Tottenham

Wednesday night signalled the end of an era. For the first time in ten years Tottenham took three points off of Arsenal. Our first league win over the scum this millennium. That’s twenty games without a victory. A Premier League record.
A couple of years ago we beat them 5-1 in the Carling Cup semi final but this ment little to the Goon. They, to this day, stress they were playing their ‘kids’. This was a reserve team that ended the game with FIVE first team players on the pitch.
Kids or not getting annihilated, yes I said annihilated, by your local, hated, rivals must really, really hurt and although they put a brave face on it and fell behind the excuse that it was only their kids and it was only the Carling Cup they had to admit, at least to them selves, that it was their worse defeat in twenty years and more importantly it was US that did it to them.
But your average Arsenal fan erases such damning facts. Even though we had that win over them, which nicely juxtaposed our three nil victory against them in the ’91 FA Cup semi they still had their incredible league success to fall back on.
Mike the Mav tells me repeatedly that his thirteen year old son has never, never seen Arsenal lose to Tottenham, that we hadn’t beaten them in the memory life of a teenager.

That stings, that really stings.

This week though, this glorious week, puts an end to that. That record is over. It is now part of history. They can still mention it and they will, no doubt, but it’s no longer relevant, no longer current. Now, it is only words and now we have effectively ended their title hopes this season.
Before kick off they had an outside chance of snatching the league, in their eyes the head to head between Chelsea and Man U would be decisive in that. Now, with three points dropped to us that fixture becomes redundant. A draw would have put them in the running but now it makes very little difference.
They still dropped three points on Wednesday night. They still dropped three points to us. If they fall two points short of the winners at the end of the season it will be thanks to us that they lost out on the title. I hope that happens. That would be glorious and I will thoroughly enjoy rubbing it in over the summer.
By the same token if we finish forth, and we’re still in the running, by a point by a single, solitary point it will be thanks to them. I will shake every Gooner by the hand and thank them profusely and repeatedly until they tell me to fuck off.

What a great night. What a superb game of football. This was a Tottenham team that had played two hours of fruitless football on Sunday, heavy legs going into the game on Wednesday. Two turgid hours that knocked us out of the FA cup, against bloody Portsmouth of all fucking teams. Then to face the scum three days later, with our record?
My stomach was a knot. You always believe, but still you know what it would mean to lose again. The shit you’d get for it and the nasty dirty feeling you’ve known for a decade that envelopes you. No amount of scrubbing shifts it. That horrible, sickly, sticky feeling you feel all over from just watching your team breathe the same air as them.
You can feel the infection permeate the ground, it’s said the Tottenham board disinfects the away changing room after the derby, and to lose makes it all the worse. You exposed yourself to that evil for nothing. To lose just reinforces the notion that we live in a Godless universe where everything you ever believed is nothing. The bad triumph and the good die slowly in pain.

Then Danny Rose’s goal.

Young Danny Rose, always on the periphery. Young Danny Rose on his league debut. You want to talk about kids do you? You want to talk about injuries do you? Half our team crocked the other half still aching from Sunday then little Danny Rose, thirty yards out, left footed, boom!

What a volley, his first touch of the game. Boom! How do you like that?

Eighty percent possession in the first ten minutes? Fuck you, you know how it works.

A beautiful, beautiful goal. The kind of strike that reminds you why you love this game. A game where a nineteen year old youth player can, in his first start, make himself a legend. Amazing.

Where was the beautiful, continental football that Arsenal fans always wax lyrical about? They stoked the ball around nicely in mid field but Gomes was leaning on his post for most of the first half.
Where were our tired legs? The whole team were going in quick, hard and fair, all Gooner assaults smothered by our defence. Was that Pavlyuchenko I saw tracking back and doing a job when he had to? Pavlyuchenko, a striker, a poacher, filling in in midfield? Working, working hard and putting Berbatov to shame? I think it was.
Then the second goal. Their defence has gone to sleep, Gareth Bale, sprinting up the centre arm raised, picked out by Defoe. A gorgeously weighted pass. It curves in-front of the defender to find Bales’ feet and he, to calmly for a left back, passes the ball under Almunia into the Goal.
White Hart Lane loses its mind. Two nil up against Arsenal, for a minute the Tottenham fans forget all about Sol Campbell. Two nil.
No one is celebrating yet. I’m reminded of the Carling Cup final where it was three one to us and we were under a constant barrage. I’m reminded of last year when we came back from 4-2 at the death to draw.
I’m proved right in the last ten minutes. Gomes, crazy Gomes, world class Gomes, Gomes with little to do for the whole game then one, two then three amazing, instinctive saves. Finger tips, finger tips without thinking, no human being can have that reaction time, it’s not right!
Gomes, Gomes exploding the myth that a free kick placed in that top right hand corner is un-saveable. I believe he just fucking saved it!
Unfortunately this is Tottenham v Arsenal and they were going to score and make the last ten minute unbearable. I knew this would happen. Ten minutes, but the clock started ten years ago. Tick tock, tick tock, I can feel every second. Every minute is five, my hearts racing waiting for the final whistle. Tick tock, tick tock. If we concede now I’ll put my hand through the wall.

And then, and then with us fucking around with a corner, wasting time, it blows. The ground erupts, Arsenal players, hands on their hips, stare at the ground. They know they’ve lost something. Not just the points. Not just the league Something deeper, much deeper than that. Something’s changed.
A different Tottenham celebrate on the pitch and around the stadium. It isn’t the same Tottenham that started the game. We beat you, we can beat you and next season we’ll be stronger, we’ll have key, injured, players back, we’ll be at full strength and we will, we will be coming after you.