Glory Glory for Tottenham: Flashback to Carling Cup win

I'm about to disappear on a hiatus of sorts. I'll sporadically post when I can but the next week or so you'll have to make do with Harry and loads of action. I'm sure you'll survive without my inane rants. But if you have become accustomed to them and need a fix to get you by, the boys and girls over at the hellmouth will help you with your addiction. You'll find them to be of a special type of crazy there. Otherwise, if you fancy your own hiatus, try something different.

But enough of the blatant advertising. Time for that flux capacitor to do it's thing.

Date: 25th Febuary 2008
Place: Back pages of the Evening Standard

Dicking Chelsea the day before was wonderful. Unfortunately, the quotes haven't aged too well.


"This just goes to show what he has done in a short amount of time. It's no fluke because he did it at Sevilla as well so he must have something really special. Certain managers have that luck about them. He has certainly done a tremendous job. To have a trophy after a few months is an incredible achievement" - Robbie Keane on 'Our Special Juan'

"The way Tottenham stood up to Chelsea gives supporters a real hope that a new era of sustained success is finally about to begin at White Hart Lane" - Michael Hart, Chief Football Correspondent, Evening Standard

"We have a very good manager and he has proved it by winning the final. There was no pressure on Ramos, but this is a wonderful achievement for him and the players" - Daniel Levy

"I have a lot of football to come and will stay with the team. I'm confident there are more trophies to follow" - Ledley King

"I am here, I want to win things and hopefully this is the first of many for me. It means a lot to beat Chelsea, they are a fantastic team. When the final whistle blew it was an indescribable feeling. Everyone was happy and it was great to see so many smiles. It's a major trophy and we wanted European football again. This is our moment, but on Tuesday we start again. We have important games ahead of us. We have big goals ahead of us. The manager is a winner and he knows how to win things. This is his first trophy and I hope it's the first of many" - Dimitar Berbatov

"The team has been improving in terms of security and confidence and yesterday's win reaffirmed that. The players have shown they can concentrate and fight with the best of them" - Juande Ramos

"In the dressing room afterwards, the players were all saying 'now let's win the UEFA Cup'" - Robbie Keane


Back to the future and I can happily live (if we win it) with reading the quotes from Redknapp about how monumental it was to beat Utd in the final, proper David and Goliath stuff, because, you know...we're down to the bare bones. I'll even look the other way when Levy sanctions the release of the Carling Cup Double special edition DVD.

Coys, let's be 'aving you. I fancy starting the month of March with a big fat smile on my face.

We love you Matthew, we do......

Matthew Norman, the rainbow of the Evening Standards sports section. His latest creation can be found here.

On Monday I awoke to find a message left on the mobile in the middle of the night by a friend whose voice suggested a little sorrow-drowning after events on the south coast the previous afternoon.

"All right, you won't pay the £2.99," it ran, "and I accept that was a silly price to ask. You can have them for 49p the pair, payable in instalments of 1p per annum over the next half century, which includes an additional penny as an interest payment."

The pair in question are, of course, season tickets for Tottenham Hotspur, the offer following a performance of barely credible spinelessness at Portsmouth.

What jesting and tomfoolery you and your friends partake in. Leaving each other zany text messages. You kill me, you really do. But let’s be frank about this. There is no text message, is there? You’ve made it up for the sake of a hard-hitting, yet laced with mocking humour, dig at the mess the Lilywhites are in. Maybe next season, the money you save from not purchasing your season ticket in the West Stand can be spent on some creative writing lessons. Or a facelift.

Honestly, word of advice, either have a photo of yourself looking or at least pretending to be happy or don’t have one at all. You look like your face is about to collapse in on itself. I know things are rotten at the moment, but come on man, drag yourself up from the gutter of despair. Some day you might get that Sunday Supplement call-up.

I rang back last night to check whether yesterday's thoroughly undeserved avoidance of UEFA Cup disaster in Poland had changed his mind. "Yes it has," he said. "I'll waive the interest."

I’d like to see phone records please.

At the end of a week in which two monstrously inept displays combined with an exhibition of vicious idiocy towards Sol Campbell to add an underlayer of visceral revulsion to the familiar top coat of bemused incompetence, it's hard to know where to start.

How about with the brutal irony that, within days of Jermain Defoe elegantly converting a penalty against the club that dispensed with him, fellow discards Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov broke their scoring ducks in the Champions League while manager Juande Ramos feels unable to play Darren Bent, sole survivor of that Fab Four, alongside Roman Pavlyuchenko even when Spurs are trailing?

Hold up, is this the same Jermain Defoe who so elegantly missed a penalty for Spurs at Upton Park? I know things are bad Mr Miseryguts, but let’s not drown ourselves in self-perpetuated gloom. We have enough of the real stuff to go round. This Ramos/Bent/Pav conundrum is nothing new. It’s been discussed and dissected more times than you’ve failed to smile at moments when it’s appropriate to do so (watch an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm – I guarantee you, you will laugh out loud).

As for the Campbell abuse, it’s an element we all agree is shameful. But let’s not tarnish the vast majority of Spurs fans with the same label the other idiots deserve.

Or perhaps we can look to Germany, where Ramos's successor sits atop the Bundesliga with Hamburg? Martin Jol seems too good natured for schaudenfraude, but it's tempting to imagine a wry smile toying with the corners of his mouth.

This is the same Martin Jol who couldn’t quite reach the next level with regards to the psychological barrier that needed to be jumped for us to achieve some kind of glory (even though we grasped the Fisherprice type in the end with Ramos)? The problems behind the scenes started a while back, before the dizzying offer was made. So are you laughing at Spurs or are you ever so subtly pointing the finger of blame at Daniel Levy?

Good luck to Martin. But ‘what ifs’ are quintessentially what other fans laugh about, regarding Spurs fans. To Dare is to What if? Why even bring up Jol? Or is this the bit in your article where you pretend to be a West Ham or Chelsea fan, and ‘ave a larf at our expense? The one that got away.

Alternatively we might wonder whether, after a year in London, Ramos still speaks too little English to handle the post-match interviews, or whether he delegates them to the apparently deranged Gus Poyet, because they're beneath his dignity?

Then again, you could generalise, and wonder whether anyone at the club — the chairman Daniel Levy, survivalist "sporting director" Damien Comolli, Ramos and his players — has the faintest idea of what they are doing? But there, perhaps, the answer speaks for itself.

I don’t get paid for my blog, and hardly anyone reads it, so when I summarise what everyone already knows, it doesn’t matter. But when a paid journalist does it, it’s like getting paid for having the ability to copy and paste.

So I prefer to start and finish with those supporters whose Wildean wit extended on Sunday to chanting false claims about Sol Campbell.

What are you referring to? Are you privy to something? What false claims? Not defending the chants or the fans who chanted them, and – hypothetically speaking – if something was in fact true, it still wouldn’t make it right, singing about it in an abusive manner. But what you’ve done here is simply chickened out of saying anything with substance. Just a faint nod in the direction of what happened. Nothing more. You not going to say anything about the racist claims? Or the fact that Campbell has made claims of racism before, many years back , before his half-time disappearing act at Highbury. No? Because when he first made those claims, it backfired. Nobody believed him, because there was no racial chanting. He suggested we were racist because we boo'ed him and called him Judas. But let's sweep that under the carpet, yeah? Make it easier for you to write in the one-dimension.

I would like the media to highlight the 'You're Spurs and you know you are' chant, aimed at Defoe, who is black. I think its relevant.

Regardless of whether such chanting constitutes a crime (this may not be the ideal day to ask Sir Ian Blair about that), I offer this challenge to those who maintain a seething grudge over Campbell's departure for Arsenal in 2001.

Clarify for me exactly what Campbell would have gained by spending the last seven years at a club that sells its good strikers, keeps its poor ones and buys new ones it doesn't wish to play; at which managers who succeed brilliantly elsewhere mysteriously fail; one with a chairman who cannot master the economic necessity of buying land on which to build a much needed new stadium; a club which continues to live off ever more remote past glories because its present is hideous and its future dismally uncertain.

Do you really, hand on heart, support Spurs? Really? Can you prove it? Can anyone prove to me that Matthew Norman is a Tottenham supporter? Apart from the miserable face, a common West Stand trait, is there any substantial proof? Because the above illustrates what a fan of, I don’t know - Arsenal perhaps, would say of the matter.

The rest of that almost-wanting-to-be-passionate rant is ok. It’s what I’ve been preaching for years. Hey, I almost felt like I was connecting with you there! Wow, I've come over all giddy. If you were a girl, we could meet up and have sex.

If anyone can persuade me that Campbell owed an ounce of loyalty to such a club, let alone to fans who disgrace themselves year after year with the incontinence of their misplaced spite, I may be able to put two season tickets their way at a quid a shot.

Extortion, I know, but even in a credit crunch a chap has to turn a profit.

A credit crunch reference. It's like I'm on the train reading the Metro.

Again, do you mind looking at it from the perspective of a Tottenham fan? When Sheringham left the club, he told everyone he was going to leave. Completely up-front about it. Honest. We gave him plenty of digs when he returned in red colours, but he had the last laugh on everyone. And when he returned proper (he came home, his words) we took him back with open arms.

Now compare it to Campbell. He lied for two years, compounding it with various ‘why question my loyalty?’ soundbites. It was completely self-made, with additional misguided help from the esteemed Sky Andrews. So of course we hate him. Fans do not begrudge players who show a bit of honesty, who are upfront. It’s the ones who wear rival colours of a team they have yet to sign for or deceive those around them and do the dirty right at the death, with an earth-shattering curve-ball. Campbell is deserving of terrace ‘abuse’, but not the abuse he was subjected to at the Pompey game. I’m talking about chants of ‘wanker’ and 'Judas'. That’s still ok right, to call a player a wanker? Campbell owed us something regardless of him wanting to leave the club. But he was gutless to do it the right way. The very fact he is blind to what he did, immensely so, is testament to the type of man he is.

But we should move on, right?

And feel free to send me the season tickets. I can have a bonfire come final whistle on Sunday. We could toast some bagels and discuss impending life in the Championship. Happy days.

Standard and Glory Glory

Back (inside) pages of todays Standards cover the Levy banning order on the London paper and have several quotes taken from the pages of the Glory Glory forum. I'll take it as a compliment that they have not quoted me. Not once. Not a single quote. Not one word. Anyways, goes to show they spend a lot of time browsing and lurking in Spurs forums - which explains why so many shit transfer stories end up in the newspapers.


Here's a collection of quotes (from the GG.co.uk thread the Standard quoted from) that they chose NOT to print:



Think both Mellor and Norman are crap journalists who use their columns for personal agendas rather than "reporting", so see no problem with this. And there are enough media outlets operating that this is hardly a restriction of the freedom of the press to cover spurs - The Last Mango in Paradise

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So many bad things happen to so many nice people. Why do people like Mellor never get a dose? The man is vile on so many levels. Self-important ponce. - the dza

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Fuck off, you twit.

Free speech in a "free society" doesn't include that private persons and companys open up their doors for you to obtain material with which to libel them in public.

If you are worried about not being able to compete with other media, then perhaps you should review your reporting style. Idiot. - DanishLineker

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I'm just surprised its only the Standard that he is banned!

I've always liked the Standard and it has given us a lot of balanced coverage over the years - however, I usually chose not to buy it on the day (Tuesdays) when Norman wrote in it. He believe he has absolutely no inside information and desite being a fan seems to have a vendetta against the club dating back to Sugar.

Or perhaps he is just indicative of the current media who are negative and cynical for the sakes of it. Believe me if Spurs won the Champions League, Norman would find something trivial to moan about instead.

Hopefully Neil Ashton, the vindictive little bastard, from the Daily mail will be the next one banned for all the crap that he has spouted in his columns and on talkSPORT in the last 2 weeks. - Mr Gafferson

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matthew norman is a cunt, always seems to me the guy has always had personal vendetta against the club (which he supports) - Billyiddo




I didn't post anything quotable in that thread. Gutted. Just gutted.

Levy bans The Evening Standard

Matthew Norman is a Spurs fan. Not a very good one. See, unlike me, I want them to achieve success, whereas Norman prefers that Tottenham struggle for all eternity because he can then make biting remarks about the club/the players/the board and people would mistake him for an Arsenal fan thus providing him a sense of wellbeing that I’m sure allows him to sleep like a baby.

I haven’t read the Standard for a while. Would appear Daniel Levy has and from the sounds of it there’s been some name calling. Rather than ignore it, our guilt-ridden chairman has decided to strike with furious vengeance and ban the paper (and thus I'm guessing the reporters) from White Hart Lane. Apparently all because of the paper persistently printing ‘negative stories’ about the club.

Hmmm. You mean like the negative stories generated by your good self and that Kemsley character in the past week or so? Those type of stories?

I can appreciate that most, if not all, of the (footballing) media are blood-sucking dieased ridden leeches that base their ‘factual’ reporting and exclusives from information given to them by ‘club insiders’ (wink, wink). They swagger with ill repute disguised as freedom of speech believing they can print anything and claim everyone has the right to read it and believe it (no matter the lack of facts).


Now I’m not suggesting that Spurs don’t deserve the 'farce' tag after last week. But its been proven countless times in the past 10 or so days that the press have mis-quoted and then mis-quoted the mis-quotes. No different to the denials coming out of WHL – but that’s not the point. The truth - to our understanding - is enough to be reported on. We dont need it smacked about and then set on fire so it makes for better reading. Ok, metaphor didn't quite work there did it. I should ask David Mellor for advice.

Levy has fallen into a trap. And has given himself yet more unwanted media coverage with his blame everyone but the people who should be blamed tactics.

If you pee yourself during PE and a class mate tells everyone at school (everyone who wasn’t present to see the rather public humiliation) about it, exaggerating the story and saying you also pooped yourself – this doesn’t mean uninviting him from your birthday party is going to change the fact that you wet your pants in front of everyone and that its believed you also did a number two.

Fact is, you did pee yourself in public. You can’t run away from that fact. If someone wants to exaggerate the story, there’s not much you can do about it either. People tend to believe the lies more than the truth. And even if you know you didnt soil your pants, if 100 kids think you did - then that becomes a truth because it has 100 believers saying it.

See that’s what you are Levy. You're that kid. You’re a bed-wetter whose gone public, pissing yourself silly in front of all your class mates because you left your PE kit at home and you’ve been forced to do gym in your Mickey Mouse Y-Fronts and when the PE teacher points at you and then at the monkey bars you colour your pants yellow. Next thing you know, they’re calling you Shitty Pissy and the girls think you smell of tramp.

Why on why give Matthew Norman the green light to go ape-shit on your sorry arse with his bland sleepy articles? I mean, fucking ‘ell, doesn’t Matthew Norman sit in the West Stand at White Hart Lane? Normally I would encourage this kind of anarchy, but the bloke is not someone I’d have standing next to me in the Park Lane end. He's the type to complain when we're winning 3-0 because a crisp packet blew onto the pitch just before Keane side-foots home.

"Looks like a packet of Monster Munch in the penalty area. Pickled onion. Completely takes away the majesty of the counter-attack. Not happy with this at all"


Can you envisage his next column? Or the back page of today’s Evening Standard?

And what’s he guilty of? A sustained set of (personal) attacks at the club and chairman? What next? Revoke his season ticket? I feel a little left out over here.

Kemsley, Donna Cullen (director of communications) and Levy - you should all get themselves a box of Pampers to share.

Afternoon Update

News items from the Evening Standard:


- Jol on his way out
- Repeats of the Berbatov/Jol row story
- Ramos has had an offer from Spurs and will give an answer in two weeks. Wants to compete in the Super Cup v AC Milan on Sept 1
- A 'Source' close to Ramos says 'meeting/offer did take place'
- Tottenham wanted to keep it quiet. Ramos is unhappy with 'behind the scenes' problems at Seville and is thinking very hard about offer
- Ramos started taking English lessons last year


So, we are set to get rid of Jol BEFORE Ramos agrees to join? And if Ramos takes the two weeks to decide, then goodbye transfer window deadline. Wonderful timeframe there to get this problem sorted.

If true......it's comedy. I swear, I'm on the verge of becoming the most anti-spurs spurs fan of all time. Like I said. Season over. Another transitional period brought on by directors who think they are bigger than the club, and more important than the fans. They have fucked it up...again.

Levy continues to groundhog day us over and over again:

Graham - Sacked a week before an FA Cup Semi Final against Arsenal. Perfect timing.

Hoddle - Was at no point backed 100% in the transfer market and was then sacked 5 games into a season with no replacement lined up. Everyone believed (from the stories pouring out of WHL - that Hoddles ego was the problem and that he was at fault for signing the wrong players).

Pleat - Placed in charge of the first team for a whole season. WHY would anyone wish to do that?

Santini - Brought in, probably because the other 10 targets all rejected a move to WHL. Santini appeared to completely mis-understand what his powers he had at the club as coach, thinking he was in fact manager. Huge huge mistake of an appointment.

Jol - Brilliant appointment by... Frank Arnesen. Levy seems hellbent on ridding Jol from the club. Yes, Jol...the best thing to happen to this club for 20 or so years.


If Ramos joins Spurs he will be Levy's 6th manager. Thats the sixth man employed by Levy. And in that time only Jol has actually made progress and appeared to know what he was doing. You cant dismss two 5th spots and the fact that the fans are singing their hearts out for a bald Dutch man who starts every sentence with 'no'. We are not an easy lot to please. We have got it right, Levy, you smug sonofabitch. You haven't.

6 managers. And 3 directors of football. That's some nailed on stability for you there from DL.

Levy might know his way around wage structures and releasing funds to purchase players but appears to lack basic footballing decision making instincts on how to leave a coach alone to run the team. Which, is ironic, as the whole point of the DoF system is that the club buy the players and the coach works with them and everyone gets on famously. Its obviously not working. Not because the system is at fault, but because the people in place away from the first team are mugs.


I'll leave you with this for the time being. Posted by Cule-Spur on gg.net. Some of this is already being reflected in the Spanish media and in England.

Of course, that overlooks the possibility that Comolli is possibly restricted by the general lack of faith at board level with Jol. I mean, if Jol tells the board that he wants Downing, Boro quote £12m, Levy tells Comolli he isn't spunking £12m on Jol's target unless he (Comolli) rates him aswell, Comolli says he doesn't rate him, and that's that.

Endless permutations. Maybe Comolli comes back and says, "we should get Ben Arfa". Jol says, "I want Downing and if you get Ben Arfa, I'm not going to play him - he's too lighweight for our midfield", etc.

It's all clear as mud, as I said earlier. Whichever way you look at it though, it's not a question of Jol or Comolli, simply because even if you remove Comolli there are still clear problems with Levy/the board and Jol's relationship.

Ramos has a year left on his contract but it is a rolling contract and the whole set up at Sevilla is fairly complicated. There is a rift between Ramos and club President, Del Nido, over the terms of that contract. Ramos, justifiably, feels that he should be given a fairly substantial and long term deal for all that he has acheived. Del Nido, on the other hand, is an egomaniac ( possibly the biggest arsehole working in football with the possible exception of Calderon and Taxi Shinupwhatsisface). Its not just the issue of the contract but the fact that Del Nido parades himself around as if he is soley responsible for the club's success.

I can't comment on the Tottenham end of things as it falls well outside my remit, but I can shed some light on things at the Spanish end. As I understand it, and this comes from very close to Ramos, the meeting that took place was staged by Ramos' agent. His agent contacted a couple of contacts in the Mardrid press (one of whom I spoke to Yesterday) and made it known that the meeting was taking place, who would be there and even where they should stand if they wanted a photo.

The idea, on the eve of the Supercup final, was to place pressure on Del Nido with Ramos making it clear that he is in demand. Tottenham have been chatting up Ramos for a long time. Not neccesarily with an eye to making a firm move but rather to developing a strong relationship with arguably the most promising manager working in the game right now.

Before everyone gets on their high horse and starts screaming about loyalty to Jol etc etc - lets be very clear. This game is a business. Tottenham should be applauded for developing a strong bond with a manager who is so highly sought after. It shows forward thinking and shrewd business sense. There is no loyalty in football and six months is an eternity.

When Levy started chatting up Ramos who knows what the next six months promised - Jol could have quit, gone to Manchester United, fallen out with all and sundry or, god forbid, been hit by a bus. Remember how when we signed Berbatov he revealed that he chose Tottenham because we had been after him for a long time and that our interest was genuine and that the way we had courted him was impressive.

Its the same thing - In football contacts are everything and if for whatever reason we find oursellves managerless on any given day then its reassuring to know that the club has a strategy.

Now back to my little tale as I have it in Spain. John Alexander gets the phone call and trundles along to the Alfonso XIII hotel in Sevilla. ;This is where it gets interesting. According to a Marca journalist - who is running this today - Ramos' agent was expecting a coffee and a natter (as has happened on numerous occasions before only without the cameras lurking). Totally unbeknown to him , Alexander turns up with Kelmesly who offers Ramos a 4-6 year deal along with a gargantuan salary. I've spoken to the journalist - Mercedes Torrecillas (she knows Torres- Ramos agent- well and works the daily press brief in Seville) and She has given me her word that Torres insists on that he was not expecting an offer just a chat.

Further, he tells her that Spurs have given Ramos until the end of the week to decide. The size of the offer has left Ramos tempted - but at the moment he is leaning toward staying in Seville - although he will see how the news of Spurs' offer plays with Del Nido.

I know the above is all a bit Tom Clancy but that is how it works. I don't do ITK know shite and nothing in the above will not surface as copy over the next 24hrs ( In Spain anyway) - I've just sought confirmation frm some of the characters involved - that is all. They are journalists and football agents so we are just an estate agent short of the axis of evil. Take it or leave it - its just what is being said in Spain.

For what its worth, with regard to Ramos - he is a fine coach who has won trophy's in one of the best leagues in the world and taken some impressive scalps. His footballing philosophy would put a smile on old Sir Bills face - score one more than the opposition and then score another one just to be sure, the best form of defence is to attack, attack, attack. He accepts nothing but sheer bloddy minded grit and determination to go with it and like Sir Bill is not averse to giving out a rollicking after a 3-0 win.

There is a proviso - he owes a lot of his success to his sporting director at Sevilla - Monchi- and it is hard to gauge how effective Ramos would be without him - he supplies Ramos with some fine players on a budget that makes Bolton look like Chelsea. Further, prior to Seviilla, Ramos past is somewhat chequered and he has not always been so succesful, there are a couple of blemishes here and there.

There's meant to be a board meeting this evening, with some saying Jol will be out of a job by 11pm. Whilst other rumours suggest he has '2 weeks'. Its all pretty much guess work from everyone - fans and media alike.

We won't know until the club or Martin Jol says something, but the fact nothing has been said all day today would suggest that once more, its all gone pear-shaped.

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