Jump on, jump off
A couple of days back I ventured into the comments section of a recent blog and witnessed the age-old battle between the realists and the dreamers. A minor miracle at play that I managed to pluck out anything of relevance in amongst the aggression and provocation thanks to the culture of abuse that has dominated the mentally fragmented community here for a while now.
Where I and others see positives and room for growth there is always a supporter (or three) that see the very same things as negatives and evidence of stagnation. So they push their perpetual existence as constant haters of anything and everything Spurs do and accuse the rest of us of being starry eyed hippies placing flowers into the barrel of a gun.
This war continues to fester deep.
There's never an in-between. A middle ground. Which is quite funny considering how purgatory is about as Tottenham as you can get.
I'm not going to delve into detail here. Well, not too much. Any previous blog from the past few weeks pretty much covers off my own opinion relating to progression of style and player maturity. It's just that. An opinion. Guess I'm easy going and laid back in life so that's pretty much the template I'm going to use when watching/talking about Spurs. What I'm more curious about is how 'you' or I are meant to react to our club if we are to believe the haters that we're actually in a mess and our problems are not ones that can be easily solved. That everything we've seen this season that we perceive as a positive is in fact an exaggeration, a distorted perception. That's the accusation being made by the realists (haters) aimed at the dreamers (hippies).
If we really are average and you believe this, how do you claim a consistent uplifting level of connectivity with your allegiance to Spurs? Where's the joy or that old fashion exuberance of belonging to a club? Where's the aspiration? Since when did we become obsessed with being fed with the silver spoon? This isn't about not being critical or honest even when the truth hurts. It's about balance. Why are some of us so afraid to be tainted by echoes of glory? Echoes of glory. That isn't even Spurs supporting small print, it's at the forefront of our historical branding.
Taking everything into perspective - including our standing as a footballing side compared to the financial aspects of the football club and ENIC and the wealth of other clubs along with our recovery from the failed AVB experiment - surely where we are is where we deserve to be and where we go is completely up to us. Well, more or less, depending on the state of our competition (that's the clubs traditionally above us that we'd like to be able to compete with but can't thanks to pound note clout).
Surely I'm the realist and those that continue to claim we're in tactical disarray are the ones dreaming, consumed by night terrors unable to muster any passion, paralysed and fearful of whatever lurks in the shadows. Or is 'real' passion now being constantly angry and livid all the time? Seethe at Spurs because you care so much.
I don't do anything special. I just embrace faith and the rest of the mostly undefinable emotive elements of support along with enough pragmatic analysis based on performances, results and the squad to retain an anchor in the real world. I don't over-do the stats and the rest because not everything that happens has to be stuck under the microscope. There's no beauty in dissecting something to pieces to understand how it works. Sometimes just go with your gut feeling.
Undefinable emotive elements? What am I even saying? Guess I mean happy-clap. I want us to do well because no matter what predicament we're in, we are Tottenham Hotspur. Is that hiding my head in the sand? Or am I free of the constraints of what modern fandom demands us to worship? Expectancy is the fuel most get high off but spend most of their time on a come down instead. Focusing constantly on what's wrong isn't the point of escapism. Is it? Taking a gamble isn't a weakness either. Not daring to do so is. That's another neon light tagline from the history books of THFC.
I've said it many times, it's far easier to always predict failure than it is to reach out for glory. I backed Andre Villas-Boas for a fair amount of time. Gave him the benefit of the doubt. Was left with egg on my face. But I undertook that journey and jumped off the train before the wreck. It's exactly what he did. He knew it. I knew it. We all did.
Was my experience better or worse than those that never gave him a chance in hell to start with? Are those that never gave him a chance the very same that gave up on Pochettino early on and still don't rate him? If you prove yourself to be in the right does that make you better than the rest? Does it offer ample protection from egg-facials?
I'll stop now.
This rant all from a throw-away comment on this site that is no longer viewable. Must have hit a nerve.
What are you saying then? Realist. Dreamer. Hater. Hippie. Question mark here.
Eight games unbeaten or only three games won?
I'm just going to say **** it and jump on the train again and enjoy the ride. If we're gonna crash, we're gonna crash whether you're watching from afar or hanging on for dear life. At least I'll have the bruises and broken limbs to show for it.
Site Update:
The archive of comments for all articles going back to the start have gone. ALL GONE. That's 'gone' rather than deleted. The in-house comments database is still intact, it's just invisible. It's been replaced by Disqus which is an all purpose third-party smarter way to share comment and reaction and allows for better house cleaning than the standard Squarespace version (which was abused by several). I can always bring back the SS version. I might well do at some point if only because there have been some genuinely golden moments of discussion captured before it all went to hell.
Still, no point living in the past. I'm sure people don't care that much about reading five year old articles and their comments.
For now, I'm test driving Disqus. Check it out down below. Should be fairly easy for you to sign up to. That includes the ones that disagree with the positives. Your input is still required. Just try doing it from the single account instead of hiding behind several.
Shots. Fired.
Peace.
