In an earlier entry to this blog, I let slip that I have been supporting Spurs for forty odd years despite the fact that my father is a fan of that other North London team. One respondent queried how my allegiance ended up at variance to my paternal influence and I promised to provide an account. Ultimately, I see parallels to Harry Potter who could have ended up with the evil Slytherins but persuaded the sorting hat to assign him to the virtuous Gryffindors. In a nutshell, I was saved from the dark side by my maternal grandfather.
My grandfather was a real Spurs fan. He didn’t just “know your history”, he had been there. He witnessed the 1921 final and regaled me with stories of how Bertie Bliss would score from the halfway line. (In a Spurs encyclopaedia that I have, the aforementioned Mr. Bliss is described as possessing a powerful shot whose efforts were as likely to end in the stand as in the goal). But most important to my choice of a team, he was keen to lavish the time and money to take me to White Hart Lane. While my father remained a staunch supporter of the other team, he had retreated to the sofa from the terrace. The modern generation (circa 1970) were not a patch on Denis Compton so I was told. So that is how I found myself at White Hart Lane on the 4th April 1969 to watch our 2-0 triumph over Coventry. As a six year old, I remember very little of the game, but can tell you that George Curtis, he of the squared off haircut, played in defense for Coventry.
Over the next twenty plus years, I attended numerous games with my grandfather. Some stick out, such as the second leg of the League Cup semi-final against Wolves on the 30th December 1972. I was one of a very noisy 41,653 who saw Spurs go through to the final after extra time and can remember it as if it was yesterday. We were also there for the 9-0 demolition of Bristol Rovers in our brief sojourn in the Second Division. Unfortunately, I can’t remember being at too many North London derbies with my grandfather, probably because the tickets were harder to come by. However, there was the time that he traded his ticket for mine….. and I found myself among Arsenal fans at the top of the East Stand. One of the more Neanderthal gooners kept up a constant stream of vitriolic abuse for the entire game, much to the consternation of the foreign fans sitting immediately in front of him who were showered with spit.
This Saturday I will be watching the game live here in New York and will have my father’s presence for at least part of the game (he is returning from a trip that morning). We watched the Fulham game together and it was not the most pleasant experience. I am strangely optimistic though. I feel that we are on the cusp of the sort of form that we displayed on our successful run last year. All the rational data suggests another disappointment though. But being a Spurs fan is much more about the heart than the head. I’ll take us to win 2-1 and for me to have the opportunity to lord it over my father, at least this once!