I hurt myself today

Wolves 1 – 0 Spurs
Saturday 4th March 2023

As my 6 year old son and I make our way out of North London towards the motorway en route to Wolverhampton, I ponder on the optimism of Saturday morning. It’s a buoyancy which reaches far beyond football and as such, I’m compelled to sing ‘On The Road Again’ perhaps due to the fact it’s only 2.5 days since I arrived home from Sheffield after Spurs’ midweek FA Cup exit.

I subsequently put the record on, to prove to my infant son once again I’m not making up yet another song which happens to exactly mirror life in that very moment. The Spotify algorithm unsurprisingly takes me from Willie Nelson to Johnny Cash, where we stay for a while, listening to his ‘greatest hits’ for want of a better expression.

I’m always happy to listen to his work and while his music played and the M1 became the M6 I reflected on the similarities between Tottenham Hotspur and Johnny Cash. Cash was a risk taker, he played wild attacking music, his heart on his sleeve, leaving it all out there on the stage, playing with a freedom that came from the soul. However, there was a period in his career that has been largely forgotten. The 80’s saw Mr. Cash become a bit of a has-been, a washed up old country singer. The times had drastically changed and he’d been left behind. He found himself singing on over produced Christian songs and appearing in naff US TV shows, his edge slowly fading in the memory. Rock star cult status often so much easier attained by tragedy…(overdose, suicide etc).

That is until, in the early 90’s a certain Rick Rubin came along and convinced him to get back in the studio. The legendary record producer could see how to fix the iconic singer. He’d sit him down with just a solitary guitar and a microphone, take him back to basics, tune into that rawness, harness the soul and essence of what made the great man tick. What followed was an awakening, arguably some of his greatest work was to then came out via that American Recordings series, most notably the cover of Nine Inch Nails ‘Hurt’. Cash was back and better than ever.

If Jose, Nuno and Conte are what the 80’s were to Cash, then who will be our Rick Rubin? Who will intervene, and remind us how to play again? Grab us by the scruff of the neck and conjure those youthful feelings of why we started to play this beautiful game in the first place, the joy it brings, playing to win, not playing not to lose (and still losing!). The connection with the fans, the rush, the sex, the drugs…ok I’m getting a bit carried away.

Surely this is what is needed. Whether it’s Poch or someone else, we need a project manager who wants to play exciting, attacking football. I’ve been going to Spurs for 30 years. That’s 2 cups in living memory. I know it’s not fashionable to say, but I’m ok with 1 cup every 15 years, so long as the football is ambitious and enjoyable.

I’d be quite happy making my way home today having lost 3-2 but given it a good old go. However, what we witnessed was appalling. Yes, perhaps a little better than the dismal display against Sheffield Utd in the week, but only just. We don’t seem to be able to open teams up anymore, break the lines. There is nothing connecting defence with attack. The fans were quiet, jaded from the midweek fixture no doubt. This was only compounded further at the full time when news of Arsenal’s 97 minute winner trickled through. There’s no coming back from that.

So what does this mean for Conte? Levy won’t fire him, not after the Jose debacle. It would be expensive too. Not to mention morally questionable. Conte may even have grounds to sue if that was to happen. Only Spurs can end up with a manager not doing his job from another country, that we can’t sack and a sporting director banned from doing his by that very same country. All said and done, I do feel for Conte, this isn’t what he signed up for either.

Despite everything, my son and I had a good time. We made a day of it visiting the tourist attractions of Wolverhampton prior to game. As for Spurs, we’ll probably beat Milan and lose to Forest. A Champions League quarter final would of course be fun but I can’t help feeling we need to start to focus on next season and just prey to God those pricks down the road self destruct in the mean time.

by James Drummond

Johnny Cash – Hurt
I hurt myself today,
To see if I’d still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that’s real.