- Feb 1, 2005
- 19,120
- 6,003
- Staff
- #1
Regular visitors to the Transfer Rumours section of SC (isn’t everyone?) will have already read this, but here it is in full to mark the beginning of the 2012/13 season. If you enjoyed it, tolerated it, despised it or farted in its general direction, please donate for the upkeep of the best Spurs fan-site on the net (that’s this one, by the way). Donate button is down the right hand side of the homepage. 
NB: Any similarities between the following account of Spurs 2012/13 campaign and any multi-million dollar budget Hollywood movies is entirely unintentional. I utterly refute the outrageous suggestion that the following contains not only spoilers but entire chunks of dialogue from a movie currently on at the pictures.
THE SMALL KNIGHT RISES
Tim Sherwood was preparing to say something he hadn’t felt able to say for years. He opened the paper, took a deep breath, then looked into the eyes of the Shelf and… decided against it. He put the paper back in his pocket. “I knew Harry Redknapp,” said Sherwood. “I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone inspires us the way he did.”
“I believed in Harry Redknapp.”
North London had been striker-free for eight years. The area was preparing for Harry Redknapp Day, when fans would celebrate the fact that Tottenham had never since had two points from eight games. Any strikers the club had known were long locked up in the state penitentiary. Or Stoke City FC as it was better known.
Meanwhile, in the skies above Spain…
Special Jose holds Les Ferdinand’s head out of the aeroplane door “Give me Modric.”
Silence.
Jose fires gun. Sir Les is bundled into the cargo hold. He drags Tony Parks to the door. “Give me Modric”
Silence.
As The Special One moves to fire his gun, the final man in the group speaks. “Perhaps he’s wondering why you would shoot a man for not selling you a player when your bid is so desultory.”
“Who are you?” asked Jose.
“It doesn’t matter who we are” came the reply. “What matters is our plan.”
Jose leaned forward, peeling off the sack over his captives head. “Andre. It’s been a long time. Was getting captured part of your plan?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t win this, you know. Madrid are not your average dealers…”
“Neither am I.” said AVB, snapping Mourinho’s neck, sending the plan crashing to the ground while rescuing the Croatian scientist. As they zip-wired upwards into Spurs’ Lear Jet he whispered into Luka’s ear “Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.”
Sherwood watched the action unfold on Sky Sports News. Tottenham had failed to sign any striker. Two days before the season started. Nothing. Sure AVB was popular. But he hadn’t got a striker. Sherwood knew the truth and his cloven-hoofed sidekick knew it too. “You did nothing for eight years,” said The Goat.
“The Club needed Harry. The Club needed a hero…” whispered Sherwood.
“And now it needs one more than ever,” replied The Goat.
The first game of the season. Newcastle away. Having sold Jermain Defoe to Sunderland the day before, AVB was playing a 4-6-0 formation with no strikers. As a young boy sang “Blaydon Races”, his sweet, tender voice, softened with years of drinking Carlsberg Special Brew, echoed around St James Park, Spurs kicked off their campaign. Meanwhile a shady figure stood in the tunnel with a remote control.
“Let the games begin.”
As Giovani dos Santos did his fourth consecutive step-over, putting Fabio Coloccini on his arse, the shadowy figure pressed his remote control. The pitch suddenly imploded, sucking the tiny Mexican into the ground never to be seen again. Even though he had permanently vanished and was unquestionably dead, many Spurs fans still thought the little man could do a job for the club, if only his corpse was located and given a proper chance.
The dust settled. The pitch had gone. The fans were screaming. Out from the tunnel walked the shadowy figure in the white pointy mask.
Terry.
The dangerous twat was dragging a scrawny man beside him.
“Tell these people who you are,” barked Terry.
“I am Ian Broomfield. Spurs’ Head Scout.”
“Who else among this Club can find Spurs a striker?”
“No one.”
“No one?” asked Terry.
Snap.
Broomfield’s neck was broken. He slumped down. Dead.
In a massive, filthy hole in the ground - otherwise known as America – The Small Knight was broken. He was not the man he once was. A wise old man spoke to him. Uncle Joe. “You do not fear having no striker. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.”
“Why?” asked Daniel.
“How can you sign more goalkeepers?” replied Old Uncle Joe. “sign more defenders, sign more midfielders, sign more… strikers?... without the most powerful impulse of the spirit. Daring. You no longer dare, Daniel.”
The Small Knight considered his plight for a minute. “I do dare to sign a striker. I dare to go back to England, to find the Club a striker.”
“Then make the flight.”
“How? I can’t get out of this massive hole.”
“To dare is to do, Daniel.”
The Small Knight paused, took a deep breath. He didn’t think he could do it… but then he knew he could.
Back at St James Park, Steffen Freund stepped into the technical area and a ball fell at his feet. The crowd yelled “Shoooooot!” He did. The ball - predictably - flew high, flew wide and flew right out of the stadium. It landed so far out of the stadium it would have hit the Angel of the North but before it could, the ball was trapped by a caped figure. A man. A knight. A Small Knight. He wore a costume with two letters on the chest. D. L.
The press box gaped, for one second pausing between typing insulting sentences about Andre Villas-Boas. “That’s impossible,” said Martin Lipton or some other repugnant pillock, who thought the hero was dead.
But sure enough, there he was. The Small Knight atop the Angel of the North. He swooped down onto the pitch to confront Terry.
The caravan-dwelling simpleton, his face obscured behind his pointy white mask that allowed him to have racist thoughts poured into his brain 24-hours-a-day, looked at the Small Knight.
“So,” said Terry “You came back to die with your football club.”
“No,” replied Levy. “I came back to stop you.”
Terry snorted “You can watch me torture an entire football club. And when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfil Rom An Ghul’s destiny. We will destroy Tottenham and then, when it is done and Tottenham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.”
“Now,” bawled Terry. “AVB. What do you know about him?”
The Small Knight answered: “That you should be as afraid of him as I am.”
To prove it, at that very moment, AVB had led his team out of the stadium and had Luka Modric stood in front of the rest of the squad, hanging over the Tyne Bridge. He had already thrown Vedran Corluka, Niko Kranjcar and Stephen Pienaar over the side to plunge to their ignominious deaths in the icy cold of the River Tyne.
“There should be a jury” wailed Luka.
“This is not a trial” laughed Villas-Boas. “This is merely a sentencing. How do you wish your sentence carried out? Death… or sign for Real Madrid?”
“You just asked Stephen Pienaar “Death or sign for Everton?” then when he said “sign for Everton” you threw him in the river to catch vicious diseases and die horribly.”
“Same difference.”
“If you think I’m going to be thrown in that river willingly, you got another thing coming,” said Modric.
“So, death then?”
“Looks that way.”
“Very well,” paused AVB for maximum effect. “Death… by signing for Madrid... in the River Tyne...”
Modric was tossed to the murky depths of this horrendous waterway, at the same moment that the cheque for 40m pounds cleared Spurs’ bank account.
Two weeks later, it was deadline day. Spurs still didn’t have any strikers. AVB went to visit The Small Knight in his office. “This conversation” said Daniel, “usually ends with the manager making an unusual request.”
“I’ve given up on signing a striker” replied AVB, clearly shaken after losing his first three games in charge.
“Well, let me show you some stuff anyway. Just for old time’s sake.”
Levy hit a button and the wall slid back to reveal Fernando Llorente, Leandro Damiao, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roberto Soldado and Edinson Cavani all in Spurs strips ready to go.
Eight games into the season. Spurs had one point. Llorente’s brace on debut looked to have earned Spurs a win until a man in a white pointy mask in the crowd blew up the ground from underneath his feet. Spurs conceded three late goals when Terry picked off the Spurs defence with a rifle.
A similar pattern followed as one-by-one, Spurs powerful, expensive strike-force were assassinated by the evil Terry. By November, Spurs had managed just one draw. They were bottom of the league. The team were a wreck. After half the team had been killed in the St James Park pitch explosion and the other half killed by Terry, all that were left for the first team were a bunch of unproven kids and Jermaine Jenas on the bench.
Harry Kane in particular was a mess. Tears rolled down his cheek in the dressing room. Tim Sherwood bent down, patting the young man on the knee and looking him kindly in the eyes, before placing a warm lilywhite shirt around his shoulders.
~ 6 MONTHS LATER ~
Wembley. FA Cup Final day. Spurs’ opponents Chelsea were led out by Terry. The FA had just announced that while racism, thuggery and bringing the game into disrepute were fine with them previously, they would have to act on the multiple homicides of opposition players committed by Terry. They imposed a suspended five-point penalty.
It had been a bad season for Chelsea, relegated from the Premier League after Rom An Ghul faked his own death, leaving them with wild debts and disgruntled (and now poor) players. The FA Cup was their last chance to salvage some dignity, and they were prepared to do anything to deny Spurs the trophy the fans craved so much in AVB’s first season in charge.
Five minutes in, Rafael Van Der Vaart dribbled towards Terry. “He’s behind you” said the Dutchman.
“Who?”
“Me.”
It was Harry Kane, springing the offside trap perfectly before firing home. The first of his three goals.
After the match, Terry lay dejected on the Wembley pitch, penniless, his career over, preparing to spend a long time behind bars/at Stoke City.
The Small Knight walked over to the villain. “How the mighty have fallen, Terry. But you know the score. You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
“You think you’re the hero?” sniffled Terry.
“No” said the Small Knight. “Harry Kane is that hero. He scored more than thirty goals this season and he did it without wearing stupid yellow boots.”
Inside the dressing room, the atmosphere was buzzing. Spurs were not only back in the Champions League, finishing third ahead of Arsenal after winning their final 25 league games on the bounce, but had their favourite cup back on the mantelpiece.
Geoff Shreeves bundled into the dressing room and made a beeline for the hat-trick hero. “Harry! Harry! Amazing season. Amazing match. Amazing goals. Especially the bicycle-kick where you followed through and smashed your boot into Terry’s ball-sack. You’re a true hero.”
The youngster shrugged, looked up and made eye contact with Tim Sherwood across the room. “Anyone can be a hero. Even a man who did something so simple and reassuring as putting a lilywhite shirt around a young boy's shoulders, to let him know the world hadn't ended.”
FIN
NB: Any similarities between the following account of Spurs 2012/13 campaign and any multi-million dollar budget Hollywood movies is entirely unintentional. I utterly refute the outrageous suggestion that the following contains not only spoilers but entire chunks of dialogue from a movie currently on at the pictures.
THE SMALL KNIGHT RISES
Tim Sherwood was preparing to say something he hadn’t felt able to say for years. He opened the paper, took a deep breath, then looked into the eyes of the Shelf and… decided against it. He put the paper back in his pocket. “I knew Harry Redknapp,” said Sherwood. “I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone inspires us the way he did.”
“I believed in Harry Redknapp.”
North London had been striker-free for eight years. The area was preparing for Harry Redknapp Day, when fans would celebrate the fact that Tottenham had never since had two points from eight games. Any strikers the club had known were long locked up in the state penitentiary. Or Stoke City FC as it was better known.
Meanwhile, in the skies above Spain…
Special Jose holds Les Ferdinand’s head out of the aeroplane door “Give me Modric.”
Silence.
Jose fires gun. Sir Les is bundled into the cargo hold. He drags Tony Parks to the door. “Give me Modric”
Silence.
As The Special One moves to fire his gun, the final man in the group speaks. “Perhaps he’s wondering why you would shoot a man for not selling you a player when your bid is so desultory.”
“Who are you?” asked Jose.
“It doesn’t matter who we are” came the reply. “What matters is our plan.”
Jose leaned forward, peeling off the sack over his captives head. “Andre. It’s been a long time. Was getting captured part of your plan?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t win this, you know. Madrid are not your average dealers…”
“Neither am I.” said AVB, snapping Mourinho’s neck, sending the plan crashing to the ground while rescuing the Croatian scientist. As they zip-wired upwards into Spurs’ Lear Jet he whispered into Luka’s ear “Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.”
Sherwood watched the action unfold on Sky Sports News. Tottenham had failed to sign any striker. Two days before the season started. Nothing. Sure AVB was popular. But he hadn’t got a striker. Sherwood knew the truth and his cloven-hoofed sidekick knew it too. “You did nothing for eight years,” said The Goat.
“The Club needed Harry. The Club needed a hero…” whispered Sherwood.
“And now it needs one more than ever,” replied The Goat.
The first game of the season. Newcastle away. Having sold Jermain Defoe to Sunderland the day before, AVB was playing a 4-6-0 formation with no strikers. As a young boy sang “Blaydon Races”, his sweet, tender voice, softened with years of drinking Carlsberg Special Brew, echoed around St James Park, Spurs kicked off their campaign. Meanwhile a shady figure stood in the tunnel with a remote control.
“Let the games begin.”
As Giovani dos Santos did his fourth consecutive step-over, putting Fabio Coloccini on his arse, the shadowy figure pressed his remote control. The pitch suddenly imploded, sucking the tiny Mexican into the ground never to be seen again. Even though he had permanently vanished and was unquestionably dead, many Spurs fans still thought the little man could do a job for the club, if only his corpse was located and given a proper chance.
The dust settled. The pitch had gone. The fans were screaming. Out from the tunnel walked the shadowy figure in the white pointy mask.
Terry.
The dangerous twat was dragging a scrawny man beside him.
“Tell these people who you are,” barked Terry.
“I am Ian Broomfield. Spurs’ Head Scout.”
“Who else among this Club can find Spurs a striker?”
“No one.”
“No one?” asked Terry.
Snap.
Broomfield’s neck was broken. He slumped down. Dead.
In a massive, filthy hole in the ground - otherwise known as America – The Small Knight was broken. He was not the man he once was. A wise old man spoke to him. Uncle Joe. “You do not fear having no striker. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.”
“Why?” asked Daniel.
“How can you sign more goalkeepers?” replied Old Uncle Joe. “sign more defenders, sign more midfielders, sign more… strikers?... without the most powerful impulse of the spirit. Daring. You no longer dare, Daniel.”
The Small Knight considered his plight for a minute. “I do dare to sign a striker. I dare to go back to England, to find the Club a striker.”
“Then make the flight.”
“How? I can’t get out of this massive hole.”
“To dare is to do, Daniel.”
The Small Knight paused, took a deep breath. He didn’t think he could do it… but then he knew he could.
Back at St James Park, Steffen Freund stepped into the technical area and a ball fell at his feet. The crowd yelled “Shoooooot!” He did. The ball - predictably - flew high, flew wide and flew right out of the stadium. It landed so far out of the stadium it would have hit the Angel of the North but before it could, the ball was trapped by a caped figure. A man. A knight. A Small Knight. He wore a costume with two letters on the chest. D. L.
The press box gaped, for one second pausing between typing insulting sentences about Andre Villas-Boas. “That’s impossible,” said Martin Lipton or some other repugnant pillock, who thought the hero was dead.
But sure enough, there he was. The Small Knight atop the Angel of the North. He swooped down onto the pitch to confront Terry.
The caravan-dwelling simpleton, his face obscured behind his pointy white mask that allowed him to have racist thoughts poured into his brain 24-hours-a-day, looked at the Small Knight.
“So,” said Terry “You came back to die with your football club.”
“No,” replied Levy. “I came back to stop you.”
Terry snorted “You can watch me torture an entire football club. And when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfil Rom An Ghul’s destiny. We will destroy Tottenham and then, when it is done and Tottenham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.”
“Now,” bawled Terry. “AVB. What do you know about him?”
The Small Knight answered: “That you should be as afraid of him as I am.”
To prove it, at that very moment, AVB had led his team out of the stadium and had Luka Modric stood in front of the rest of the squad, hanging over the Tyne Bridge. He had already thrown Vedran Corluka, Niko Kranjcar and Stephen Pienaar over the side to plunge to their ignominious deaths in the icy cold of the River Tyne.
“There should be a jury” wailed Luka.
“This is not a trial” laughed Villas-Boas. “This is merely a sentencing. How do you wish your sentence carried out? Death… or sign for Real Madrid?”
“You just asked Stephen Pienaar “Death or sign for Everton?” then when he said “sign for Everton” you threw him in the river to catch vicious diseases and die horribly.”
“Same difference.”
“If you think I’m going to be thrown in that river willingly, you got another thing coming,” said Modric.
“So, death then?”
“Looks that way.”
“Very well,” paused AVB for maximum effect. “Death… by signing for Madrid... in the River Tyne...”
Modric was tossed to the murky depths of this horrendous waterway, at the same moment that the cheque for 40m pounds cleared Spurs’ bank account.
Two weeks later, it was deadline day. Spurs still didn’t have any strikers. AVB went to visit The Small Knight in his office. “This conversation” said Daniel, “usually ends with the manager making an unusual request.”
“I’ve given up on signing a striker” replied AVB, clearly shaken after losing his first three games in charge.
“Well, let me show you some stuff anyway. Just for old time’s sake.”
Levy hit a button and the wall slid back to reveal Fernando Llorente, Leandro Damiao, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roberto Soldado and Edinson Cavani all in Spurs strips ready to go.
Eight games into the season. Spurs had one point. Llorente’s brace on debut looked to have earned Spurs a win until a man in a white pointy mask in the crowd blew up the ground from underneath his feet. Spurs conceded three late goals when Terry picked off the Spurs defence with a rifle.
A similar pattern followed as one-by-one, Spurs powerful, expensive strike-force were assassinated by the evil Terry. By November, Spurs had managed just one draw. They were bottom of the league. The team were a wreck. After half the team had been killed in the St James Park pitch explosion and the other half killed by Terry, all that were left for the first team were a bunch of unproven kids and Jermaine Jenas on the bench.
Harry Kane in particular was a mess. Tears rolled down his cheek in the dressing room. Tim Sherwood bent down, patting the young man on the knee and looking him kindly in the eyes, before placing a warm lilywhite shirt around his shoulders.
~ 6 MONTHS LATER ~
Wembley. FA Cup Final day. Spurs’ opponents Chelsea were led out by Terry. The FA had just announced that while racism, thuggery and bringing the game into disrepute were fine with them previously, they would have to act on the multiple homicides of opposition players committed by Terry. They imposed a suspended five-point penalty.
It had been a bad season for Chelsea, relegated from the Premier League after Rom An Ghul faked his own death, leaving them with wild debts and disgruntled (and now poor) players. The FA Cup was their last chance to salvage some dignity, and they were prepared to do anything to deny Spurs the trophy the fans craved so much in AVB’s first season in charge.
Five minutes in, Rafael Van Der Vaart dribbled towards Terry. “He’s behind you” said the Dutchman.
“Who?”
“Me.”
It was Harry Kane, springing the offside trap perfectly before firing home. The first of his three goals.
After the match, Terry lay dejected on the Wembley pitch, penniless, his career over, preparing to spend a long time behind bars/at Stoke City.
The Small Knight walked over to the villain. “How the mighty have fallen, Terry. But you know the score. You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
“You think you’re the hero?” sniffled Terry.
“No” said the Small Knight. “Harry Kane is that hero. He scored more than thirty goals this season and he did it without wearing stupid yellow boots.”
Inside the dressing room, the atmosphere was buzzing. Spurs were not only back in the Champions League, finishing third ahead of Arsenal after winning their final 25 league games on the bounce, but had their favourite cup back on the mantelpiece.
Geoff Shreeves bundled into the dressing room and made a beeline for the hat-trick hero. “Harry! Harry! Amazing season. Amazing match. Amazing goals. Especially the bicycle-kick where you followed through and smashed your boot into Terry’s ball-sack. You’re a true hero.”
The youngster shrugged, looked up and made eye contact with Tim Sherwood across the room. “Anyone can be a hero. Even a man who did something so simple and reassuring as putting a lilywhite shirt around a young boy's shoulders, to let him know the world hadn't ended.”
FIN
