Spurs lost a match on Wednesday night. I’d just finished playing bridge when the penalty shoot-out started. ‘Watched’ it on text stream because I couldn’t find it anywhere. There again, I’m not the best at finding anything: keys, phone, ‘that bill I put somewhere and needs payin’’, my shoes…

And we (faaaarrrrkin!!!!) lost. To bottom-of-the-table Norwich in the FA Cup. It was awful. It was tragic. It was a sad and sorry result for my team. Even though we’re so used to losing to shitty teams, currently, it still hurts.

Losing bridge hurts too. But I’d never call my wife and my brother ‘a shitty team’. Not in public anyway.

So the match at White Hart Lane finished and the mood was understandably dark and solemn. And then Eric Dier took off from the pitch, jumped the little wall (he’s 6 foot 4 or thereabouts, a three foot ‘wall’ doesn’t even get noticed) and ran up the tiers of seating with a maniacal look on his face. To find his brother. Who, when he looked up for him at the end of the game, he saw was in ‘an altercation’ with some fans. Eric saw red. That’s his little brother. And set off in protective mode. To protect. And serve. Whatever. He was pissed off and angry and looked it. The stewards intervened and all was fine.

Except its not fine. At the end of the game a group of Spurs fans, obviously near ‘the brother’, chose to verbally abuse Eric Dier as the scapegoat elect by their little cabal. And in case you’re unfamiliar, for something to even rank as ‘abuse’ at a football match, it must be really, really REALLY bad. Because fans have become normalised to shit that is completely unacceptable in virtually any and every other context in society. At football, blind ears (??) are turned to the alleged and imaginary sexual deviation of players, sung loud and clear. Arsenal Wenger was accused of paedophilia regularly by the Spurs faithful. Seemingly nothing is ‘off limits’. Except mothers. Those you abuse at your peril (see the magnificent and wonderful Eric Cantona above in response to such a slur at a match 25 years ago). So maybe brothers are close enough.

I have a basic rule about football chants that if they’re funny they’re fine and if they’re nasty they’re not. Though I appreciate this may be a somewhat subjective. Somewhat. But now and again someone’s gonna get angry. A button will be pushed. And trigger pressure is increased by losing matches. Against ‘poor teams’. On penalties.

Eric Dier probably didn’t hear what the abusers were shouting. He just went to protect his brother. Even a ‘court’ as stupid, lacklustre, limp and impotent as the Football Association shouldn’t have issues with that. Whereas abuse by fans is something that might be ‘of interest’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx