Can Spurs put an end to the ‘smug’ smile?
THE most observant of readers often say the picture of me accompanying this column makes me look smug and that smug isn’t a good look and it would be better if we changed it.
There are lots of things wrong with the photo. It was taken five years ago for a start, and it was cropped in a strange way to leave the possibility that I might have a bit more hair on my head than I really do.
But I can’t apologise for that smug grin.
It was the automatic reaction to being asked to write a weekly column about how Arsenal are better than Spurs.
Who wouldn’t be smug about the Gunners’ record over their bumbling ‘rivals’?
Let’s spell it out again: There has been no Top Four Tottenham victory over Arsenal this millennium (their last derby win was 1999).
The reserve team knocked their first 11 out of the League Cup and, every now and then, Arsenal deliver the ultimate humiliation of winning the league on their home turf.
And you can’t escape the fact that there has been no league title for Top Four Tottenham since 1961.
If TFT win on Saturday, it will be a blot on the record, just a small one mind, and we will change the photo.
But until then, the smug grin stays – with good reason.
SOME fans are so addicted to success they are prepared to put up with anything.
Like moving right across London (extremely time consuming travelling all the way from Woolwich to Emirdale); maintaining top-flight status through dubious practice (hats off to Sir Henry Norris and his modern equivalent the lasagne chef in the Gooner T-shirt) and
dominating the game through the dull 1930s depression then disappearing completely during the glamorous swinging
1960s. Fans will even put up with boring the nation to death in the late 1980s/early 1990s with arms-aloft offside traps, and then pretending to enjoy the Continental verve and swagger imported by a manager only hired because his name appeared to fit the vacancy. Fans will support their team even when they are fielding sides with no home-grown players, before ruining the chances of the England World Cup team by persuading the oaf in charge to take one of their reserves.
Fans will even sit back and watch their club’s directors battle it out to sell up in the name of the future.
What else would fans be willing to put up with? A column in a local paper where a pundit repeats the same phrase in an attempt at Fast Show-like catchphrase-based humour?
