TT - The Best Of - Volume 2

That’s one small step for shoppers in north London one giant leap for Tottenhamkind. That is how we welcomed the opening of the Sainsbury’s store as the first part of the new build transforming N17. Talking Tottenham could have been described as a stumble.

Looking back now trying to find a design and style for the magazine-style roundup certainly provided a challenge. One of the landmark moves was taking up the gauntlet to right a wrong that got India Spurs noticed.

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And this was all done with a less than totally serious approach to the World of Hotspur. Such as when we uncovered the great Rumanian star player cloning scandal or when we took on UEFA and told them what they were doing wrong and they never said thank you.

India Spurs started to become well known north of the boarder. Its two years ago I dug out which Spurs players were in the included in the English Hall of Fame for an item in Talking. I followed that up with looking at the Scottish Hall of Fame. At first something did not seem quite right. Then it occurred to me that Bill Brown was missing.

I contacted the National Football Museum at Hampden and they confirmed I was correct and we discussed the nomination process. I must say they were very helpful. After submitting this I set about banging loud drums with everyone I could think of. Special thanks to Andy Potter and John Fennelly at THFC who helped throughout the process and the campaign was featured in the programme and on the web site. Northampton Town also wrote to the HoF and featured Bill in their programme.
Dundee seemed a little slow to get involved but once I had their Supporters Club on our side they also supported us. Their supporters club also carried our profile of Bill (1) on their own website. A number of other sites and social media outlets also mentioned the campaign and we had the support of his family. I’m delighted to remind you that in October of last year Bill took his place next to the finest that Scotland have produced. Again several sites carried the story and India Spurs profile was well to the front and several people from various corners of the globe send congratulations.

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November 2013 and the defence was looking pretty solid as we discovered - We have gone six consecutive away games in all competitions without conceding a goal. The first time we have achieved that since May 1965. The win at Sheriff was our fifth consecutive away win in all competitions. The last time we managed that was 1960 and Spurs kept seven clean sheets in their opening 10 league matches - that's the first time we've achieved that feat.

Talking of records and stuff we also revealed one of the reasons why people silly enough to delve into the sports history come up with such different figures at times. Simply different sources differ. For instance as Jermain Defoe closed in on becoming our top scorer in Europe the club and UEFA disagreed on when is a goal, a goal. UEFA have an “interesting” view of statistics. They don’t count goals scored in the qualifying rounds in their records, but only those in the “tournament phase”. Thus whilst Jermain had scored six on the pitch so far that season at UEFA hq he only managed four.

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UEFA had his career record at ten whilst Spurs reckoned he had hit the mark 13 times.  Another example that confuses researchers is that when Tottenham played in the Intertoto cup (2) even though we used our youth players and loaned in others from other clubs UEFA show this on our record in European competition and therefore we have lost more games than we actually have. It that wasn’t bad enough. UEFA’s page showing our record did not include our ECWC success in 1963 (you would think they didn’t need us to mention it, but I did). They have since corrected their page. To think football use to be such a simple game.

Another favourite of the masses, ok both of you, was the caption competition. I looked for images that made me smile when I first saw them and let the readers loose. We are still waiting for a ‘killer’ punch line for this one.

Trivia and stats and stuff quickly became a staple part of the diet and seemed popular as we learnt Anthony Gardner due to a blood injury once wore five different shirts in a game, carrying three different numbers. There was mention that Chris Waddle at 52 was still turning out for his local team in Sheffield. Two items looking back I noticed I mentioned our goal difference was a concern and we were falling behind the teams around us and it could cost us at the end of the season.

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Then I mention retaining the ball was great but there were times we needed to get forward faster before teams had time to throw nine men across the penalty area in basketball style when coming to the lane. On reflection maybe I should have cut and pasted those bits I seem to repeat myself each season. Or I could just have déjà vu, or did I just say that?

That picture left -Whatever you do Don't  tell UEFA OK !

One of the rewarding points of these scribbles is not only do they attract Spurs bods from all over but a number of times non-Spurs fans have made them themselves known which means we must be doing something right. People have sent in odd little bits relating to a story I covered. Ta lots.

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The Flying Down to Rio series took off as we started a look back at the World Cup and where possible the various Tottenham connections over its history. It finally ended up about twice the size of the original scribbled plan. 2013 turned into a new year and Tim Sherwood was at the helm and a kid called Bentaleb was breaking into the team what would happened next ?
 
But I leave you with a few quotes, if I failed to include one I was taken to task. This one is from Ossie Ardiles “I fell in love with the club and it’s still my favourite. I was made very welcome, there will always be a special place in my heart for Tottenham Hotspur.”

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Alan Green at the BBC about Tom Huddlestone “He wasn’t born he was chiseled out of a tree.” Lastly this time Rafa Van der Vaart “People coming to White Hart Lane can smell the history.”

COYS
Keith Harrison.
t- Keith 16024542
f- peter shearman (old non de plume)
 
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 Notes - 1   - http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/bill-brown
2 - http://www.indiaspurs.com/blog/hotspur-towers-the-intertoto-cup