AVB deal to be completed today...

WHL

Hatch99 wrote: »

Yes

Don't worry - I know that I will. After 33 years it would be a shame to stop:rolleyes: Came across an early membership card a while back - big huge hard-backed yoke like the old passports!

Hatch99

WHL wrote: »

Don't worry - I know that I will. After 33 years it would be a shame to stop:rolleyes: Came across an early membership card a while back - big huge hard-backed yoke like the old passports!

Im sure you could tell a few tales from over the years.

DirkVanBryn

I think this a brilliant appointment. Spurs squad will suit his style a lot better than Chelsea's. Dark horses for the title I think, despite all the Manchester spending.

WHL

Hatch99 wrote: »

Im sure you could tell a few tales from over the years.

Martin Peters scoring on his debut, Graeme Souness getting winning goals for us in a Youth Cup Final, three guys next to me on the old Shelf taking off their jackets to expose West Ham jerseys as we went 3-0 down, every Spurs fan at Tunnel end of Wembley staying behind to give Coventry players a huge reception after they beat us in the 1987 Cup Final, travelling from Cork to Dundalk to spite an IRA death threat against all travelling fans for an UEFA Cup game (scariest atmosphere ever), Hoddle cracker beating Forest when they were champions, sing-song in the Irish Club after we 'beat' AC Milan 0-0 to reach the CL quarter final etc etc

I am getting boring now and wandering off-topic. To counteract that, I think that the signing of Sigurdsson is a good start and I will give AVB the full season to see how he gets on. No worries on the tactical side - just afraid that he might lose the dressing-room. Six teams battling for 4 CL places next season so hoping and praying that we can do that. He needs to use his fringe squad more than Harry did

Hatch99

WHL wrote: »

Martin Peters scoring on his debut, Graeme Souness getting winning goals for us in a Youth Cup Final, three guys next to me on the old Shelf taking off their jackets to expose West Ham jerseys as we went 3-0 down, every Spurs fan at Tunnel end of Wembley staying behind to give Coventry players a huge reception after they beat us in the 1987 Cup Final, travelling from Cork to Dundalk to spite an IRA death threat against all travelling fans for an UEFA Cup game (scariest atmosphere ever), Hoddle cracker beating Forest when they were champions, sing-song in the Irish Club after we 'beat' AC Milan 0-0 to reach the CL quarter final etc etc

I am getting boring now and wandering off-topic. To counteract that, I think that the signing of Sigurdsson is a good start and I will give AVB the full season to see how he gets on. No worries on the tactical side - just afraid that he might lose the dressing-room. Six teams battling for 4 CL places next season so hoping and praying that we can do that. He needs to use his fringe squad more than Harry did

Certainly not, great stuff.

WHL

Hatch99 wrote: »

Certainly not, great stuff.

Getting passionate with a pillar back in 1998 (I think) when I had one of the two "restricted view" seats in the east stand when we beat the gooners for the first time in years - and Suker was right in front of me when he got red-carded - the squeaky voice for a week after sitting in a "restricted view" seat at Goodison (they don't mess up there - I remember Chris Armstrong getting our winner that day) - the look on my Brummie first cousin's face when a 6 foot 6 yid of African decent planted a huge kiss on her when Tony Galvin got the third goal for us at Molineaux (she was a school-teacher that thought that a youthful WHL needed protection while travelling around the midlands) - following the large crowd through Leicester 15 minutes before our Division 1 game until they entered the rugby stadium (can't remember the year but they had Gary Lineker, Alan Smith and Steve Lynex (ex-Shamrock Rovers) upfront) Gazza scoring a hat-trick against Shilton and Derby (top right, top left and header), Gazza locking himself into a car (and refusing to open it for at least 5 minutes!) that was being presented to the Lord Mayor of Cork at half-time in a Musgrave Park friendly....... you asked for this

Is nobody going to question me on the Graeme Souness statement - have the programme to prove it........................

Looks like we could expend this into a separate thread - and don't get me started on my Glenn Hoddle memories

mushykeogh

Does anyone know if Fabio Capello is still wandering around WHL?

Hatch99

WHL wrote: »

Getting passionate with a pillar back in 1998 (I think) when I had one of the two "restricted view" seats in the east stand when we beat the gooners for the first time in years - and Suker was right in front of me when he got red-carded - the squeaky voice for a week after sitting in a "restricted view" seat at Goodison (they don't mess up there - I remember Chris Armstrong getting our winner that day) - the look on my Brummie first cousin's face when a 6 foot 6 yid of African decent planted a huge kiss on her when Tony Galvin got the third goal for us at Molineaux (she was a school-teacher that thought that a youthful WHL needed protection while travelling around the midlands) - following the large crowd through Leicester 15 minutes before our Division 1 game until they entered the rugby stadium (can't remember the year but they had Gary Lineker, Alan Smith and Steve Lynex (ex-Shamrock Rovers) upfront) Gazza scoring a hat-trick against Shilton and Derby (top right, top left and header), Gazza locking himself into a car (and refusing to open it for at least 5 minutes!) that was being presented to the Lord Mayor of Cork at half-time in a Musgrave Park friendly....... you asked for this

Is nobody going to question me on the Graeme Souness statement - have the programme to prove it........................

Looks like we could expend this into a separate thread - and don't get me started on my Glenn Hoddle memories

Ever think of writing a book

Leinstersqspur

Spur take a radical path as London clubs hits crossroads[B/]

At least the duopoly in La Liga has a logical foundation, culturally and geographically, in the Castilian and Catalan seats of power. Here, in contrast, the capital city gazes in increasing derangement across the chasm that suddenly divides Manchester from the rest of the nation.

One way or another, London's football slums must be demolished – together with their parochial, gangland mentality. For Arsenal or Spurs to measure their problems or progress against each other, rather than Manchester, is akin to rescuing a garden gnome when your house is on fire. And if Spurs fans are tempted to relish a new bitterness, in their neighbours' perennial polemic of faith and despair, then they should recognise that their own uncertainties, this time round, are instead conditional on Chelsea.

Forget that Wembley humiliation (though do not forget the limits it reiterated in Harry Redknapp, invisible as they always seem to his pals in the media). The real grievance was still to come, when Bayern Munich contrived not to score with 42 out of 43 shots, and Chelsea gleefully pulled the Champions League carpet from under Tottenham's feet.

Barely a dozen weeks previously, of course, Chelsea had seemed doomed to elimination by Napoli. There is the decided air of a calculated stunt, then, to Daniel Levy's appointment of Andre Villas-Boas as Redknapp's replacement.

It has a palpable edge of danger. Many sanctimonious bystanders will be demanding a new humility of the Portuguese prodigy. They feel that Villas-Boas uses press conferences merely to show off. And there are plenty of Chelsea players, and fans, who evidently suspect that is all he was ever doing, in his tactics and selection.

Villas-Boas is everything Redknapp is not. He exudes vanity, both intellectual and physical. He has a meticulous approach to football. He compensates for his youth with a self-conscious gravitas, and duly betrays a want of subtlety or confidence in his use of personal authority.

In the end, however, it was precisely as Redknapp's antithesis that he most appealed to Levy. It is curious how soon Harry has become Falstaff. Having fancied himself poised for some great patriotic adventure, Redknapp has been banished even from his own, familiar estates. The myth has soon been debunked. Martin Jol, after all, had come within a lasagne of the Champions League. Against other rivals in the top four, Harry's men seldom manifested self-belief commensurate with their new status. And he remained doltishly welded to 4-4-2.

At 34, Villas-Boas has won more silverware than Redknapp in his entire career. Spurs, moreover, already offer younger, quicker legs than the brooding, bovine elite at Chelsea who snorted and stamped when he intruded on their grazing. There are few untouchables at White Hart Lane. Gareth Bale looks a bespoke fit for various slots in his 4-3-3, and there is sufficient pace at the back to sustain that notoriously high defensive line.

If Luka Modric insists on leaving, so be it. For all his quality, he has rarely imposed his personality on the Spurs midfield. And Joao Moutinho, far from being a step backwards, would actually represent a significant statement.

For it should be remembered that Villas-Boas – for all the mutiny at Chelsea, and the derision prompted by their transformation – retains genuine clout in the Iberian crucible of the modern game. And a man who could bring Juan Mata to London, and may yet bring Moutinho, offers something far beyond Redknapp's ken.

Much is made of Redknapp's bond with his players. But how, pray, might he have handled Roman Pavlyuchenko more obtusely? Yes, there was a conspicuous bloom in certain players when Villas-Boas left Chelsea – inviting some fairly scandalous inferences about their professionalism. If anything, however, Villas-Boas lacked the arrogance perceived by his critics. His system and his captain were incompatible, but he did not have the nerve to choose between them – and so, naïvely, made the situation worse. He must have known John Terry could not work a high line. Terry certainly did. Something had to give.

Chelsea very nearly won the Champions League under Avram Grant. Guus Hiddink was another whose tenure did not menace the power structure. But did Roberto Di Matteo owe that bewildering success in Munich to some sustainable vision? Did his honeymoon, comprising five wins in 11 league matches, lay genuine foundations for a title challenge next season?

The answer was transparent in the bleak smile of his employer, as Di Matteo reached the rostrum. Perhaps Roman Abramovich was wondering how something he had craved so long could, in its consummation, prompt something so close to embarrassment. For not even he will be satisfied to win at all costs. The money, clearly, is irrelevant – but Abramovich may feel that adventure and flair should be less dispensable.

Poor Arsène Wenger, of course, continues to strive for all that, but without the dough. Spurs themselves might never have been able to hire Villas-Boas, but for a damaged-goods discount. But now they have got themselves a manager unlikely to treat fourth as an ample ambition; and the first, lest we forget, to discover a chink in City's armour last season.

Each of the great London clubs has reached some kind of crossroads. But only one has decided on a radical change of direction.