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[park-lane-blog]

Expectations

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.” - Sylvia Plath.

Every now and again, after a poor result or performance, I look over at my 15 year old Son, who by this point is close to tears and question myself as to why, at less than an hour old, I deemed it a good idea to wrap him in my Spurs shirt and begin what is now a life long association with pleasure and pain. 

It reminds me of myself, at the age of 10, in tears (but without an understanding why) as England lose a penalty shoot out to West Germany at Italia 90. I’m wiping my tears away with my shirt, impersonating my newly adopted hero Paul Gascoigne. “Dad, who does he play for?”. “Tottenham, Son”. “Are they good?”. “Best team in the world Son”.

It’s amazing the lies we tell our kids!

For the purpose of this blog, I’m going to pretend that Saturday didn’t happen, Ok?

Due to work commitments, friends not about to watch the game with us, it’s just me and my son Ethan at home, in his room watching the game via the BT sports app on his xbox. Even at 5 minutes to kick off, I’m pretty calm. I’ve had a manic day at work which pretty much kept my mind of the game all day. My words to Ethan were simple. We were only 1-0 down. We needed to score twice regardless, so stay calm if we concede. This Ajax team, although exciting to watch are also very young, naive and lack leadership at the crucial times. If we get at them and put them under pressure, we will have plenty of chances. 

So as we go one down, I’m naturally calm. Ethan’s face has dropped and the dream of a Champions League final starts to look a little less likely. We haven’t actually started that badly but now they’re in front, they start to look dangerous. 

2-0 down and my resolve is broken. Ethan’s head is in his hands and there’s tears in his eyes. He worships these players. He loves this club as much as I do. Liverpool come back from the dead, but they’ve spent the money. They have the Anfield roar to get them over the line. We have none of this. We’re done. Out. We’ve overachieved to get this far given our circumstances. It’s been fun. I try to console Ethan. I remind him of our magical nights this season. We’ve been lucky to see the majority of the home legs live. We were there when we smashed Dortmund. We sang our hearts out when we beat City. Nothing can take that away from us Son, nothing!

Still, somewhere in my subconscious is this nagging notion that the show isn’t over. There’s no fat lady in sight and whilst there’s time on the clock, there’s goals in this team. I remember vividly. The clock showing 51 minutes. We have a corner. I look at Ethan and say, “if we can pull one back before the hour, then we stand a chance. As the clock hit 55, that chance was standing tall thanks to some great work by Dele, finished off by Lucas slotting home.

Hope. 

But it was the 59th minute that saw our chances standing stronger than ever like it had borrowed some of Lance Armstrong’s special pills! At times, it looked like Sunday morning football defending but when it fell to the feet of Lucas, it was anything but. Footwork to envy the Gods of the beautiful game resulted in something bigger than hope. It was belief. The tied had turned. The tie had turned. The inexperience in this Ajax side was now about to show. The desire, the commitment, the Pochettino effect was in full swing. Surely, now, there was only one outcome. 

Not only is Ethan now on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together in prayer, my two daughters, 18 and 11 have no entered the fray. At first to find out what all of the noise was about, but once captivated by what was unfolding in front us, they took up the available spaces on the bed to join in with our suffering. 

Posts were hit. Chances were missed. Substitutions were made and yellow cards were issued. What’s the emotion up from tense? What ever it is, we were experiencing this in bucket loads. 20 minutes left. 10 minutes left. Poch is pacing. 5 minutes left. 90 minutes up. 5 minutes stoppage. Time wasting. One last chance. One long ball held up. One last shot, on the weaker foot. 

2-3! 

There are no words. No breath. No time to hold back emotion. A mass of bodies on a single bed. All embraced. All crying. All screaming. All trying to comprehend what we had just witnessed. 

It’s ok to cry, at any age. Poch is crying. Lucas is crying. JJ is crying. Hoddle is trying to regain composure. Even Rio has lost his shit. 

Nothing in football surprises. Everything is possible. 

From our late equaliser at Barca to Sterlings offside “goal”, we have at time rode our luck but what a ride it has been.

June 1st 2019. Madrid. Our beloved club. Our one and only club will be playing in the Champions League final. Read it. Absorb it. Inject it. Do what ever you will with it.

Because to dare. Is actually to do!

[park-lane-blog]

Negativity

“I'll always use the negativity as more motivation to work even harder and become even stronger.” Tim Tebow

So, before I begin, I little something about me. If you’re reading this then we’re probably followers of each other on Twitter. I’m a Twitter veteran of about 10 years or so, but last year I shut down my account. I was surrounded on all corners by negativity, to be fair, mainly around politics and the state of our country. At that time in my life, negativity was the last thing I needed so closing down the account was the natural thing to do. However, what I did miss was the interaction with my fellow spurs fans. So, I opened a new account, set my name as Park Lane (more on that later) and proceeded to follow and interact with the Spurs family, players, ex players etc etc.

My name is Jon Matthews. I’m 38, a father of 3 and have been married to my wonderful wife since 2004.

I’m a relatively mild mannered person. Like everyone, I get irritated by the day to day grind of life but at the same time I try to stay as positive as possible. I manage a branch of a multi national builders merchant and have done for the past 17 years. I live on the South Coast in a sea side town in Dorset.

The reason I chose to go under a pseudonym is simple. I wish to stay as anonymous as possible. That way, most things aren’t taken personally and helps me to blend into the background. However, saying that, I’ve managed to rack up almost 1k followers since I returned to the Twitter format. 

So, Park Lane? Simple. It was always our home growing up. When I say home, I mean our WHL home. I live in the South West, right down on the coast but we were frequent visitors to WHL during the 90′s (and still am of course) and my Dad always preferred the Park Lane end, so that’s why. These days, I’m more fond of the Paxton road end, especially now, looking across at the wonderful 17.5k single seater. Maybe one day I’ll venture across but for now, Paxton upper, 518 is my preferred home. I visit as much as possible. My kids are all Spurs fans. My Son comes to all the games with me and my girls accompany us from time to time.

The reason for my blog?

It’s really easy to get carried away in the heat of the moment. Especially off the back of a frustrating result. Case in point, last night. With our depleted squad, the first leg against a buzzing young side like Ajax was always going to be a tough ask. Even more so without Son and Kane. Lets not be stupid about this, most of our goals have come from them this season so my worry was always about where the goals come from and last night proved that point.

I had numerous heated debates last night on twitter about positivity and against those that used the format to basically abuse the team, manager, club etc due to how this season is ending. But after everyone had calmed down and gone to bed, I found myself lying in bed questioning why I found it necessary to argue, online, with complete strangers. They’re allowed an opinion aren’t they? Even if their opinion differs to mine. Of course they are. 

That’s why I’m starting a blog. I shall attempt to write one after each game. Some will be long winded rants. Some will be quick thoughts. But either way, I aim to write them with a clear head. Maybe after a good nights sleep and with a calmer view on what has passed.

Firstly, my apologies to those who I swore at or insulted last night. I think most if any was in retaliation but either way, we need to stay calm don’t we? 

So onto last nights game. I’ve already alluded to the fact that we were far from full strength. Let’s be clear. The squad isn’t good enough for a full on attack on multiple fronts. Yes, I believe we were wrong to not buy or freshen up the squad over the last two windows. I understand that it’s hard to buy players that maybe told from day one that their playing 2nd fiddle to the likes of Kane, Dele and co, but surely we need to think about depth? When you see certain players that have gone for a small fee or even a loan. Tielemans at Leicester for example. He would of added much needed flair and pace into our tired midfield. The whole Greilish debacle in the summer (holding them to ransom cause they were desperate and then not) plus a few others that now escape me. The fact is, there was business to do and we didn’t, for whatever reason. The game was a tough watch. I made a promise to a mate of mine who travelled with me to the City game, who couldn’t make last nights match, that if we couldn’t go together, then neither would. So instead we met up after work, got some pizza on the go and sat down with the boys and waited for the inevitable. I wont go through the game, we all watched it but my opinion was simple. We took too long to settle, we let Ajax get a foothold and their goal could and maybe should of turned in to 2 or 3. However, we dug in, survived without conceding any more. The second half was a different story. Sissoko made a huge difference in the mf and took complete control. Who’d of thought we’d be relying on him like we have been. I don’t think he’s our player of the season but lets agree to give him most improved! If it wasn’t for the lack of firepower up top, I really think we’d of got something out of the game. Let’s be fair, Ajax defended pretty well. Lucas ran and ran but without doing much. Llorente did all he could. Dele and Erikson, the two we really needed to stand up and be counted really didn’t. Are they tired or are we asking too much. Sanchez looked overwhelmed but I think the rest of the defence did pretty well. It was evident pretty quickly that a back 5 was the wrong tactic. Poch realised this, post goal and we looked a lot tighter. I really do hope that Jan is ok. That looked horrible on the tele. I can’t see him playing Saturday and hope that we go with Toby and Foyth at centre back. Start Davies at LB and push Danny (mom in my opinion) in to a midfield role. Like the 2nd leg, we’ll have Sonny back. Not only will that add much needed pace and a goal threat in the final 3rd, it should add a bit of confidence back into the team. 

We’re at bare bones. That can’t be disputed. We have to make do with what we have now. 

We can blame Levy for a lack of vision or commitment to the squad?

We can blame Poch for his stubbornness. 

We could all probably make a list of reasons but at the end of the day, we don’t run the club. We don’t spend the time with the players. We don’t pick the squad.

So what can we do? We can support the team. We can maybe ease off the abuse of Tripper, Sanchez, Dier. Maybe we can all wait until the final whistle of our final game before we start an autopsy of the club. Cause let’s face it. Our squad maybe depleted, maybe not good enough, maybe carrying dead wood but we are 1-0 down at half time in a Champions league Semi final, sat 3rd in the best league in the world, have some of the most talented (on their day) players in Europe and one of the best managers out there. I’ve not even mentioned the state of the art training facilities, oh and the best stadium in the world!

Maybe we are all fickle bastards who like to moan a lot. We’re allowed an opinion. We’re allowed to argue with each other but at times, let’s not forget the bigger picture because at the end of the day, even if we lose the 2nd leg, even if we drop out of the top 4, we’ll keep coming back again and again.

Why? Because this is our club. Our one and only club.

J