Sometimes some Spurs events are just beyond explanation but I'll have a go................

I have had several heart felt messages this week from friends around the world who genuinely feel for me. After an initial awkward silence the bush telegraph got into full swing and football friends and foes have weighed in with their thoughts on Tottenham's shocking 0-6 reverse against Manchester City.
Now for someone who has followed the side since 1962 big defeats are not unique or no longer unexpected from time to time. Probably my first mind numbing experience of such a defeat occurred at Highbury in September 67' when lost 0-4 to Arsenal. What was so upsetting to this 12 year old was that it was all so unexpected....it was just my first big reverse!

My hero Pat Jennings picking the ball out of the net four times...especially as we were standing right at the front of the North Bank and Pat had to face a penalty right in front of us.
It was in 73' against Derby County before the next big shock came along. In this FA Cup replay we had taken the mid-landers back to WHL after a 1-1 draw up at the old Baseball Ground. Twelve minutes to go and there we were leading 3-1. Then, inexplicably, we allowed a long streak called Roger Davies to score a hat-trick against us in just a few minutes, 52,000 fans walked away failing to comprehend how Spurs could just capitulate.

That same Derby side were no respecters of reputation and within just three seasons had beaten us up at their place 8-2.....little to say here other than the Spurs supporters took the 'football special' train apart on the way home and ended up stranded between villages as the driver refused for a while to take the train any further. As far as I recall Nicholson didn't actually make the disgraced team walk home :)

Just when Spurs fans are at their most optimistic the football gods usually combine to put us in our place. Such was the story in September 78' when laden with our two Argentinian World Cup winners, Ossie and Ricky, we went to Anfield and got smashed 0-7 by the scousers.

History will show that we have such catastrophes at Tottenham occur every few seasons but also sometimes in one season. Thus, being beaten 0-5 at home by Arsenal, with the little wizard Brady being our main chief tormentor,  occurred just a few months later in December 78'. Worse than that, it was a day when me and a mate had tickets for the Arsenal end and had to stand in silence through the whole debacle:(

Manchester United have had the wood on Tottenham for many years. So when you race to a 3-0 home half-time lead you may foolishly slip into a bit of complacency. Forty five minutes later we ended up 3-5 losers shipping five goals in that time. Hard to explain and almost as hard to take. That game was in September 2001.
In more recent times we have gone down 2-5 twice to Arsenal at their Emirates ground, not a good look! What made this worse was that these two results were actually in the same calendar year, February and November 2012.
As I have outlined here, we have indeed been hammered numerous times before. So what was it that brought about Sunday's 0-6 score-line against Manchester City? I think there were several reasons. The first that needs to be acknowledged is the ruthless brilliance of their main forward Aguero. Strong, quick and with a low centre of gravity, one of my friends said he made our centre backs look like over 35's in comparison. On the day he was unplayable. For me a major reason for the defeat was AVB's tendency to over analyse. We had had to endure several non-EPL weeks with the international break which closely followed the 0-1 reverse to Newcastle at home. In his wisdom AVB scanned the World Cup games / results and decided that a few of our blokes had had  a busy / disappointing time. Because of this, he left out Townsend, Vlad, and Dembele. To me all of these had performed well in previous weeks and merited a start. In came Kaboul who was lacking match fitness, Holtby who is not a number ten and Sandro who although a hearty player is unlikely to score for us in the next decade. It didn't help conceding a comical goal in 14 seconds and the own goal we scored was the only time one of ours bothered the score keeper on the day. Unfortunately, working in a school with 1100 students can result in you receiving a similar message once or twice in the same day. Try 50 times! Six nil Sir! What happened there? Manchester City....6-0 Sir!
As it turns out after a short sojourn to the Artic circle on Thursday against Tromso, we have a great opportunity to make amends when we take on the red side of Manchester on Sunday. Hope springs eternal when you support a team. Supporting Tottenham is no exception. We have been put in our place....expectations allowed us to get ahead of ourselves. My old adage of
'Following Spurs involving a lifetime of nearlyness punctuated by the occasional actuality' has some merit.'
I was never very comfortable with us being likened in defensive stinginess to the old 1-0 Arsenal sides. I suppose a 0-6 loss has now put that comparison out of peoples minds for the time being!