Tottenham Hotspur. It's a grand old team to play for and it's a grand old team to see. That's how the song goes, anyway.
The club thrives. Partnerships are made with sporting and industrial giants around the world. Steady and reliable progress has been witnessed over a decade to the point we have reached now.
That desired status of perennial nearly-men.
We're in the hunt for top 4 - that fictional trophy that we berate our new neighbours for chasing - and out of the cups. We're in Europe - but not the kind of Europe we want to be in. There are, of course, the usual catalogue of reasons.
Player integration, then displacement. Managerial disorganisation and subsequent replacement. Director of Football - are we in or out? A pattern of questionable boardroom-level decisions.
But you saunter down Bill Nicholson way at five minutes to three o' clock on a Saturday - no, really - and it just ain't that cauldron of activity it used to be. Plenty of people in replica kits munching on burgers they'll regret ingesting in a few short hours but nary a cry of, "Yid Army!" to be heard. We just file in, having swiped our ENIC-approved Security Passes at the gates, shuffle along to our seats...
And hear that noisy South London lot (no, not them) making a racket as if they're pleased they finally got to use one of those trains - you know the ones...they go under the ground, as it were?
It's a shock. Away fans, of course, do give it more. But this lot seem genuinely pleased that they've turned up at all. As if they're not waiting to be entertained - they're here to enjoy themselves even if they get spanked.
The match kicks off. And we give it a few choruses of "Come On You Spurs" and "Oh When The Spurs" and even "Super Tottenham From The Lane." But it all seems inconsequential when that lot are just going absolutely bonkers for no reason for the first 6 minutes. And then - oh, look. A penalty.
And then...magically. Jason Puncheon fires it into the deep blue yonder. But the Palace fans go even more bananas. They don't let it get them down - the on-pitch action is barely an adjunct to what's already proving to be a great day out. And I'm left feeling like THAT'S what football is meant to be about: singing for the team you love, whether those in Spurs shirts provide a yawnfest, a decimation or a capitulation. But we let them insult us. We let them draw comparisons between N17 and the Death Star. And then it's half time. And I hear boos.
What happened to just singing because it was a joy and a privilege to support this grand old team? What happened to encouraging our beautiful boys in lilywhite to dare and therefore, to do? It all just faded because we had an anaemic performance on the pitch. No wonder the play is flat: the players and fans alike are crushed by the weight of expectation to the point where the most notable noise in 45 minutes of football is the boos of those behind me because we're not winning after the worst half of football this ground has seen in...well, not that long, really.
So we kick off again. And there it is - a goal. And we're happy to mug them off. We take the piss and have a right old laugh. They pause to take breath and we have a go at "You're not singing any more." Except they are. They're still having the same great time they were when they were even. The football's picked up from Spurs and the crowd is still as flat as it was before. The game ends 2-0. The Palace fans are still out singing us at the end. And I have a hard time believing that anyone in the crowd wearing lilywhite enjoyed that experienced as much as any Palace fan did.
In this difficult, fractured time the fanbase is being torn apart by divisive appointments and the mismanagement of various players for whom we have high hopes. Opinions are like arseholes - everyone's got one - but it seems like right now, everyone wants theirs to be the prominent orifice in the room. That dissatisfaction has filtered through into the stands. It's like Year 9 chemistry - a broken fanbase + expectations = White Hart Lane on Saturday. We're those fans who sing when we're winning and who moan, boo, curse, scream and froth at the mouth as soon as things aren't perfect.
Tottenham may be a grand old team to play for and a grand old team to see but some denizens of the Lane are overlooking that fact. It seems like a crisp Saturday afternoon in January against London minnows is the perfect reason to turn up and sing up but instead, we were embarrassed by real fans giving everything for their players.
Thank God we've got some away games coming up.
The club thrives. Partnerships are made with sporting and industrial giants around the world. Steady and reliable progress has been witnessed over a decade to the point we have reached now.
That desired status of perennial nearly-men.
We're in the hunt for top 4 - that fictional trophy that we berate our new neighbours for chasing - and out of the cups. We're in Europe - but not the kind of Europe we want to be in. There are, of course, the usual catalogue of reasons.
Player integration, then displacement. Managerial disorganisation and subsequent replacement. Director of Football - are we in or out? A pattern of questionable boardroom-level decisions.
But you saunter down Bill Nicholson way at five minutes to three o' clock on a Saturday - no, really - and it just ain't that cauldron of activity it used to be. Plenty of people in replica kits munching on burgers they'll regret ingesting in a few short hours but nary a cry of, "Yid Army!" to be heard. We just file in, having swiped our ENIC-approved Security Passes at the gates, shuffle along to our seats...
And hear that noisy South London lot (no, not them) making a racket as if they're pleased they finally got to use one of those trains - you know the ones...they go under the ground, as it were?
It's a shock. Away fans, of course, do give it more. But this lot seem genuinely pleased that they've turned up at all. As if they're not waiting to be entertained - they're here to enjoy themselves even if they get spanked.
The match kicks off. And we give it a few choruses of "Come On You Spurs" and "Oh When The Spurs" and even "Super Tottenham From The Lane." But it all seems inconsequential when that lot are just going absolutely bonkers for no reason for the first 6 minutes. And then - oh, look. A penalty.
And then...magically. Jason Puncheon fires it into the deep blue yonder. But the Palace fans go even more bananas. They don't let it get them down - the on-pitch action is barely an adjunct to what's already proving to be a great day out. And I'm left feeling like THAT'S what football is meant to be about: singing for the team you love, whether those in Spurs shirts provide a yawnfest, a decimation or a capitulation. But we let them insult us. We let them draw comparisons between N17 and the Death Star. And then it's half time. And I hear boos.
What happened to just singing because it was a joy and a privilege to support this grand old team? What happened to encouraging our beautiful boys in lilywhite to dare and therefore, to do? It all just faded because we had an anaemic performance on the pitch. No wonder the play is flat: the players and fans alike are crushed by the weight of expectation to the point where the most notable noise in 45 minutes of football is the boos of those behind me because we're not winning after the worst half of football this ground has seen in...well, not that long, really.
So we kick off again. And there it is - a goal. And we're happy to mug them off. We take the piss and have a right old laugh. They pause to take breath and we have a go at "You're not singing any more." Except they are. They're still having the same great time they were when they were even. The football's picked up from Spurs and the crowd is still as flat as it was before. The game ends 2-0. The Palace fans are still out singing us at the end. And I have a hard time believing that anyone in the crowd wearing lilywhite enjoyed that experienced as much as any Palace fan did.
In this difficult, fractured time the fanbase is being torn apart by divisive appointments and the mismanagement of various players for whom we have high hopes. Opinions are like arseholes - everyone's got one - but it seems like right now, everyone wants theirs to be the prominent orifice in the room. That dissatisfaction has filtered through into the stands. It's like Year 9 chemistry - a broken fanbase + expectations = White Hart Lane on Saturday. We're those fans who sing when we're winning and who moan, boo, curse, scream and froth at the mouth as soon as things aren't perfect.
Tottenham may be a grand old team to play for and a grand old team to see but some denizens of the Lane are overlooking that fact. It seems like a crisp Saturday afternoon in January against London minnows is the perfect reason to turn up and sing up but instead, we were embarrassed by real fans giving everything for their players.
Thank God we've got some away games coming up.
Spoken like a medic. 
