Tottenham - a disgrace

Spurs 1 Newcastle 4

It started out such a lovely day, having a laugh with friends Debs and Mick in the beer garden of the Coach & Horses but that was all washed away in one of the worst 90 minutes of football at the Lane for some time.

I don't know why I'm even wasting time blogging about it; maybe I need to get it off my chest! The stadium was like a morgue today. For the second game in a row, the singing was very limited and the Toon Army put us to shame.

I was trying to think of a different way to sum up the performance so here's an A-Z list:

A is for appalling
B is for boring
C is for crap
D is for disgrace
E is for egg on ya face
F is for f***ing waste of money
G is for grim
H is for hopeless
I is for incapable
J is for joke
K is for katabatikos (Greek word for 'going downhill')
L is for lazy
M is for muppets
N is for not trying
O is for ordinary
P is for pityful
Q is for quality heap of shite
R is for rubbish
S is for shocking
T is for terrible
U is for useless
V is for very very very very disappointing
W is for woeful
X is for xtremely poor
Y is for you suck!
Z is for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


An utter disgrace is probably the most accurate adjective to use in this case. I honestly don't think the players deserve to get paid this week because apart from the opening ten minutes and the goal, they didn't even try. I'd like a refund too.

Mum & Dad's Ruby Anniversary

In this day and age it's quite an achievement to stay married to the same person for 40 years and I'm very proud of my parents for getting there and still being as happy today as they always were.

There wasn't a big bash arranged to mark the occasion as that's not what they like, but just a simple table for eight at our favourite restaurant: Alvaros. Unfortunately my Uncle Brian was ill so my cousin Debbie took his place which was lovely because we haven't seen her for years - she lives and works in South Carolina and is over here for three weeks because of visa regulations.

Anyway the meal was fabulous as per usual. It's pricey but well worth it and the staff there (Portuguese) are so friendly. My dad has known the owner for donkey's years because he used to supply the restaurant with meat when he worked for a wholesalers. They decorated the table with ruby red roses which were given to my mum when we left. A nice gesture.

It's funny but my parents just don't seem old enough to have been married for 40 years; I suppose that's because they are still young at heart. Congratulations Mum and Dad!

America's No.1

Well done to Leona Lewis who has shot to No.1 in the U.S. charts with Bleeding Love. What a massive achievement - the first solo Brit artist to reach the top spot since 1987. The last person to do this was Kim Wilde with a cover version of 'You keep me hanging on'. Goes to show how tough it is over there to gain popularity; you really have to put the time and effort in and make your face known. Considering Leona only won the X-Factor 15 months ago, she must feel like she's in dreamland. It couldn't happen to a nicer girl.

Heartbreaking

A few weeks ago, we brought our external hard drive down from the loft where the PC is located, into the living to plug straight into the laptop. It was working fine, then all of a sudden it started making a funny noise and no files or anything could be accessed from it. The drive contains holiday photos from the last four years (approx), all the family photos including ones of my nieces and nephews since they were born, my thousand or so Spurs pics saved, itunes music library which contained over 12,000 songs, and all other documents saved in Word, Excel etc.

John's brother Paul was over for the weekend a fortnight ago and has just found himself a new job. He said he would take it with him and have it examined in the lab there which he very kindly did and reported back that it was hopefully they would be able to retrieve the data from it. However, devastating news received today revealed there were complications and would cost £300 to fix the problem. John wasn't keen on spending that amount of money (blokes aren't as sentimental about photos as females) but I was tempted because I couldn't bear the thought of losing precious memories. I will just have to get over it.

Obviously a lot of stuff can be rebuilt and recompiled, in fact John has been working for two days now on the itunes library. I couldn't care less about the music, I want my photos back! Luckily, I always have a selection of photos printed and they are safe in albums, so all is not lost. A new external hard drive arrived by post this afternoon and is firmly rooted to the floor tucked away between the two armchairs. Apparently John read somewhere that if they are moved or bumped they are prone to breakage. Great knowing that now!

Anyway, a lesson learned from this mishap is that everything but everything will be saved to disc in future as I am not going to run the risk of losing more photos.

Bugger!

Dates for the new Queen gigs have just been announced and can you believe they've put them right smack bang in the middle of October when I'll be in Australia? Argh! They are in Europe during September as well but it's kind of a busy time for me what with my 40th birthday and going on holiday, plus the extra cost and taking more days off work, it just can't be done. I'm so disappointed because even without the late and great Freddie Mercury, I'm betting it would be a fantastic experience.

I watched the Queen live in Montreal dvd today and I'm always totally in awe of them, especially Freddie. What an amazingly talented entertainer he was - would be hard to beat in my eyes (except maybe Elvis)! I wasn't so much of a fan when he was alive sadly, so I very much regret not seeing Queen on stage back then. Funny how artists come 'alive' and strike such a chord with you after they have passed.

Hopefully there'll be another chance some other time.

100 up!

Congratulations to David Beckham for finally achieving his 10oth cap for England. Well deserved. He has been our most consistent and inspirational player of the last 10 years.

Unfortunately tonight in the friendly against France in Paris, despite his enthusiasm, England didn't turn up. It was such a dreary game that I gave up watching.

Did Capello know what he was letting himself in for? The phrase 'flogging a dead horse' springs to mind.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! <----- me yawning

Oh and the score was 1-0 France, a penalty in the first half. Blah.

Winter

After yesterday's short blizzards in London, proper snow came to our neck of the woods today. It could have only lasted about three hours so that was real winter all over in a blink of an eye. Nothing settled as the ground was already damp which was a tad disappointing. Now there is no evidence whatsoever that we even had any.

Just like buses

Spurs 2 Pompey 0

Team: Robbo, Chimbo, Woody, Daws (Bent), Hutton, Steed, Zok, Lennon (O'Hara), Huddz, Berba, Keano



Surely the coldest day of the winter so far, it was bitter at the Lane today with intermittent snow blizzards. Brrrrrr! Despite my usual four layers of clothing, I was feeling the nip. I could have been sitting in my warm home watching the game on Sky Sports but where's the fun in that?!

Spurs had pretty much all of the possession in the first half and a few decent chances but nothing came of it. 0-0 is a surprising score even at half time for Spurs and surely that's not how it would finish. The second half faded a bit from our point of view; Pompey were dreadful the whole game, playing nowhere near as well as they have been of late.

Just as I turned to John and said I would bring Jamie O'Hara on now, he came to the touchline together with Bent. See, I'm after that job! Lennon was quite rightly subbed as his final ball (as always) was shockingly bad. Tactically, a defender off for a striker is always a positive sign from a manager showing determination to win the game.

It really did look as if it was heading for a goalless draw but then the substitutions proved how good they were. It was like waiting for a bus for 80 minutes and then two turned up at once! Firstly Berba volleyed into the ground and Bent planted the header into the corner from eight yards out. One minute and 21 seconds later, Bent became the provider on the left for O'Hara to side foot the ball into the corner. You can see the joy on his face from the pic. A great young talent - just hope he sticks around at Spurs.

So three points in the bag. Hopefully Wet Spam will slip up tomorrow and the gap becomes smaller. We will get into the top half of the table if it kills us!

Another boring night at the Lane...NOT!

Spurs 4 Chel$ki 4

Team: Robbo, Chimbo, Woody, Ledders (Bent), Hutton, Steed, Jenas (Huddlestone), Lennon, Zokora, Berba, Keano

Well again we got our money's worth at the Lane with an eight goal thriller. So far this season, I've been lucky enough to have seen two 4-0s, a 5-1 and two 4-4s. Not bad eh?

It was the usual hate hate relationship between the two sets of fans but obviously there was more of us so we drowned them out most of the time! That same emotion was shown on the pitch as well with tackles flying in, descent from players on each side for what were some useless refereeing decisions. So what's new there?!

I came into this game pretty sure Spurs would lose, basically because of the performance in the last couple of games and also the fact that Chelsea would be looking for revenge after the cup final. We bearly had a chance to settle in our seats before they took the lead but it only took until the 11th minutes before Woodgate climbed high to convert a strong header. I think maybe he likes scoring against Chelsea! However, Spurs being Spurs, they let in another eight minutes later. The crowd were riled up just before half time when Ashley Cole tacked with studs up against Hutton's shin - having watched it back on TV, it could have been a red card; they certainly have been given for other similar tackles this season. Why Cole argued and showed descent to referee Riley I have no idea as it was a clear cut bad tackle (actually the word knobhead comes to mind), and he was lucky to get away with a yellow. Still, a good excuse to give him more abuse - a bit of 'Where's ya missus gone' to the the tune of 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' rang around the ground!

Spurs started the second half brightly but then somehow conceded a third goal. A soft one it was too, bobbling off the legs of the advancing Robinson. We looked dead and buried but needn't have despaired as we should know by now that Spurs are more dangerous when they're behind.
It was game on again on the hour when Berba headed home a Huddlestone corner - one of the few that actually went beyond the first defender! A great chance followed when a brilliant ball from Berba found Keane, he swivelled his body but it was superbly saved. The Lane erupted again after 75 minutes when Huddlestone drove the ball into the bottom corner of the goal. 3-3!
But just when we thought we could go on and snatch the winner, Chelsea scored again through Joe Cole who again got the better of Chimbonda. Talk about up and down emotions all night; I couldn't keep up!

I just have to interrupt this bulletin by mentioning Didier Drogba... it amazes me time and time again how the man gets away with what he does. Even right in front of the ref, he falls to the ground with the faintest of touches and gets awarded free kicks. Why are they fooled by this awful acting? You could blow him over, it's that bad. However, I'm not a total hypocrite as Huddlestone's pathetic effort of a dive on the edge of the box is not something I want to see from one of my players. Cheating does not impress me. He received a yellow card for his acting - the difference between the two is that Drogba does it in every game and rarely gets carded.

So, only ten minutes left of the game which was just enough for Keano to bring the house down once again with an absolutely stunning strike into the top corner. Maybe slightly fortuitous with the ball ricocheting off Carvalio's back but who cares?!!! The icing on the cake would have been Berbatov converting the clear cut chance he had in the last minute of added time, finding himself free in the penalty area with only Cuducini to beat. However, his shot was too close to the goalkeeper and it was saved. You've no idea how agonising that was - of all players, Berba would usually have stuck that away every time. Oh so close to another memorable victory over Chelsea. I think the Spurs fans were more than happy to go away with a point at the end of the night, considering being 3-1 down.

So there you have it. Another dull night at the Lane. Yawn. :)

Abba-tastic!

John and I went to the Cliffs Pavilion last night to see Bjorn Again - the Abba tribute band who are celebrating 19 years together. John only booked the tickets on Thursday so it was surprising there were still seats available as they usually sell out no problem. We were to the left side of the stalls about half way back so not bad at all.

I was hoping it wasn't going to be one of those occasions where no-one stood up and danced. But as the group came onto the stage and opened with Waterloo, everyone stayed on their bums. Ok I thought, maybe it's too early but all the way through the first half, nobody shifted much to my annoyance. John and I made a pact that we would definitely get up and dance after the interval, so when we got back to the seats, we stood firm whilst everyone else sat down. The other girls in the same row asked us if we intended to stand to which we said YES so they were relieved because they had been itching to get up as well. As the music started again, we turned to the row behind and indicated to them to follow suit which they did. Before long almost the entire audience were up on their feet - hooray! See....every party needs a John and Lisa to get it started!! After that, it was so much more fun, dancing, singing and clapping along to the songs. John did his 'dad at a wedding' dance moves much to my horror, but at least he joins in and doesn't have any inhibitions! Although all Abba songs are extremely tuneful and catchy, when the girls left the stage for a few minutes, they performed a bit of Quo's 'Rocking all over the World' and that really got everyone in an even better mood. Ironic eh?!

The two guys portraying Benny and Bjorn were hilarious. As the night wore on, their fake Swedish accents were getting worse and worse and some of their lines were very amusing. The whole evening was extremely enjoyable and I would love to go and see them again.

Something I didn't know, after looking at the Bjorn Again website, is that they use many different troupes, mainly comprising of a pool of British personnel.









Above is the troupe that performed for us.

One step forward, two steps back

Man City 2 Spurs 1

Frustration frustration and more frustration. Spurs just can't achieve any consistency whatsoever.
Another game of two halves - ours was the first albeit still an average performance. However Robbie put us one up after a City mistake and a common sense pass from Chimbonda. Ironically, Chimbonda was our best player of the first 45 minutes - was he trying to make up for something?

However, it all went pear-shaped in the second half and I have to criticise Juande Ramos for his tactics. Firstly Huddlestone strangely replaced Lennon from the offset and then what I thought was a ridiculous substitution, he took Keane off and brought on Bent! My queries are:

1) What the hell is the point of doing a straight striker for striker swap when the player you're bringing on hardly scores and who is simply not as talented.

2) Keane was having an okay game. Not his best BUT he had already scored and he was (as always) working his socks off.

3) Do the management team not keep stats? ie. the amount of times they substitute Keane and then it all falls apart.

The latter is true of today. Not much time had passed and surprise surprise, City equalise! Granted, it was marginally offside and shouldn't have counted but decisions aren't always going to go your way. City then scored again and the defence was left floundering. What made it worse was that Spurs put it into the back of the net but the linesman ruled it offside. The replay showed it clearly wasn't. It could have been oh so different and I think a draw may have been a fairer result.

I will finally mention Robbie's reaction when he was subbed. Yes, he was angry and showed it, but I don't blame him one bit. He'd be the first to admit if he'd played below par and on 66 minutes, the game was still in the balance. He's well known for his passion and will to win and I feel this was a display of disappointment for the team, rather than a personal gesture.

Spurs oh Spurs, what a rollercoaster ride it is being a fan of yours. They face Chelsea in mid-week, a game I will be attending and it certainly won't be easy with the opponents wanting revenge for the Carling Cup defeat. I'm so looking forward to it....NOT!

Raindrops and roses & whiskers on kittens

At last the Saturday arrived when John and I got to see his Christmas present: The Sound of Music at the London Palladium.

Things didn't get off to a good start as when we arrived at Shoebury station, we discovered there were no trains and a bus service was in place to Leigh On Sea, but there was also no service between Barking and Upminster. The next bus wasn't going for another 30 minutes so we decided to drive all the way to Upminster, then get the train from there. It put us behind schedule by about 25 minutes but having reached Oxford Circus underground, the Palladium was literally a couple of hundred yards away. We walked into the first pub we saw (The Argyle Arms) for something to eat. That was the scrummiest fish, chips and mushy peas I've had in a long time! Once that had gone down, I shared John's chocolate fudge cake. Yum-my!

Anyway, on to the show....Unfortunately Connie Fisher, winner of the TV show 'How to solve a problem like Maria', was no more; the lead is now played by Summer Strallen who I have just learnt from the official website, used to be in Hollyoaks. Her opening night was on 5th March. However, she was more than competent, as were all the cast. Margaret Preece who played the Mother Abbess (the lead nun) was absolutely superb - her voice made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The set and scenery were very well done indeed and the whole production was very professional - what you would expect from Andrew Lloyd Webber. The only criticism I would make is that the second half was a bit short and perhaps the whole story was condensed a little too much.

A thoroughly good night despite the trains, the pouring rain and back ache. :)

Spurs pay the penalty

PSV Eindhoven 0 Spurs 1 (6-5 on penalties)

Spurs certainly paid the penalty for what you can only call two lousy legs. You can't really forgive losing at home against quite an average looking team and knowing they had to win in Holland, you would expect them to come out all guns blazing. But oh no. Dire, slow, boring. It took until the 81st minutes before someone finally got the ball on target, and that man was of course Dimitar Berbatov. A great cross from Chimbonda and a volley from just outside the box from the Bulgarian.

Well at least we had a chance now. It could have been won in normal time and even extra time but that wasn't in the script - you kinda knew in your bones that it would go to penalties. Good entertainment for the neutral but the most agonising time for any fan watching their team. I was literally shaking and really didn't want to watch but an unknown force just makes you. All was going well with the first four penalties converted and Robbo having saved one of theirs. It all rested on JJ's shoulders to score one more and that would be that. However, when are things that straight forward? I wasn't surprised to see Gomes save the perfect height shot, and so into sudden death. I would have had money on Zokora missing - after all he has never scored for Spurs but he managed to convert it. Chimbonda wasn't so lucky. In fact, he missed the goal completely! So out Spurs go in the worst possible manner. It's harsh but someone had to lose; shame it had to be Tottenham. :(

With automatic qualification for next year's UEFA Cup, let's hope we can make it third time lucky.

Back to winning ways

Spurs 4 Wet Spam 0

Team: Robinson, Chimbonda, Woodgate (Tainio), Dawson, Hutton, Lennon, Huddlestone, Zokora, Malbranque (Gilberto), Keane (Bent), Berbatov

Seems like ages since I've been at the Lane what with Wembley and the recent UEFA games, but it was great to be back. As usual, the Spammers fans got a roasting from our lot especially as they only seem to have one song; they might be forever blowing bubbles but they are still forever failing to win stuff!

You can usually tell what's in store by the first few minutes but thankfully the tide turned pretty quickly. Robbo spilled the ball in the fifth minute which West Ham should have buried, and that was easily their best chance of the match. Thankfully Spurs responded in an enthusiastic manner, looking to put aside the disappointment of the last two games. To everyone's delight Berba notched up two headed goals within the first ten minutes, both from Huddlestone free kicks. Joy oh joy!

All through the first half Spurs played great football, passing, moving well and making surging runs with the ball. Berbatov - well he's in a class of his own. His touch, skill, vision, and dinky little passes were so pleasing to watch. When he gets a lot of the ball, Spurs generally play much better. If a couple of his skills don't feature on Soccer AM's 'Showboat' next Saturday I'll be most surprised.

Things got better for Spurs when Boa Morte was sent packing for a second bookable offence in the 44th minute.

The second half went a bit flat despite playing against ten men. Spurs sat back a little and as the game went on, let West Ham have more possession. However, they weren't on form this afternoon and made very few chances. Our defence is looking very solid these days. Hutton and Woodgate have proved very good signings already, and Dawson was in fine form as well today having just returned from injury.

Spurs had plenty of chances to add a third but it didn't come until the 85th minute when Gilberto notched up his debut goal in only his second appearance. Despite only two minutes of added time lit up on the board, the referee allowed play to go well beyond this and the icing on the cake came on 92:50 when Darren Bent headed home a Hutton cross to make it a sensational 4-0.

A bonus was that John placed a £2 bet for that scoreline and took home £68 in cash. That paid for his ticket with £7 in change. Nice!

The underdogs win through

What a great day for the neutral football fan! Who would have put a bet on Manchester United AND Chelsea being beaten today in the quarter final of the FA Cup?

Even if Manchester United didn't get the refereeing decisions where they should have, who cares?! The luck has to turn against them some time. So well done Pompey for beating United for the first time since 1957. A different scenario at Oakwell saw Barnsley work their socks off and want it more than their opponents. They clung on in the last 20 minutes of the game and defended for their lives. A thoroughly deserved win, finished off with good old-fashioned celebrations with the fans running onto the pitch. What makes it even better is that it wasn't a fluke, having beaten Liverpool at Anfield in the previous round.

It's pretty much anybody's now and the semi-final draw on Monday will be very interesting. At last, for the first time in 12 years, one of the big are NOT going to win the cup. Hoorah! I look forward to a much more exciting final - let's face it, there have hardly been any memorable ones in recent times.

Cup hangover

Birmingham 4 Spurs 1

I can't say I'm surprised and to be honest, I'm not even disappointed. Having won the cup last Sunday, I still feel on a high from the success and prospects for the future. We have already qualified for Europe for the third year in succession (when was the last time that happened?) so the league is not quite as important as it was. However, Mr Ramos will not let things slip I'm sure; he is not the type to just sit back and be satisfied with what has already been achieved. There are still just over two months before the end of the season and we have to get back on the horse and carry on winning. We are at home to PSV on Thursday and we need a good result if we wanna set our sights on winning the UEFA Cup as well.

So we'll let this one go, and put it down to a severe footballing hangover!