DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Right, I got back home at 11:00 pm, more or less. Grabbed a drink, sat myself down with the laptop, downloaded the entire match and watched it through. Every minute, every second, over again, including the period past 65 minutes that I managed to catch the first time.
The thing about watching a match again with the result already known to you, however, is that the tension is absent. The sweating, the constant, nervous glances at the clock, the shouting, the swearing, the singing. The praying, making bargains with GHod and cursing fate for making a minute last sixty seconds. The result is in your head, so the crackling, barely repressed emotion that underlies every single thing you do in a game vanishes, and all that's left is the mechanical motion of watching that result play out.
Watching us do...what we did, I couldn't recreate that emotion, knowing what I knew about the way it turned out. So I let my mind wander for a bit. And, in doing so, I found myself thinking about a similar moment from a long time ago - seven long years in the past.
On the 2nd of November, 2010, eleven men in white kits walked out under the floodlights of White Hart Lane, badgers emblazoned proudly across their chests. Like yesterday, they were dwarfed by the moment as they walked out - eleven nervous hearts, lined up in an old stadium that pulsed and thundered with emotion from every corner. Like yesterday, they faced the European champions, the elite of European football. Like yesterday, the stout hearts of those eleven men would be called upon to burnish the name of this bloody, but unbowed old club.
"Oh, beautifully done by Modric - and it's a lovely ball too! And VAN DER VAART FINDS THE NET! LIFTOFF FOR TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR!"
"Bale...turned on the afterburners again! A lovely ball! IT'S A LOVELY GOAL!"
"It's A GREAT BALL! IT'S A GREAT GOAL! And it's surely the winner!"
And, like yesterday...those men rose to the occasion.
In 90 minutes, those men wrote themselves into the history of Tottenham Hotspur. And, in 90 minutes, they put the seal on twenty years of struggle. Twenty years of pain. Twenty years of falling to the bottom and slowly, achingly rising up again. For 90 minutes, those men gently lifted the bowed head of Tottenham Hotspur. And for 90 minutes, they brought back the days when this old club ruled the world.... so, so very long ago.
Carlo Cudicini. Alan Hutton. William Gallas. Younes Kaboul. Benoit-Assou Ekotto. Aaron Lennon. Tom Huddlestone. Luka Modric. Gareth Bale. Rafael Van Der Vaart. Peter Crouch.
On the 2nd of November, 2010, those men broke the mould we had made for ourselves. For 90 minutes, they were champions - they were winners, they were lions, they would not be bowed by the fragility and pain that had burdened so much of our past, for so very long.
And....on the 2nd of November, 2010, they made us dream of a golden dawn, gently simmering into view under a reddening morning sky.
As we know, that dawn never came. We lost that team. We lost that era. And we lost that hopefulness. All we had were the memories - the bittersweet nostalgia for our magnificent adventure, our tryst with destiny that allowed us to climb into the bluest of skies before the sun burned our wings and we fell, resigned, from a place we never really belonged to.
Seven years ago, we beat Inter Milan 3-1 and wrote a page in our history.
And yesterday, we beat Real Madrid 3-1 and wrote another.
These have been seven long years. Seven years of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Seven years of stumbling, falling, sobbing, and then climbing again with bloodied hands, determined to reach the top that seemed forever unapproachable. Seven years of being *human* - with all our vulnerabilities, flaws, doubts and worries.
And seven years that ended today in a mirror image of that day in November 2010 - eleven brave men in white shirts, rolling back the years for ninety minutes and making us dream of us our glory days when we awed the world. Eleven brave men, who beat the European champions. Eleven brave men who conquered.
Will this era end better than the last one did? I hope it will, and I think it will, but we can never be sure. But that's for another time. Today, I want to do nothing other than celebrate the men who brought us this day, like I celebrated the men who brought us that day in November 2010. So here's to you, brave men of Tottenham Hotspur. Here's to you.
Hugo Lloris. Kieran Trippier. Toby Alderweireld. Eric Dier. Davinson Sanchez. Jan Vertonghen. Ben Davies. Harry Winks. Moussa Sissoko. Christian Eriksen. Dele Alli. Mousa Dembele. Fernando Llorente. Harry Kane.
Mauricio Pochettino. Jesus Perez. Miguel D'Agostino. Toni Jimenez.
Daniel Levy.
Here's to you, for making us dream once again. And here's to you for rolling back the years, and making this sentimental sod cry.
Here's to you.
And thank you.
The thing about watching a match again with the result already known to you, however, is that the tension is absent. The sweating, the constant, nervous glances at the clock, the shouting, the swearing, the singing. The praying, making bargains with GHod and cursing fate for making a minute last sixty seconds. The result is in your head, so the crackling, barely repressed emotion that underlies every single thing you do in a game vanishes, and all that's left is the mechanical motion of watching that result play out.
Watching us do...what we did, I couldn't recreate that emotion, knowing what I knew about the way it turned out. So I let my mind wander for a bit. And, in doing so, I found myself thinking about a similar moment from a long time ago - seven long years in the past.
On the 2nd of November, 2010, eleven men in white kits walked out under the floodlights of White Hart Lane, badgers emblazoned proudly across their chests. Like yesterday, they were dwarfed by the moment as they walked out - eleven nervous hearts, lined up in an old stadium that pulsed and thundered with emotion from every corner. Like yesterday, they faced the European champions, the elite of European football. Like yesterday, the stout hearts of those eleven men would be called upon to burnish the name of this bloody, but unbowed old club.
"Oh, beautifully done by Modric - and it's a lovely ball too! And VAN DER VAART FINDS THE NET! LIFTOFF FOR TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR!"
"Bale...turned on the afterburners again! A lovely ball! IT'S A LOVELY GOAL!"
"It's A GREAT BALL! IT'S A GREAT GOAL! And it's surely the winner!"
And, like yesterday...those men rose to the occasion.
In 90 minutes, those men wrote themselves into the history of Tottenham Hotspur. And, in 90 minutes, they put the seal on twenty years of struggle. Twenty years of pain. Twenty years of falling to the bottom and slowly, achingly rising up again. For 90 minutes, those men gently lifted the bowed head of Tottenham Hotspur. And for 90 minutes, they brought back the days when this old club ruled the world.... so, so very long ago.
Carlo Cudicini. Alan Hutton. William Gallas. Younes Kaboul. Benoit-Assou Ekotto. Aaron Lennon. Tom Huddlestone. Luka Modric. Gareth Bale. Rafael Van Der Vaart. Peter Crouch.
On the 2nd of November, 2010, those men broke the mould we had made for ourselves. For 90 minutes, they were champions - they were winners, they were lions, they would not be bowed by the fragility and pain that had burdened so much of our past, for so very long.
And....on the 2nd of November, 2010, they made us dream of a golden dawn, gently simmering into view under a reddening morning sky.
As we know, that dawn never came. We lost that team. We lost that era. And we lost that hopefulness. All we had were the memories - the bittersweet nostalgia for our magnificent adventure, our tryst with destiny that allowed us to climb into the bluest of skies before the sun burned our wings and we fell, resigned, from a place we never really belonged to.
Seven years ago, we beat Inter Milan 3-1 and wrote a page in our history.
And yesterday, we beat Real Madrid 3-1 and wrote another.
These have been seven long years. Seven years of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Seven years of stumbling, falling, sobbing, and then climbing again with bloodied hands, determined to reach the top that seemed forever unapproachable. Seven years of being *human* - with all our vulnerabilities, flaws, doubts and worries.
And seven years that ended today in a mirror image of that day in November 2010 - eleven brave men in white shirts, rolling back the years for ninety minutes and making us dream of us our glory days when we awed the world. Eleven brave men, who beat the European champions. Eleven brave men who conquered.
Will this era end better than the last one did? I hope it will, and I think it will, but we can never be sure. But that's for another time. Today, I want to do nothing other than celebrate the men who brought us this day, like I celebrated the men who brought us that day in November 2010. So here's to you, brave men of Tottenham Hotspur. Here's to you.
Hugo Lloris. Kieran Trippier. Toby Alderweireld. Eric Dier. Davinson Sanchez. Jan Vertonghen. Ben Davies. Harry Winks. Moussa Sissoko. Christian Eriksen. Dele Alli. Mousa Dembele. Fernando Llorente. Harry Kane.
Mauricio Pochettino. Jesus Perez. Miguel D'Agostino. Toni Jimenez.
Daniel Levy.
Here's to you, for making us dream once again. And here's to you for rolling back the years, and making this sentimental sod cry.
Here's to you.
And thank you.
