There is no Doomsday. Just All-Stars.
One of my favourite scenes from Superman II is the diner fight. Both of them in fact. A powerless Clark Kent gets bullied and knocked out by a truck driver. Clark means well, but deep down it's all bravado. He knows this but gallantly attempts to blag it. The truck driver humiliates him, leaving Clark bloody and beaten.
It's like the 1990s and early 2000s in constant loop. Spurs turn up, look the part, but everyone can see right through them and can't quite believe they want to go toe to toe and proceed to get brushed aside. The victor arrogantly show-boating whilst Spurs pathetically fail. Teaching someone manners has to be backed up with a good slap. We were limp and no amount of fronting was going work.
Not pleasant viewing. Disillusioned and confused, we were lost whilst those around us grow stronger and more powerful. There was no competition for them and just survival for us. Going through the motions with no apparent evidence that a shift in power would ever occur.
Sure, we had powers in the past. Okay so the metaphor doesn't quite stretch to us giving them up for the love of a woman but we may as well have considering how we turned into a parody of ourselves. An empty shell. I wasn't alone in my Fortress of Solitude either during those dark times. Had one or two fellow Spurs fans sharing the despair, head in hands, shaking despondently at another beating.
So what changed exactly?
The powerful ones got complacent thanks to greed and comfort. We got fed up kneeling down. We switched it. We did it to them. Well, not unequivocally. We still need to crush the hand of Zod and throw him into the depths. Zod being Man Utd in this part of the metaphor...just keep humouring me until the end of the article. Those that want to work with me, you can take Man City to be Lex Luthor and Arsenal can be Non (figure it out).
We're no longer that weak Kent asking the bully to step outside. Rather a supremely confident Kent preferring to tease jokingly about the past then swagger on in. Belief all-consuming.
Come and get it. Oh how we've done just that.
So when Bolton visit us at the Lane, much like so many teams have done in recent times, they will possibly look to trap us in the Phantom Zone. Frustrate, break up play, populate the midfield with physicality to leave us trapped in a perpetual state. One or two might be expecting that slip, that off day, that defeat. Others are preferring to bask in the positives and await a DVD spectacular. Directors cut.
I am neither concerned nor am I giddy. Simply fulfilled.
This Spurs team is not quite at the stage of being able to fly around the earth and turn back time to avoid Louis Lane's death (the 1990s happened, deal with it, history can't be changed). But we can still fly around with our underpants over our trousers with arms upright and clenched fists. I mean literally underpants over trousers. If we keep winning I'm going to have to take 'shrooms just to sober up and attempt to anchor myself to reality.
Reality is also over-rated for some. Many that surround us might wish to believe otherwise but there is nothing to fear. Other than ones self-doubt. So many citations to the past from those desperate to cling to it when in the past we had to endure a desolate future. Times are changing. If you don't care to admit it you're either blind or covering your eyes with your hands. Be blessed if you have x-ray vision.
Reality can also be many more things.
If we lose a game, this team is hardly going to fall apart because of it. In fact the team is more than likely to taste it and accept it as part of the learning curve and move onwards. Backbone is a quality that was mostly missing from those darker times. Defeat, when it hurts, when it should truly hurt, is when it's in isolation rather than being part of consistent inconsistency.
Let's also not forget that loving to win is one thing, learning to hate defeat is another - but equally as important. Whether it's against a trucker or a megalomaniacal Kryptonian.
These days, I quite fancy us against either. Super Spurs. They've been...working out.