I had an interesting conversation with Aussie Johnno last year as we traipsed round Ayers Rock together, all 12k of it, in about 45 degree heat. Maybe it was the excessive temperature doing funny things to his brain. But he always likes to be contrary, and always believes that there’s a solution to every problem, even if there isn’t really a problem in the first place. So his idea was that football fans should be made to support different teams every year. Forced to. By law. So the Bastard Squad come round, take away your Spurs season tickets and replace them with ones for Wigan. Or Stenhousemuir. Orient. Randomly. What a great idea!!!! Fans would no longer need to fight or abuse one another, because next year YOU might be a ‘Yid’ or a ‘Gooner Scumbag’ (heaven forbid) or even have your heart and soul surgically removed (without anaesthetic) and support Chelsea.

I never said he was bright. Just contrary. And I pointed out some obvious flaws to his otherwise logical (???) suggestion. Like what do I do with the full-face cockerel I have tattooed across my boatrace? What if I have to go and watch Shrewsbury Town and my kids get stuck with Burnley?? The family unit as it is in England would be broken beyond repair. And what about loyalty? And the feeling of continuity and fraternity you feel, deeply, when you go to see your team? Just before the riots start or you get food poisoning from a dodgy hot-dog??

Nick Hornby describes, in the wonderful Fever Pitch, how he became an Arsenal fan. Because it was the first game his father took him to. Even though they were shit. (Plus ca change). I have no such eureka moment in my memory. No light shone, no beacon lit, no I’VE SEEN THE LIGHT… AND ITS LILLYWHITE!!!! Nothing like that. I just don’t have any memories of not being a Spurs fan. Its older than my memory.

So I can only be fickle and disloyal in European football, because Spurs are seldom playing in that. And for years I courted Barcelona. Because they were (collectively, I hasten to add) beautiful. And joyful, and such a pleasure to watch. I even, for a while, threw my hat in with Bayern Munich (no, it was not a steel helmet with a swastika on the side), because we’d needed them to beat Chelsea that year, (though they didn’t) and I learned that they were a team who had once defied Hitler, bless ’em. And even though the team sheet read like the guard list from Auschwitz, they were cool and classy.

Yet now I’m just drawn to Real Madrid. With whom I’ve been in and out of love for years. I loved the Zidane/Figo years; hated the early Ronaldo days, but now I find them simply irresistible. Last night, as they destroyed Bayern, I was playing bridge, in a manner that Zizou would have admired, though I stopped short of head-butting my partner even when she went one down in a simple 4 spades. I just saw about 5 minutes of the match. The third goal. A thing of wonder and beauty. And power, pace and consummate skill.

But I’m a Spurs fan and therefore must be grateful for what we have. Which is… errrr… hmmmm… errrrr…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx