It's beside the point of this thread, but we've compromised precisely because of how unwilling we seem to be to take that extra risk at crucial times. If the game really is about glory, we by all accounts should be gunning for it at every opportunity, no?
Not accumulating cash slowly with the hope that, in ten or fifteen years, we can begin clawing back the trophy deficit that has opened up between us and the rest of the sides we should be trying to compete with. We really aren't trying to be glorious, if we're content with bubbling away in 5th or 6th place with large profits year on year and bargains like Stambouli instead of the really game-changing players, while we save money for a stadium that would have looked so much more brilliantly captivating if we had sustained the brief peak of success we had in the 2009-2012 period while heading into it.
Sigh. Personally, mottos like that (and reading about inspiring men like Blanchflower and Nicholson) got me into supporting Spurs in the first place, all those years ago. As a fan based mostly overseas, I never got accustomed to the mighty roar of the Lane, or the tingling walk down to the stadium on matchday,or the glory nights under the floodlights: for me, most of the time, my connection to the club was solely maintained by a flickering TV in the evenings, the odd match report in Gulf News or Khaleej Times (on the rare occasions when we were featured), and being fed information on my club by my gloating United, Ar5ena1 and Chel53a mates with better internet connections and computers than the one my family could afford.
But for me, that never mattered. Because I'd fallen head over heels in love with what this club represented: to me, we were the slayers of the cynical, the bold knights in purest white riding forth to glory, sweeping all before in blazes of beautiful, relentless play. To me, the figures in our history stood tall, towering titans of the game: philosophers and visionaries to a man. To my friends I left the Cantonas, Henrys, Vieras and Makeleles: my pleasure was derived from imagining how stern and determined Bill Nicholson must have looked in his heyday, cursing the tragedy that deprived us of John White, and admiring the honest, captivating nature of Danny Blanchflower (
this interview that I recently came across made me happier than you can imagine: it was the first time I'd actually heard him talk, and having your assumptions about how your heroes sound and conduct themselves confirmed... is a truly brilliant thing). My happiness was curling up with The Essential History of Tottenham Hotspur, or Against All Odds, and imagining how things must have been. And of course, my naive wonder about how every other fan could possibly not admire us for out ethos and our wild, wacky ways remained strong all the way through the early and mid-2000's, those energetic and wild years.
In short, I fell head over heels for those mottos, and those soundbites. Gradually, however, we ceased to follow them, in my opinion. And, as you probably can tell, that deeply saddens me....more than any amount of glorious floundering in pursuit of those great mottos could have done.
Like I said, all that's irrelevant to this thread, though.
To get back on topic, we've already largely ceased following our mottos (for now, perhaps). Becoming more cynical and at least sticking it up to the bastards who consider us 'southern softies' is the least we could do.
