This fabulous picture is of the ‘big screen’ at the Tottenham stadium, yesterday afternoon. Showing MY Joey, parading round behind the official team mascot, Chirpy. This is ‘an honour’. To walk behind a man dressed as a big chicken, waving a flag. If this had been any kind of metaphor, ‘Chirpy’ would have walked his way straight to KFC, if he’d have seen into the immediate future. But we don’t have metaphors at Spurs. We have become our own fucking metaphor. And not a good one.

I will admit; playing against Arsenal fills me with dread. Playing THIS Arsenal takes that ‘dread’ to whole new levels of horror, of panic, of sheer terror. But, watch it I did. I had to. Its the whole flagellation, masochistic, self-harming torture you just have to endure to qualify for the moaning that will follow afterwards.

We picked up Mel’s new car. Oooooh, its lovely. The ‘hand-over’ involved ‘the paperwork’: 10 minutes. The ‘car’: 5 minutes (door, seat, steering wheel, pedals, start button; how hard can it be?). The ‘system’, 1 hour. To learn… nothing that you will ever remember. You want to turn on the blower; phone microsoft. They offer you two more sessions of learning, after a week or so. Bring back ‘buttons’!!! Lots of ’em.

So we were late back, arriving just at kick-off time, about 5 minutes after our guests had arrived. Ooops. And it went ok. We didn’t look too out of our depth. Even when Arsenal scored, we came right back and scored at the other end. That was good. We weren’t intimidated. And embarrassing Declan Rice can only ever be good. I wasn’t unhappy at half time, I’d even come out from hiding behind the piano. No-one in the house plays the piano. Its there just for Spurs/Arsenal fixtures.

We were having tea. I heard a cheer. And you learn about cheers when you watch as much football as I do from another room. And this was definitely an ‘away cheer’. The home one is much louder, longer and quite frankly, better. Oh dear. We were losing. But there’s plenty of time to equalise. Or… to… errr… concede 3 more, as it transpired. We didn’t know that then. Chirpy didn’t. And we didn’t. So we still clung on to the worst thing in the entire world. Hope. The killer of killers.

We equalised again!! Holy shit, this is almost good! But an evil combination of Arsenal cheating, (even Gabriel is not such a woos as to go down after such a weak knock, let alone fall to the ground as if shot in both legs), blind referees (he should never have questioned the goal), and being abandoned by God in our moment of need. Again! Meant the goal was disallowed. Taken away. Stolen. Which changed the whole nature of the game.

So when obnoxious shit, Eze, scored again, there was never going to be any come-back. It was over. The fourth goal was just… honestly, it was downright rude.

So now we languish so near the ‘drop zone’ as to be a part of all the ‘relegation battles’ we normally watch from afar. Its suddenly become ‘real’. And worse than that, Arsenal take another step towards the league title. Fortunately, they’re not playing us every week and have difficult games like Wolves to play on other days. So that, combined with Man City’s inevitable, end-of-season ascendancy, means that no fat ladies are singing just yet. Though a few fat chickens are chirping.

Very unhappy Monday

A xxxx