Sisters and Brothers in Spurs

Spurs with a side of Barbecue Part 9

First: the USA Spurs updates!

I’m happy to report that North Carolina Spurs is now up to 34 registered members as of now, an increase of over 20 since I last wrote. Of course, the re-tweets from @SpursOfficial may or may not have had something to do with that! For me, that’s some incredible growth considering where we are in the season, regardless of whether or not we’re a new OSCTH- I hope that that trend will continue as we keep going on through the Summer!

Also, there are three new OSCTHs stateside within the past two weeks. Utah Spurs (@UtahSpurs), formed only days after we received our official status, is based out of Salt Lake City, and home to 1.1 million people (or as I like to say, potential new Spurs fans). England will likely know this place best as the home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Also on the list of new OSCTHs is Pittsburgh Spurs (@Spursburgh – right creative twitter name, that!). This city (the largest in western Pennsylvania) is home to 2.3 million people and the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. The next new OSCTH is Cincinnati Spurs (@CincinnatiSpurs). Cincinnati is situated right inside the Ohio border, right next to Indiana, Kentucky, and the Ohio River. You’ll find 2.1 million people in the area; as of now, Cincinnati is a baseball town, since their Cincinnati Reds (of MLB) are the defending champions of their division and look to be on course for another division title this season as well. Regardless, I would urge everyone to go check their twitters and give them a hearty welcome into the Spurs fold!

Second: The article!

It’s been over a week since I wrote last, and in that span of time we’ve played three matches that have given the end of our season much more clarity than before.

We started with the ugliest win of the season vs. Southampton, claiming three points from a game in which we truly only deserved one. Truth be told, this game gave us no help to the “one-man team” argument that you and I have heard so much over the course of the year. But I got to celebrate Spurs’ first victory on my birthday in my lifetime, so I’m not going to complain, haha.

Next up was the crucial clash at Chelsea, which ended up being one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen in the Prem all season long, to be honest. It was flowing, it was open, and there seemed to be boundless opportunities for both teams to put goals in the back of the net. I would think that the neutral fans of football would have been right entertained by that match; however, we all know that most of us spent the whole 90 with frayed nerves, myself included. But I said that a draw wouldn’t be a surprising result, and so it was to be, so I couldn’t really complain after that match either.

Then to Stoke. I had feared that this would be a trap game for Spurs, and so it seemed to be after N’Zonzi headed the ball past Hugo to put it at 1-0. But it seemed to me that as soon as that goal came around, we decided that we were having none of this trap-game-business, because we completely bossed the Potters from that point on.

And then there was good ole’ Charlie Adam! I witnessed his ridiculous tackle on Gareth Bale in person when Spurs and Liverpool clashed in Baltimore and wondered if he would ever get it back to him. I got my answer to that question within 10 months. In my mind, Adam’s red was karma serving him right. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy in my life to see an opponent get a red card!

That being said, it wasn’t easy pickings after Stoke went down to ten men. We needed a goal, and it only took nearly the whole second half to get one, but Adebayor (of all people) decided to finally give us a hand. I have to ask, along with the rest of you I presume- Ade, where was this version of yourself over the rest of the season? It’s great that you’re finally playing like you should be, but I wish you had decided to play like this a lot sooner. Regardless, he scored, we got our first 3 points at Stoke since 2010, and put the Champions League tennis rally back over the net and onto the Woolwich side of the court.

So here we stand, with everything to play for on Sunday regardless of what happens between Wigan and Arsenhole. That fact, in and of itself, I think is somewhat remarkable considering the way we played at the beginning of the season. If you had told me that we would be in with a shout of the Champions League after the matches vs. West Brom and Norwich City, I would have given you a puzzled look or two. But here we stand, right back on the cusp of Europe’s elite competition (and the extra money that comes with it!).

And on that subject- in particular, whether or not Champions League qualification defines our season as a success or a failure- I have this to say:

You could boil it all down to that if you like, and could call it a failure if we end up in the Europa League again this season. But if that ends up being the case, I don’t want anyone coming to me saying that the bloody sky is falling out. Because it won’t be.

Look, things could be a lot worse at Tottenham Hotspur than they currently are. We could be free-falling through the Football League like Wolves (with a whole 2/3 of a new stadium to be built on the books, no less). Or worse, we could be Blackburn Rovers, with a group of owners who clearly know nothing about football, don’t give a damn about financially backing a winning side, and have one of the most historic town clubs in England on the fast-track to being wound up. Supporters of those clubs have legitimate reasons to worry. Not us. We have a side that have been consistently top-5 in the Prem and have reached Europe for six of the last seven seasons; both of those are feats that this club has never been able to accomplish on a consistent basis. We have it better as Spurs fans now than we ever have, and there are no signs of things slowing down anytime soon. The future is bright, the future is lilywhite people!

(And speaking of bright futures, how about those boys down at Crystal Palace? From coming within an hour of being wound up and shut down for good three years ago to within one victory of the Premier League now. Good on them!)

But I know and you know that you all have heard something like the above before. That’s not a new opinion, I don’t think. But there are two points that I would like to close with that I have yet to see bandied about the media:

André Villas Boas has repeatedly stated that his goal for the season has been 70 points. He thought that that would be enough to reach the Champions League. And at this point, there is the distinct possibility that it might not be enough still on the table. So if we hit that 70-point mark, and we still end up 5^th, how mad can you really be? What can you honestly get mad at AVB for, not setting the bar high enough at the start of the season? Especially when the bar he set incidentally happens to be the club’s all-time single-season point record?

And on that points record, by the way- if we defeat Sunderland on Sunday, we’ll finish on 72 points. In the process, we would set a new club record for points accrued in a single season, and AVB would bring the club a new single-season points record IN HIS FIRST SEASON AS MANAGER. For me, that should end any and all doubt that AVB isn’t the right man for this job. Any doubters that don’t believe he should be manager of Tottenham Hotspur after that need to go get their head examined.

And if we hit that 72-point mark, I’m calling this season a true success. Any Champions League football on top of that would just be an added bonus.

It pains me to say that I will be missing out on the finale to the season vs. Sunderland- at that time, I will likely be in some gym on the campus of the University of Vermont, watching my beloved cousin graduate. But rest assured, I will constantly be on my phone checking updates and staying filled in on all of the Survival Sunday updates (and thankfully, I think my cousin will understand if I’m a little distracted since she studied abroad in York last Spring and has a sense of what the Premier League madness is all about in England. She was kind enough to bring me back a Spurs scarf, and claimed that she had to endure heckling from the shop owner- A City supporter- in the process! He was hoping that she would be purchasing something a little more sky blue; that she went through that for me only gives me reason to love her more! I suppose that you all could consider her a friend of Spurs if you like, haha). And who knows? Should things go our way, I might have to interrupt the ceremonies with a hearty “COME ON YOU SPURS!”. And if I get a few odd glances my way, I won’t care all that much, because my love for Spurs stops for no one.

Up the Yids!
 

-James
 

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