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Camden New Journal - THE CROW by RICHARD OSLEY & GARY SMITH
Published: 18 October 2007
 
Sling yer hook, sweet chariot... we don’t care

RICHARD is, to use Facebook grammar, fed up with anybody who thinks that “we” did something good by getting to the final of the World Egg-­Chasing Championships. There is no “we” in this at all. I couldn’t care less. And neither should you. This isn’t a sport. It’s just fighting. No skill. Just fighting. And stop pretending that you understand how the touchdown penalty try thingy works. Five points for sliding on the floor. Only two for a goal.
I’d rather say Top Four Tottenham were worthy of a place in the Premiership that admit that this is a genuine sport. Most countries in the world simply reject it. It’s not a global game in the way football is because most people don’t class fighting as a sport.
If England win on Saturday, they will basically be champions of about five or maybe six teams that are half-good at kicking oversized peanuts off the pitch – apparently it’s a skill to kick it out for a throw-in – and fighting. Hardly an achievement.
Now, if England were to win the football World Cup – that would be an achievement. We would be the best at a game played and enjoyed in every quarter of the world – and we would have done it with Steve McLaren, a hapless manager who in club football was only good enough to win the League Cup.
Rugby is boring, private school, caveman-like fighting. I will be avoiding all pubs on Saturday night and if anybody is drunkenly singing Swing Lo outside my flat window – like last weekend – they can expect a bucket of water on their heads.
Now, let’s get on to some proper stuff. Arsenal have a far more important match on Saturday.

SO, Richard Osley can finally wipe the smug grin from his face: Spurs have beaten Arsenal! Actually England beat France in the rugby, but I’m sure you’d agree it all amounts to the same thing.
Meanwhile, I hear Jurgen Klinsmann is ready to open talks on becoming manager. A Spurs playing legend who couldn’t quite cut it as boss of his national team coming home to lead us to glory. Am I the only one suffering a déjà vu here? Klinsmann isn’t the answer, just as Hoddle wasn’t six years ago – we don’t learn.
Martin Jol had everything in place to take us where we said we wanted to go. As it turns out it wouldn’t have been Arsenal, but Chelsea we displaced in the top four – marginally less satisfying – but no, we’ve skipped hand in hand with The Blues, straight down football suicide lane.
Like them, we’re getting rid of one of the best managers we’ve ever had because he refuses to dance to the tune of the owners. Jol didn’t want Bent any more than Mourinho wanted Shevchenko, but he had to take him rather than the left winger or midfield enforcer he’s been begging for. Left alone and given what he wanted he had potential. Harangued and humiliated by his employers he has given up, and I don’t blame him.
Unfortunately for Spurs and less importantly, Chelsea, this is what happens when billionaires or billion pound companies buy into clubs when they know nothing about football. We can only hope Arsenal’s moneybags suitor closes a deal sharpish.

* Gary Smith is a Spurs fan from Regent’s Park

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