I suppose there is the: "there's always someone worse off than you" argument...
Difference is, (apart from Newcastle/Middlesbrough fans) I didn't see the entire country apparently taking it upon themselves to joyously celebrate Sunderland's relegation!!
I'd LOVE for our latest FACSF defeat to have slipped under the radar, and for us to be able to deal with our frustration privately, lick our wounds and come back stronger (as i'm sure Sunderland will) WITHOUT the fans of the 91 other clubs seemingly making it their own personal mission to make jokes and memes at our expense!
I look forward to seeing how the FA decide to ridicule Chris Coleman for being partly responsible for taking Sunderland down... but I'm guessing they probably won't!
I guess it comes with the territory!
There are 2 reasons for this - Sunderland are beyond the point of ridicule to even the hardest hearted Newcastle fan, they are a picture of mismanagement and complete car crashery, they evoke pity rather than laughter. What was a stable Premier Club is now nowhere near that. On the other side Spurs have been very successful, when we go and beat the bigger teams we upset their fans, they think we all have delusions of grandeur and would hate to see us successful because then they would have think differently about who we are, that ridicule is basically relief.
Our loss isn't the end of the world, we have reasons to be cheerful and positive for the future but we're not there yet. Though I wanted to be wrong about the semi final, truth be told, had we won the FA Cup, the immediate response would have been from other fans 'come back when you've won the league', followed by 'the champions league' if we'd suddenly won the prem.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong in being disappointed, frustrated and outright angry by how we went out but it really is a painful reminder that we still have some way to progress. There are areas where we need to strengthen and improve on and though it's not always pleasant in terms of performance and expectation, we still need to enjoy the journey.
That doesn't mean we should be saying 'but the weather was glorious on Saturday', just that when we do put in a memorable performance we properly enjoy that too, the whole ethos of 1882 and TFC was 'going to Spurs should be fun', almost regardless of the football, while we've improved a lot since that point, it's sometimes just good to revisit your reasons for being there, in my experience of a first season ticket it's certainly not been a circle of untold hell, as a North Korean once said, I can't complain....