not very modern but mercy it’s different. Where once we relied on an individual, now we look to the collective.

When Sherwood ranted against Chelsea, when he claimed he was the biggest Spurs fan ever, I cowered in embarrassment, but you know what?

Who cares? For too long we have spent time thinking:

What do we look like?

How do we compare?

What does that mean in terms of global branding?

Stick it. We profess to play for the shirt. Let’s just do it. Balls out if you love Tottenham.

“Don’t have hope.” The voice demands.

“I don’t and I don’t care anymore.”

Christian Eriksen taps in at the back post.

“Give in.” The voice whispers.

Roberto Soldado chases a lost cause, wins the ball through sheer belief and courage. One beautifully tailored cross later, Eriksen 2-2.

“Let go of me now.” I shout

Only one winner now. But there isn’t. The game ebbs away, faith should slip but it doesn’t. In the last few minutes Glyfi Sigurdsson an inspired substitution grabs a cracking winner. Soldado slumps to the floor, Michael Dawson leaps from the bench, Sherwood punches the air and the Lane erupts.

[linequote]For too long we have allowed our perception of ourselves  to strangle us[/linequote]

Freedom. Acceptance. Three points. Disaster averted by nothing more than a simple refusal to accept anything less.

We may not be the classiest team in the world, but I don’t care. We won. I will take these types of wins from now until the end of the season without feeling embarrassed.

For too long we have allowed our perception of ourselves  to strangle us. Liverpool up next, we can break their title challenge. Impossible you say? You’re not Spurs.

Nothing is impossible, everything is possible. If Tim can be our manager, then we can beat Liverpool.

From now on, balls out if you love Tottenham.