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I think I need a new club?

5 min read
by Method Moran
Method Moran on how it is all a bit different supporting Spurs at the moment. (DISCLAIMER: We at TFC do not want to jinx anything, so we would like to add this is the opinion of one man, not TFC or Spurs fans.)

Now I will accept that I am a naturally negative person. I often look for reasons to moan about things and am generally a glass half empty type of guy. So I guess Tottenham were the perfect club for me to choose growing up.

The problem is that after almost 30 years supporting Spurs, I am unprepared for us being good. Now we are good, damn good and I’m struggling to follow football now that I have little or no reason to moan come Monday morning. I think I am going to need a new club!

Whilst I am obviously joking, there is a serious point to be made here, that most of us are entering virgin territory as Tottenham fans, such is the transformation of our club. We have grown up on a diet of mid table obscurity, at best praying that we might sneak a UEFA cup spot because of our high placing on the fair play table (that was about as close as we got for a long time). As much as I love the club, the following dialogue from the film ‘In Bruges’ perhaps best sums up the Tottenham I have always known.

Purgatory’s kind of like the in-betweeny one. You weren’t really sh*t, but you weren’t all that great either. Like Tottenham.

That seems to have been the consensus from both Spurs fans and non-Spurs fans for as long as I can remember. Throughout my school days in the 90s I was surrounded by fans of clubs I hated, Man Utd with their domination and glory hunting fans, Liverpool who we never seemed to beat and Woolwich. Yet nobody ever seemed to hate Tottenham (well apart from West Ham fans), because there was never anything to hate. We were non-threatening and inoffensive with our Jason Dozzells and Andy Sintons.

[linequote]Nobody ever seemed to hate Tottenham (well apart from West Ham fans), because there was never anything to hate[/linequote]

I guess I grew up bitter. The team I had adopted as a kid growing up in East London was one of Hoddle and Waddle, of Gascoigne and Lineker, not Vinny Samways and Ronny Rosenthal. We started every season with essentially unwarranted high expectations only for them to be shattered just a few games in.

I would go as far as to say that fans of teams that regularly battle relegation have had less to moan about over the years than Spurs fans. I will use Wigan as an example. They knew that staying up season after season was as good as they could get, so that last minute survival was like winning a trophy to them every year. Tottenham on the other hand were the team of history and glory, who never had anything left to play for come March.

There was of course the false dawn under ‘Arry but even then there were plenty of reasons to moan, of losing games we should win (who can forget the likes of Wigan and Stoke at home), of being Spursy. How Spurs like was it to go to City in 2012, to come back from 2-0 to not only lose the game but fade into nothing and miss the champions league when let’s be honest, we could have been fighting for the title?

Or to sell an £86 million player and use the substantial sum of money to recruit players that were no better than those we had remaining at the club?

But now something generally magnificent is happening and we all feel it. The veteran Spurs fan in me is screaming ‘calm down, don’t get carried away, its Spurs after all’ but I can silence him very easily these days. This is not the Spurs I grew up with. To quote another film, this time Star Wars episode 7….

There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?

Yes I have, I really have. Truth is we all have, and not just us, but other teams and their supporters. Even the way that pundits have dropped their often anti-Spurs rhetoric is telling. Henry and Carragher for example are two that seem to usually hold us in contempt but have had little but praise of late. Everything is pulling in the right direction on and off the pitch and it’s not just the future that seems bright but also the present.

[linequote]Henry and Carragher for example are two that seem to usually hold us in contempt but have had little but praise of late[/linequote]

In 09-10, with two games to go, I predicted us to go to Man City and get a draw, then lose to Burnley and miss out on the Champions League. Ok, we beat City but still got battered by Burnley. For me, that was in many ways the very definition of Spursy. Now with 5 games left, I don’t feel that way at all. I am realistic but incredibly optimistic.

The problem is, the above means I am having to re-learn how to be a Spurs fan and I am sure I am not alone. I honestly do not know how to react to team selections I can’t criticise (OK let’s forget Dortmund). I can’t get used to seeing team selections and not cursing at the inclusion of a Gary Doherty, Paul Staltieri, Kyle Naughton or Andros Townsend.

Now the best I can do is show slight concern if Tom Carroll is selected without the physical presence of a Dier or a Dembele next to him. I can’t get used to seeing players giving their all and battling for points, refusing to lie down, because it’s the first time I have ever seen it from Tottenham in my 33 years. Not only that, they are fine players too. I can’t stop looking at the Sky Sports app on my phone whenever I get a spare moment to check that I am not dreaming about our goal difference.

I hope it continues long enough for me to adapt, but I am scared that life will never be the same again. I have become Morgan Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption, institutionalised by the prison of the Spurs I have known for 30 years, scared to walk into the freedom that I have dreamed of all this time.

How will I adjust on the outside? Time will tell so I will leave you with an apt quote from that same film:

I find I’m so excited that I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at a start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.

Method Moran

1 Comment

  1. David Parnell
    19/04/2016 @ 6:50 pm

    Great article and very true. Applies to so many of us. Only last night I was sitting there watching the Stoke game and thinking “we’re too deep, they’ll nick one in a minute” only to then observe a great win. To borrow another 90s reference “New Spurs New Danger”.

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