Happy days of mocking Spurs look to be over

Jason Cowley
28 Aug 2009

Like all Arsenal fans, I used to loathe Tottenham and delighted in their struggles as yet another manager came and went without success and as another £10million or more was squandered on a player Arsene Wenger would never have allowed anywhere near Highbury or Emirates Stadium.

As a boy in an Essex new town, I was relatively isolated. Most of my friends followed West Ham or Spurs and those who didn't supported Liverpool.

Throughout the late Seventies and into the Eighties, Spurs were the team in England with the glamour and the money to spend. If an exciting young player came on to the market, whether it was Steve Archibald, Chris Waddle or Paul Gascoigne, they bought him.

In an astounding coup they signed Argentine World Cup winners Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricky Villa at a time when foreign players were exotic curiosities in the English game. Later, they brought Gary Lineker home from Spain. They invariably played with style and operated a passing game in an era when the long ball was too-often dominant.

Above all else, they had the finest English player of his generation, Glenn Hoddle, who was from my home town (the Hoddles were family friends) and a ball-player of unusual subtlety, control and grace. Back then, I envied Spurs even more than I disliked them.

However, everything changed when George Graham took over as Arsenal manager in 1986. Graham inherited an exceptional group of youngsters, who included David Rocastle, Tony Adams, Paul Merson and Michael Thomas. With such players it was inevitable Arsenal would improve, as they did; very quickly a shift in the balance of power took place in north London, which was only reinforced with the arrival of Wenger.

So routine have north London derbies become that many Arsenal fans are almost indifferent to Spurs. Our most potent rivalries are now with Manchester United and Chelsea. Mocking Spurs has become a bit like picking on the weakest boy in the playground: there's not much point.

Yet now they top the Premier League, led by the best English manager working in the game. Harry Redknapp may be 62 but age has not withered him nor diminished his ardour.

Daniel Levy has made many mistakes as Spurs chairman - hiring the wrong managers, sanctioning the purchase of the wrong players, failing properly to modernise White Hart Lane or settling on plans swiftly enough for a new stadium - but the decision to bring in Redknapp is not one of them. In less than a year, Harry has transformed a side that were bottom of the table when he arrived, with players mutinous. He has bought shrewdly, as he usually does (Palacious, Defoe, Bassong), he has galvanised the exceptional Luca Modric and the team are playing with discipline as well as flair.

After so long, genuine rivalry looks as if it may be returning to north London. And while I'd hate to see Spurs win the league, I hope they remain top for a while yet. With Arsenal going in pursuit of them and Chelsea formidable once more, this could be a thrilling season for the London clubs.

Don't burden Broad with hype

When Stuart Broad came on to bowl at the Brit Oval in Australia's first innings last Friday, I was worried. With the exception of a decent spell at Headingley during the dismal Fourth Test he had bowled poorly in the series.

He began the First Test in Cardiff by opening the bowling but by the time the Ashes circus had returned to London for the final match he was the fourth seamer.

Yet by bowling cutters on a dry, slow pitch and pitching the ball up he won the match and changed his life forever in one five-wicket spell.

Now, such is our culture of hysteria, 23-year-old Broad is being acclaimed as the saviour of our summer game, the new Flintoff, the new Botham, a poster boy, “cricket's Beckham”. Among his new-found fans is singer Lily Allen, who likes him because “he is a genius and doesn't have a beer gut”.

But hold on. Broad has played 22 Tests and has an unimpressive bowling average of 35. He has never scored a Test century. As a bowler, he's not quite as fast as he thinks he is or would like to be, and so on flat pitches he comes nicely on to the bat and is easy to hit. He also has a technical limitation, which means his left arm is too low at the point of delivery. But at least he doesn't have a beer gut.

In spite of all this, Broad is a cricketer of huge potential: a capable bowler who is improving as a lower-middle order batsman. But he's no Botham manqué.

So let's all pause, take a deep breath and allow the young man time and space enough to progress without burdening him with absurd expectations. For now, he may be Lily's blond-haired genius but the rest of us should not believe the hype.

Reason to be cheerful

I'm delighted every time Eduardo, whose career was threatened by an horrendous tackle that broke his leg in 2008, gets a game for Arsenal. But his dive against Celtic to win a penalty in the Champions League on Wednesday night shamed both the player and his club. The only reason to be cheerful about that wretched evening was that neutrals seem to have been as appalled as Celtic fans were by this grotesque act of cheating. He'd better not try it for Croatia against England next month.