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I'll happily see L'Arse win against Wigan to be honest...
Then lose to 94th minute Sheffield United goal in the final
Then lose to 94th minute Sheffield United goal in the final
Now you've done it
Posted this in the Scum thread - but it seems to fit well here as well
Putting faith in Woolwich's losing streak helps ease Tottenham pain
With Woolwich having gone nine years without silverware, as a Spurs fan there's pleasure in willing the streak to reach a decade
Looking to break the losing streak, Woolwich's Arsène Wenger takes his side into an FA Cup semi-final with Wigan on Saturday. Photograph: Tom Jenkins
Tom Lamont
Saturday 5 April 2014 20.00 BST
75 comments
Woolwich, it gets mentioned, have gone some while without lifting a trophy. The club's nine-year losing run includes appearances in major finals, credible title tilts, giants toppled, but nothing tangible won – no cups with ribbons, no oversized Euro tin, not a shield. And I admit that, as a non-fan, some sympathy has welled up in me as Woolwich's long, unaccountable streak has run on and on. I've taken a stake in the matter. Fringe interest has turned into genuine concern. I care.
Come on you streak!
Design Woolwich's losing streak a kit, I often think, and I'll wear it during pivotal matches. Let's write it a Latin motto. This is a big time for us: Arsène Wenger's side have an FA Cup semi-final against Wigan of the Championship on Saturday. Win that, and low-flyers Hull or Sheffield United will be waiting. If they make it to the final I really think the streak is worth its own charity pop song. April and May are going to be absolutely huge, make or break. Streak! Streak! Streak!
Plenty of fans tend a quiet loyalty to a second team. A different-division side in the UK, if not Barcelona, one of the Milans, a Madrid. Celtic and Liverpool fans share a mutual fancy that dates back decades and West Ham, by obscure tradition, are meant to be everyone's backup if they haven't already got one. Woolwich themselves, reliably slick, command a lot of incidental affection … For me it's the streak, has been for nine excellent years, and I follow its ups and downs with the same keen, brittle concern I allow my real club.
There have been near-run things. This allegiance hasn't always been easy. There was that Champions League turnaround, against Frank Rijkaard's Barça, the streak still very much in its infancy and only hinting at its glorious future. In the Carling Cup final, three seasons ago, Laurent Koscielny almostdidn't muff a back-pass, allowing Birmingham their winning goal. And I won't forget the rocky run-in, shortly afterwards, when Aaron Ramsey's strike against Manchester United blew the title race wide open... Again and again the streak prevailed. Good old streak. Oh when the streak! Goes marching in! I'll be gutted to see it go.
My first club are Spurs. Sad, striving Spurs – so inventive, year after on year, in their method of distressing the fans. Seven managers sacked in a decade, awesome talent let go, and a single Champions League campaign when there might have been three or four had we a drip of extra luck. Is it any wonder that my affections have divided? That I've drifted towards the glamour?
Woolwich's streak gets to pit itself against the best in Europe, year after year. Treacherous departures (Cesc Fàbregas to Barcelona, Robin van Persie to United) only strengthens it. Meanwhile my mental highlight reel is magnificent, an unforgettable hat-trick by Lionel Messi, strikes by Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, not to mention cheeky prod-ins by Colin Kazim-Richards, Ricardo Fuller ... Who can claim an attacking history like it?
I'm always amazed to discover there are football fans who don't care much, one way or the other, about the fortunes of their rivals. Yeah, they'll muster up some cartoon ill-will for derby matches, and diligently stand uuuup if they hate so-and-so. But the majority of supporters, from what I can tell, prefer to support rather than wallow in schadenfreude. I feel they're missing out.
There's an extra richness when you loathe a rival team as much as you like your own. The season goes twice as long as each weekend brings two results to root for. Losses can be hedged against losses. A draw doesn't seem so bad. Victories might get double-distilled. Oh, those rare Match of the Days, when on the same day Spurs have done well and Woolwich been disgraced – heaven.
For the particular potency of my feelings towards Woolwich (this therapy-worthy venom) I claim special allowance. The school I went to was majority Gooner, and seven years of corridor chat there coincided with the early, ultra-successful phase of Wenger's reign, when Woolwich turned flash and won the double; meanwhile Spurs pinned their hopes on Christian Gross, a manager whose principal innovation was to deny captain Gary Mabbutt his pre-match omelette. Mondays at school, August through May, were rarely hilarious.
As an adult, somehow, I've tended to end up in houses and flats within Woolwich-supporting territory (an area that, in my defence, now seems to cover all of London above Euston, excepting a thin strip around the A10 and certain loyal Tottenham outposts at the Essex end of the District Line). Where I live all the bookmakers, knowing their market, put up teasing signs telling you how much you can win if Spurs get thumped to nil by Cardiff City, or by Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk ... "We exist!" I want to tell these bookies. "We're allowed to live in north London, too."
Currently, ridiculously, I'm so close to the Emirates I can hear goal cheers, even the loudspeaker confirmation of scorers, through my lounge window. Red and white scarves everywhere. Kids too young to know with "INVINCIBLES" written on their backs. When the stadium empties into the neighbourhood I reckon I can tell how thoroughly Woolwich have battered some relegatee by how briskly the 20-somethings with Olivier Giroud haircuts rub their hands together. By how many teeth they bare.
That lofty, our-pitch-is-our-canvas superiority, the one Woolwich fans practically stagger about under the weight of – has flavoured half my life. They've placed above us, now, for 18 seasons in a row. They won the league at White Hart Lane (2004). They took Sol Campbell (2001). The FA Cup parade, if Woolwich go all the way, will very likely plough within metres of my front door.
So one more season, streak, give me that. Let's make it a round decade.
Come. On. You. Streak.
Putting faith in Woolwich's losing streak helps ease Tottenham pain
With Woolwich having gone nine years without silverware, as a Spurs fan there's pleasure in willing the streak to reach a decade
Looking to break the losing streak, Woolwich's Arsène Wenger takes his side into an FA Cup semi-final with Wigan on Saturday. Photograph: Tom Jenkins
Tom Lamont
Saturday 5 April 2014 20.00 BST
75 comments
Woolwich, it gets mentioned, have gone some while without lifting a trophy. The club's nine-year losing run includes appearances in major finals, credible title tilts, giants toppled, but nothing tangible won – no cups with ribbons, no oversized Euro tin, not a shield. And I admit that, as a non-fan, some sympathy has welled up in me as Woolwich's long, unaccountable streak has run on and on. I've taken a stake in the matter. Fringe interest has turned into genuine concern. I care.
Come on you streak!
Design Woolwich's losing streak a kit, I often think, and I'll wear it during pivotal matches. Let's write it a Latin motto. This is a big time for us: Arsène Wenger's side have an FA Cup semi-final against Wigan of the Championship on Saturday. Win that, and low-flyers Hull or Sheffield United will be waiting. If they make it to the final I really think the streak is worth its own charity pop song. April and May are going to be absolutely huge, make or break. Streak! Streak! Streak!
Plenty of fans tend a quiet loyalty to a second team. A different-division side in the UK, if not Barcelona, one of the Milans, a Madrid. Celtic and Liverpool fans share a mutual fancy that dates back decades and West Ham, by obscure tradition, are meant to be everyone's backup if they haven't already got one. Woolwich themselves, reliably slick, command a lot of incidental affection … For me it's the streak, has been for nine excellent years, and I follow its ups and downs with the same keen, brittle concern I allow my real club.
There have been near-run things. This allegiance hasn't always been easy. There was that Champions League turnaround, against Frank Rijkaard's Barça, the streak still very much in its infancy and only hinting at its glorious future. In the Carling Cup final, three seasons ago, Laurent Koscielny almostdidn't muff a back-pass, allowing Birmingham their winning goal. And I won't forget the rocky run-in, shortly afterwards, when Aaron Ramsey's strike against Manchester United blew the title race wide open... Again and again the streak prevailed. Good old streak. Oh when the streak! Goes marching in! I'll be gutted to see it go.
My first club are Spurs. Sad, striving Spurs – so inventive, year after on year, in their method of distressing the fans. Seven managers sacked in a decade, awesome talent let go, and a single Champions League campaign when there might have been three or four had we a drip of extra luck. Is it any wonder that my affections have divided? That I've drifted towards the glamour?
Woolwich's streak gets to pit itself against the best in Europe, year after year. Treacherous departures (Cesc Fàbregas to Barcelona, Robin van Persie to United) only strengthens it. Meanwhile my mental highlight reel is magnificent, an unforgettable hat-trick by Lionel Messi, strikes by Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, not to mention cheeky prod-ins by Colin Kazim-Richards, Ricardo Fuller ... Who can claim an attacking history like it?
I'm always amazed to discover there are football fans who don't care much, one way or the other, about the fortunes of their rivals. Yeah, they'll muster up some cartoon ill-will for derby matches, and diligently stand uuuup if they hate so-and-so. But the majority of supporters, from what I can tell, prefer to support rather than wallow in schadenfreude. I feel they're missing out.
There's an extra richness when you loathe a rival team as much as you like your own. The season goes twice as long as each weekend brings two results to root for. Losses can be hedged against losses. A draw doesn't seem so bad. Victories might get double-distilled. Oh, those rare Match of the Days, when on the same day Spurs have done well and Woolwich been disgraced – heaven.
For the particular potency of my feelings towards Woolwich (this therapy-worthy venom) I claim special allowance. The school I went to was majority Gooner, and seven years of corridor chat there coincided with the early, ultra-successful phase of Wenger's reign, when Woolwich turned flash and won the double; meanwhile Spurs pinned their hopes on Christian Gross, a manager whose principal innovation was to deny captain Gary Mabbutt his pre-match omelette. Mondays at school, August through May, were rarely hilarious.
As an adult, somehow, I've tended to end up in houses and flats within Woolwich-supporting territory (an area that, in my defence, now seems to cover all of London above Euston, excepting a thin strip around the A10 and certain loyal Tottenham outposts at the Essex end of the District Line). Where I live all the bookmakers, knowing their market, put up teasing signs telling you how much you can win if Spurs get thumped to nil by Cardiff City, or by Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk ... "We exist!" I want to tell these bookies. "We're allowed to live in north London, too."
Currently, ridiculously, I'm so close to the Emirates I can hear goal cheers, even the loudspeaker confirmation of scorers, through my lounge window. Red and white scarves everywhere. Kids too young to know with "INVINCIBLES" written on their backs. When the stadium empties into the neighbourhood I reckon I can tell how thoroughly Woolwich have battered some relegatee by how briskly the 20-somethings with Olivier Giroud haircuts rub their hands together. By how many teeth they bare.
That lofty, our-pitch-is-our-canvas superiority, the one Woolwich fans practically stagger about under the weight of – has flavoured half my life. They've placed above us, now, for 18 seasons in a row. They won the league at White Hart Lane (2004). They took Sol Campbell (2001). The FA Cup parade, if Woolwich go all the way, will very likely plough within metres of my front door.
So one more season, streak, give me that. Let's make it a round decade.
Come. On. You. Streak.
All fucking day a Wigan win.
Throw in, Wigan win and Sneezy breaks both legs and can't play football ever again, and it's an easy answer..
Ooooo, now we've realised that we are only 5 points off the Shit from up the Road, has anyone changed their mind???
Nope. I don't want them cunts winning a trophy ever again. I also don't really give a fuck about fourth anymore. I think it fucked us up.
