The forgotten blog of 2012

Think back, go back, imagine. We have just appointed a young manager full of potential. Sound familiar?

It’s September 2008. You’ve just sat and watched your team toil for ninety minutes against an underwhelming Wigan Athletic side that boasts Olivier Kapo and Emile Heskey up front and your major source of excitement was the introduction of Frazier Campbell midway through the second half. The final whistle confirms your teams’ second point of a season which is now well over a month old and your two best strikers of recent years, perhaps decades, are now playing in the red shirts of Manchester United and Liverpool.

[linequote]The football improved, the league position improved, the league finishes improved and therefore the calibre of teams we saw playing at White Hart Lane improved[/linequote]

Things were looking bad for us Spurs, who had only won the Carling Cup a few months before with their now under-fire manager, but the end of that Wigan game brought about a drained and tired wall of miserable murmurings; certainly no vitriol. We’d seen it all before.

Build us up, knock us down, Tottenham.

Nobody needs to be told what happened after that; Harry reminded us throughout his reign of where we were when he took over (it doesn’t seem too far to speculate that he had the league table after those 8 games framed somewhere in his Poole home). The football improved, the league position improved, the league finishes improved and therefore the calibre of teams we saw playing at White Hart Lane improved, if only for that wonderful season two years ago.

With that, fan expectation rocketed and as the saying goes, success breeds contempt, so suddenly Spurs were seen as a major scalp, even by the ‘top four’ when they visited the Lane. Opposition fans would travel to Spurs in hope rather than expectation for the first time in my lifetime.

We are now in a dangerous position. Redknapp brought us the years where we would travel anywhere in the league and give ourselves at least a fighting chance, with the exception(s) perhaps of Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge (as standard). Anything but a win at home – against any team – was seen as coming up short. It was good. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying that, either.

[linequote]What we fans need to avoid as much as possible is becoming the caricature that has always been painted of us – that we think we are a ‘bigger club’ than we actually are[/linequote]

What we fans need to avoid as much as possible is becoming the caricature that has always been painted of us – that we think we are a ‘bigger club’ than we actually are. History will always play a part in giving any club its identity, but it’s no false claim to say that you are only as good as your current team. We can carry on about the 60’s and we should all have immense pride in the way our club once ruled this land – but it’s not something we should consistently level at other clubs. We’re not Aston Villa. Blackburn Rovers have won the Premier League since then, for crying out loud.

[linequote]Redknapp is no more, though, and, whatever your view on the situation, Andre Villas Boas leads us all into battle now[/linequote]

Redknapp’s tenure gave us the opportunity to give it the biggun’ over most clubs in the league, including the not-so-noisy neighbours – something we hadn’t had in a decade. Redknapp is no more, though, and, whatever your view on the situation, Andre Villas Boas leads us all into battle now. Going down 1-0 at home to Wigan is a disappointing result, yes, but the reaction on the forums and in the stands suggests a sense of grandeur that we cannot afford to give in to.

We are Tottenham, super Tottenham, of course, but the pressure on the players when we play at home is immense and the weight of that supporter expectation is weighing heavy on a few shoulders. The last new dawn brought us success we haven’t seen in a generation, albeit not in silverware, but in quality of football and results. A 1-0 win away in Milan through the years 1990 – 2010 would have got you one million back for one pound on. But if we give it patience, the latest new dawn might take us one stage further. If it doesn’t, we can go and sign Olivier Kapo.