A thought to take into 2009

In this current economic climate, don't expect the new stadium to be built. Expect Levy to gain planning permission, and then sell the club for a tidy sum thanks to the ground development getting the green light.

that was the week that almost is

Not much blogging this week due to a family bereavement. Will be back daily next week. Steady on the open bus parade.

As for Spurs, been another eventful week (although we still got the weekend bit to go and mess it up for us).

4-0 at home in Europe. Yes, the opposition was arguably a bit pony - but the swagger was back. Some very decent tidy football, great in possession and movement and Darren Bent all smiles with a sweet hat trick thanks to the involvement of the slow-brooding beast that is Tommy Huddlestone (who also got on the score sheet with a tasty volley). Modric did well against his old team mates and apart from Hutton (who looks out of sorts) everyone seemed to enjoy the evening. Even Gomes, who decided this would be the night to keep a clean sheet.

Bostock made his debut and no doubt we'll be seeing more of him through out the season. Looks assured and has quite a shot on him. Let's try and not fuck up his career, right?

In other news, ENIC (that's Levy to you and me) bought another 2.8 million worth of shares in THFC lifting their stake in the club to 71%. Apparently works out to around 85.5% ownership of the fully diluted share capital. I suppose news that we only paid Ramos £1.7M (£2.5M including Poyet and co's severance pay) has allowed a bit of a pre-Xmas spending spree for Daniel. Don't go spending it all! Apparently there's a little Russian who play for Zenit who wants to come to Spurs.

Another twist in this summers epic saga. Arshavin apparently is a bit angry. He is gutted the transfer to Spurs never happened and has to endure digs from team mates (and Dick Advocatt, believe it or not) after every Spurs match. Although arguably what they possibly could have been saying when Ramos was manager is anyone's guess.

"Hey Andrie, you Champions League mug. You are here instead of being bottom of the Premiership! Ha ha in your face"

Riiiiiight. Regardless, he has told the media that after his deal fell through, everyone took an interest and look out for our results. However, you want to be a little anal retentive about it, he doesn't actually say he wants to come here now. Just that his team mates are taking the piss out of the fact that he never joined us (these Russians have got piss taking all wrong).

Let's remember a month ago, he was too good to join us. And now, he wish he had. Footballer, hey?

Moving from on the pitch to off it. Joe Jordan has left Pompey, so expect him at WHL soonish. Along with Sir Les of Ferdinand who will join the coaching the staff to help out the strikers. Don't mind Les at all. Proper Spurs fan who loves the club, so having him out on the training field is a good move. Still don't know or understand why Sherwood is there. As for Jordan, I don't mind him. If he does sign on, then that's ok with me.

Sunday not so bloody sunday

The 'mass' demonstration for this coming Sunday has been called off. Ben (that's the Ben who posts on COYS and spends most of his time up a tree at the Lodge) has been quite vocal recently with the publicity around the protest (he was interviewed by telephone on Setanta Sports). This was posted on COYS yesterday afternoon:

"Many people have supported the statement and a lot think we should do it before the game kicks of v bolton instead of during the first 5 minutes. some think we should do V liverpool. A few not at all.

I don't speak for spurs fans and don't want to do something majority not happy with so for that reason at the moment we will not do the leaflets. Levy knows a lot want him to go quite obviously and they are under real pressure. They need to tell us guys something and give something back to the fans. The situation is a large majority of us want Levy to go.

Because of the position we are in and the points needed over the next few weeks after a long chat between us all we have decided to leave this for the time being the club know how we feel and our feelings will almost certainly not change(we hope they will) I really fear for our future with Enic but maybe at the moment this will not help things as people have suggested.

We all love the club and want to get out of this position so we all need to pull together at the moment. So the leaflets will now not go ahead this weekend"

So keep your effigies at home and just make sure your lungs are ready to breach the roof of the sky as we all give it some with the vocals. I'm guessing that after the game, if we do manage to lose again, there might be one or two gatherings outside the main entrance to the West Stand. Nothing pre-planned. No leaflets. There's no protest planned during the game or just before it or after it. Anything that happens on the day will be down to what happens during the game itself. Seems its best not to distract from the fact that 3 points is the only important thing on Sunday.

Football will take precedence. Let's hope the players remember to turn up for once.

Dreamland?

From today's Guardian:

If Tottenham Hotspur's chairman, Daniel Levy, below, names an acceptable price before the week is out the club will be sold. A billionaire investor from the Far East, delivered by the super-agent Pini Zahavi, is in talks. But Spurs fans who want change at the top must hope Levy sets aside his instinct for haggling over a couple of extra million pounds which damagingly delayed the sale of Dimitar Berbatov this summer.

ENIC set to admit defeat? Joe Lewis to wipe his hands clean?

We live in hope. I won't get rid of the domain name though. Will continue to send letters to Levy. Keep him posted with the latest. I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

As for any potential new chairman. Buy us three world class defensive midfielders. Just for larks.

Jellied eels? No thanks

More speculation, this time about the potential re-building of White Hart Lane and who Spurs may have to ground share with. BBC run a news item on 'Inside Sport' last night, and the Mihir Bose 'understands' this with another insightful article on the Beebs football pages.

Firstly, nothing new. Spurs will either move away from WHL for a couple of years while it's rebuilt and ground share or Spurs will remain at the Lane while a brand new stadium is built from scratch. We all knew this, it's obvious that Spurs will either re-develop their current home or move on. What is new in the way of information is that we have apparently we have Tony Winterbottom (who played a role in the development of Arsenal's ground) on board who is looking at how WHL can expand to 52,000. Also, Paul Philips (a project manager, again involved at the Emirates) and Ken Shuttleworth, an architect who is the right-hand man of Norman Foster who worked on Wembley.

All very good. Dream Team in place. All we need now is the decision on whether we stay or go. Don't want out of WHL. I'm a sentimental bastard. If we did move then ground sharing isn't something I'm looking forward too. Have to scoof at the idea of sharing with West Ham United. I can see the police loving that idea. Getting to the ground on match days would probably involve the odd ambush and flare-up. Imagine playing at Upton Park in a 'home' match against Chelsea. That's one three-some I'd gladly say no to. Better still, when WHU play as at Upton Park in our 'home' game and they turn up with 20,000 away fans. Wear your colours for that early kick-off.

Other suggestions have us playing outside of London at Watford or Reading. Don't really approve of that either. And as for the Emirates, no thanks. Even though, of all the potential clubs we could share with that would give us the least amount of trouble in travel. Wembley would have to be the number one choice. But the FA seem reluctant to help out.

Will be interesting to see if the club decide to ask the fans what they would like with regards to having the ground expanded or move to a new location in Enfield. Bose states that Spurs would prefer to remain at the Lane. Hopefully this is the one thing Levy won't let me down on.

Stick it on Ebay

Whispers in the City that there's an instruction for one lucky person to go find buyers for the club. According to the rumour whores Levy will sell up for around £400M. This all follows the media's report that Kemsley (the one who doesn't rate Jol) wants to launch his own bid for the club. Lovely. That would probably mean the arrival of Harry Redknapp and me setting myself on fire.

We continue to sell-out

I can taste vomit in my mouth.


ultimategoalmouth

A seasonal membership of The Goalmouth gives supporters the chance to combine a season ticket in the North Stand with the pleasure of enjoying a pre-match three course meal in our football-themed, fun, family restaurant before each game.

We have a limited number of seasonal membership packages still available that include:

• A match seat in the North West corner accessed directly from the restaurant
• A three course ‘American Diner’ style pre-match meal and half-time refreshments
• Entertainment for young fans including table football, video games, visits from Chirpy and our resident football freestyler, quizzes and competitions

Seasonal Membership Prices

Adult & Child Package - £4,000 plus VAT
Family Package (2 Adults & 2 Children) - £7,000 plus VAT
Price per extra Child - £1,500 plus VAT
Price per extra Adult - £2,000 plus VAT

New For 2007/2008

We now also have an allocation of Goalmouth seasonal memberships for supporters unaccompanied by children priced at £2500 plus VAT per person.

Corporate hell. Levy has found that sonofabitch Chirpy something to appease his ego with. And exactly what is the reasoning behind the 'American Diner' pre-match meal? What's the link? Why not traditional kebabs or pies or bagels? Or is that too common? Of course it is. Note also the amount of money you will need to part with to be part of this 'experience'.

Yes. That's right people. The West Stand invasion of the North Stand has begun. Levy, just you dare try and come near the South Stand. That includes you too Chirpy, you smug yogo-loving motherf*cker with your stupid grin and handshaking skills.

ENIC bid for 100%

If you've taken a close look at the Spurs site and the financial press you would have noticed that ENIC are looking to acquire 100% of the club shares, thus destroying any chance of a hostile take-over from some off-shore billionaire or to help give the club the required swagger and big balls to possibly help with future financing and the potential of ground expansion (by selling 49% after getting their hands on the lot).

Thread of interest here:

http://glory-glory.co.uk/forums/thread/162360.aspx


I'm going to be subjective with this and not jump down the throat of Levy and ENIC simply because of their shabby handling of fans in other matters (will get to this in a moment).

So, for the time being, I will say that in some ways this new tactic by the club is a good thing, which would mean I would be concluding (by proxy) that Levy is doing a 'good thing' for Spurs, and thus for me.

So its a good thing in principle.

Its difficult to be sure at this point what their goal is, so along with my subjectiveness, I will also remain patient and wait to see what their end game is rather than speculate like some coked-up Daily Mirror reporter copy and pasting a 16 year olds opinion from a forum.

As for the shabby handling, I am of course referring to the booking of tickets online whereby we are no longer able to select our seats using Seatbooker. You can now only select the block - and seats are then allocated by the club.

I refuse to accept this is hard evidence that we are moving to Wembley and that Seatbooker have removed the option for the present in preparation for the future (where selecting/booking a specific seat at Wembley isn't a realistic option for the club to be able to allocate fairly).

I personally think that the true reason is to defuse the potential upsurge of 'fan movement' behaviour of having 'groups' of like-minded Spurs fans together, controlling the vocal territory of a certain block. Not giving them the option to huddle together results in disbursement of said groups and breaks up the atmosphere making it difficult to potentially demonstrate, within the stands, in disgust of the teams abject performance(s).

Its these little things which get engulfed by the much larger things which is the crux of the battle ahead. Look between the lines at all times.

Levy cements place on board

Vigorous. That’s the word of the day. ENIC, now 66% to the good have safeguarded any potential hostile takeover (so, sorry to all the Russian billionaires out there). Good tactics again from the chairman of the board, spending a fortune to guarantee his firm grip on his empire. Levy can now out vote anyone on the board by 2-1 whereas prior (before Sugar was bought out) they only owned 54% meaning that a potential takeover would only require 46%, forcing a power struggle that Levy would prefer to best avoid. Which he has done.

Rumours of Damien Corleone purchasing a home in London, moving out of his rented property and potentially into a million pound home – cementing his and Levy’s position at the club. Obvious logic, you wouldn’t go house hunting if you believed you job was at risk.
So, my nemesis is here to stay. Good, because had he fucked off I’d sue him for making the domain name of this site redundant.

Spoon full of sugar makes the Levy go down

Sir Alan Sugar has sold his stake in Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspurs for £25m ($49.8m) to sports and media group ENIC International.

ENIC already held 54% of the North London football club, and has now increased its holding to 66%.

Spurs' chairman Daniel Levy is the managing director of ENIC.

Although City rules require ENIC to make an offer for the remaining 34% of the club the group said it intended to maintain Spurs' AIM listed status.

The deal values the club at £209.5m.

The sale will go through on 2 July and will end Sir Alan's formal relationship with a club where he was chairman for a decade until 2001.

The board of ENIC said it had increased its stake in Spurs "as a sign of its long-term confidence in the club and to provide ongoing stability to the club".

This should be interesting. Surely Levy wouldn't go as far as selling the club just to get away from my barrage of truth-attacks? As for Sugar, I remember standing outside the High Court smashing up Amstrad computers. And that was only last year on the anniversary of the first court case when him and El Tel went to war way back. Though credit to him for saving the club from administration, and credit to Terry for winning us the Cup in '91 - which equally saved this club from the brink.