The THFC boys in their new 2016-17 kits
Let's face it, in both life and sports, you can't always get what you want as the Rolling Stones sang. And mostly, you don't.
So, you've just got to laugh or you'd have to cry -- especially for us fans of North London's famous football team, Tottenham Hotspur. Across North America, local Spurs supporters clubs will gather to sing and watch Tottenham kick off the new Premier League season on August 13. For SF Spurs (at Danny Coyle's), NY Spurs (Flannery's), Boston Spurs (The Kinsale), Dallas/FW Spurs (Trinity Hall), San Diego Spurs (The Harp), Chicago Spurs (The Atlantic), among others, hope springs eternal.
SF Spurs representing at Tottenham friendly
At all these great venues and at our LA Spurs local, The Greyhound Bar & Grill, we'll descend into self-deprecating humor, singing, "We won the League in black and white." Which we so did -- the old English top division way back in 1960-61 when b/w television was the vogue. You gotta laugh, right?!
Although to be fair, in the last 50 plus years since our last league title, Spurs became the first English team to win a European trophy, and we've won a number of other shiny trophies. But many other times we've underachieved for being one of the oldest, most celebrated clubs in English football.
Dallas-FW Spurs hoping for a less Spursy season
In fact, Tottenham Hotspur has earned a special sobriquet for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- it's called being "Spursy" and this year the Oxford English Dictionary actually legitimized the phrase. Yeah! As a spokesperson for the Tottenham Supporter's Trust quipped: "It's immortality of a sort...We've grown used to watching our side bottle it in spectacular fashion over the years, and I even suppose we've come to expect it."
But it's certainly not just our Spurs, because let's face it sports fans, most of our beloved teams rarely, if ever, win the big one. Most of us support teams that consistently don't live up to our heartfelt but mostly overblown expectations -- many of us root for teams that are often chronic losers.
Chicago Spurs -- "We're the Tottenham boys, making all the noise..."
Look at American sports teams. Thirteen (of 32) NFL and 12 (of 30) NBA teams have never won a league championship. Some of the most "spursy" American sports team include: the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs who last won the Stanley Cup in 1967; the NFL's Buffalo Bills and the "wide right" miss that kicked off their four consecutive Super Bowl losses from 1990-93; and, there was the hopeful "wait 'til next year" saying re-uttered by Bill Clinton at the recent DNC in reference to MLB's Cubs -- hey, maybe they will break the Curse of the Billy Goat and the 108-year wait for another title. There've been other curses, like the Curse of Bobby Layne (on the Lions) and the Curse of the Bambino (on the Red Sox).
San Diego Spurs gearing up for season opener on August 13
And, serial chokers are in sports worldwide, including: Italy's Genoa has not won the league since 1924, and Portugal's Benfica, which hasn't won a European trophy since 1961-62, and has lost eight European finals since then!
So being "Spursy" has been around a lot longer than Tottenham's recent run of bottling it. In ways, teams like the Bills and Cubs have perfected the art of choking. Although, last season when Tottenham were making a run for the title, they swept aside record Premiership title winners Manchester United with an emphatic 3-0 home win to seemingly reverse a major "diss" -- former Man-U manager Ferguson once gave a pre-match pep talk about Spurs, saying, "Lads, it's Tottenham." Ouch! But, then Spurs proceeded to go into a winless tailspin in our last four games, and while we achieved our highest ever Premiership position (3rd), it could've been much more.
Phil Crippen (L) with Spurs fans including blogger Ashley J. Collie (second from R)
Yes, it was kind of Spursy of us, and as Phil Crippen, a longtime American-born Spurs fan, adds with a dash of his martini-dry humor, shaken not stirred:
I've come to find refuge in what is a term of endearment. To me, "Spursy" isn't necessarily derogatory. It can mean playing with style, push and run, dare to do. But, yes, it also means the not-so-positive things about Tottenham, like what happened on the season's last weekend when we folded in the last match for no explicable reason -- how does any team give up three goals in quick succession to a relegation-bound team that's a man down? -- and thus we continued a 21-year streak of finishing behind the Gooners (Arsenal). And, yet we achieved our highest Premiership finish, and are competing in the Champions League this season, while some of our great rivals (ManU, Liverpool, and Chelsea) are not. Hence, the "Spursy-ness" of all things good and bad. One additional thing, as a fan going through the ups and downs of being "Spursy," I must be quite powerful by now, because they say, "What doesn't kill you, supposedly makes you stronger!" Right?
International Spurs with Spurs Hungary, Spurs Norway & Spurs Japan
So once again, we American-based Spurs fans have upbeat but guarded hopes for this 2016-17 Premiership season. We trust that our young brilliant manager, Mauricio Pochettino who orchestrated our surprising title tilt last season, can take us another step further, make us a football force again, and bring back the "glory, glory days" that once echoed around our White Hart Lane, London N17 home.
Adele on Tour pointing out her soccer love to Spurs
In fact, excited LA Spurs fans, being based in the city of angels and celebrities, have even gone as far as to send an "Open Invite" to Tottenham girl and lifelong Spurs fan, Adele, to come cheer along with us at our local, The Greyhound. And so this blogger will continue to make regular posts during this upcoming season and year, when hopefully some of our teams (Cubs, Leafs, and Spurs) will make it the promised land, again.
It would be so Spursy of them all to disappoint, because life's just like that. But then again, they say, if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. COYS!
PS MLB's Cubs are looking good, leading their NL division, heading into August's dog days. Maybe this year?!
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