Tottenham Haircuts FC

Jermain Defoe – he loves scoring goals, bangin’ hoes and slammin’ Cadallac do’s. Or something like that. One thing’s for sure though, he needs to switch hairdressers. The new Sisqo look Jay Dee is rocking is unanimously shit, and makes me wonder if our predatory striker has a thing for thongs. It also made me think who would make our all-time worst haircuts squad. Here’s my selection:

Goalkeeper: Ian Walker

Ian stood between the posts at White Hart Lane for most of the 90’s replacing Erik the Viking. It’s just a shame Erik didn’t leave behind his Viking helmet though, because it would’ve covered up the monstrosity that was Ian Walker’s hair.

Like many of our squad during the 60s, 70s and 80s, Ian summed up an era with his haircut. With his blond Brit-pop mop, which he sometimes dyed, he could’ve just as easily passed as the backing vocalist in some wishy-washy boy band. I could never imagine Ian taking women back to his dressing room and snorting coke off their boobs though.

Right Back: Pat Van Den Hauwe

People called Pat often have shit hair-dos. Pat Sharp, Pat Butcher and most notably Pat Van Den Hauwe. Besides having a shit hairstyle just like Stuart Pearce, he also adopted the nickname ‘Psycho’, and that haircut certainly made him look scary. Til this day our lad Pat is the only footballer who’s ever made me cry!

Left Back: Benoit Assou-Ekotto (Captain)

Not many people can have a bad haircut and manage to make it look cool as fuck. Sam Jackson, and to a lesser extent John Trovolta, managed it in Pulp Fiction, but Benny is the only person i can think of who’s made it work on a football pitch.

Whether it’s cornrows, braids or a ‘back like cooked crack’ afro, Benny is the King of Hair in N17. You could even catch him in one of the local barbers getting a little trim on his day off. My personal favourite Benny-cut is the wind-swept, Bubbles-from-The-Wire-esque number – if Spurs were to ever replace the cockerel i just hope they’d switch it for a head shot of Benny rocking that hair-do.

Centre Back: Ramon Vega

To be fair to our Swiss international centre back, his haircut wasn’t actually that bad, but there are two reasons why he’s made the list. Firstly, our centre backs, on the whole, have had okay hairstyles – maybe because they have to head the ball a lot, i dunno. Secondly, Vega is one of the players that i most disliked during his time at Spurs, so any hint of a muggy haircut was magnified every time he missed a tackle or got outpaced by the opposition’s striker.
Now Vega speaks five languages fluently, is the founder of a real estate business and a company that specialises in asset management and private equity – i could tell that he was in the wrong profession just by looking at his haircut during the 90s.

Centre Back: Younes Kaboul

These days Kaboul’s hairstyle is fairly standard – maybe a sign that he’s matured as a player and as a person. However when he first singed for Spurs he even made monkey-boy-Bale look good.
The best way to describe Kaboul’s barnet is that he looked like a $20 hoe who had been on a street corner for an hour in the pouring rain waiting for the next customer. His calling card probably would’ve read “Luscious Younes, my sex is on fire”.

Left Midfield: Chris Waddle

Chris Waddle should’ve been called Pat.

He will always be synonymous with that missed penalty, Diamond Lights and that crap haircut, even despite the fact he was a class player. Some people ruin their image by shagging hookers, getting drunk and doing drugs. Chrissy just went down to his local barbers.

Right Midfield: Ralph Coates

In an era of shocking hairstyles, Ralph Coates stood head and shoulders above his team-mates. It wasn’t really his fault either – he couldn’t help that he was going bald. To be fair to him though, he wore what little hair he had left well, allowing it to majestically sweep across his brow as he celebrated the winning goal in our 1973 League Cup Final against Norwich – an image that will always be etched in the glorious history of Tottenham Hotspur FC. Ralph Coates, Tottenham legend and King of the Comb Over.

Centre Midfield: Glenn Hoddle

Maybe Glenn Hoddle is proof that God does exist, and that he does inject some sort of karma into the world to balance things out, because for all the genius that the man upstairs put into Glenn’s feet he did the complete opposite to his head. He even mocked him by putting him alongside Chris Waddle on Top of the Pops.

One thing’s for certain though, if Hoddle and Waddle had a baby boy together it would be called Pat.

Centre Midfield: Sandro

It all started with a picture on Twitter. Our hard-as-nails Brazilian centre midfielder seemed to have spent the summer break listening to punk rock and watching Top of the Pops 2 on UK Gold – the Diamond Lights episode, no doubt. And worse still, he’d dyed his hair red!! Surely the image had been Photoshopped? I certainly thought it was a fake when i first saw it.

I can only imagine that ‘Arry saw it and said ‘that ain’t triffic’ or maybe Benny saw it and said ‘fuck fool, what the fuck is you playing at G?’. Either way, when Sandro came out of the tunnel against Wigan it wasn’t quite as bad as expected. The red had been replaced by blue and he’d lost the ponytail. It was still ridiculously shit, but thankfully it was gone soon after.

Striker: Jermain Defoe

Jay Dee isn’t very good when it comes to styling his head. First off, he wore that silly hat when he re-signed for Spurs from Pompey and was paraded around the pitch at White Hart Lane. Then he had that silly line of hair that circumnavigated his noodle, which kind of looked like he’d asked the barber to give him a Brazilian on his head (not Sandro). Now to top it all off he’s dyed what little hair he has blonde, making him look like a 90’s R&B singer who likes ladies’ underwear.

You can just imagine how this monstrosity came about too. He was probably at home watching The Only Way Is Essex with some bird from the Daily Sport, who says, ‘ohhh, i like his hair, it looks proper reem’, the rest is history. Sort it out Jay.

Striker: Steve Archibald

Steve Archibald won two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup during his four year spell at Tottenham in the early eighties, dispelling the myth that gingers can’t play football. His hairstyle was the Chas to Ricky Villa’s Dave, a long, bushy mop of hair that covered his head and his face – just like Villa’s hair, but ginger.
Archibald’s silky skills and silky hair caught the attention of Barcelona in 1984. To the best of my knowledge that was the last ginger Scotsman they ever signed.

Manager: Gerry Francis

If Gareth Bale was born to play for Spurs than Gerry Francis was born to manage Wolves. His long locks of husky hair must’ve kept him warm on those chilly nights at White Hart Lane.

Gerry was also the manager who signed David Ginola, obviously for all of that free L’Oreal and tips on maintaining his long, silver mane.

Subs:

Pedro Mendes

Looked like Jesus, played like he was wearing sandals.

Scott Parker

Legendary hairstyle from a bygone era.

Paul Walsh

You wouldn’t want to see him from behind in the boozer if you’d sank a few pints.

Paul Stewart

Clearly wanted to be an 80’s soul singer with that mini jheri curl. He almost looked a bit like Michael Jackson post ‘Bad’.

Giovani Dos Santos

You can tell he likes to party with that barnet.

David Ginola

Because I’m worth it