|
|
 |
| |
A nutty tale of highs and lows
 ROLL
up, roll up. What’s the difference between Spurs and a
squirrel? A squirrel has more experience in the Champions League
than Tottenham (Drum-crash-cymbal!). The oldest, crustiest joke
in the book there. But, of course, there are other acceptable
answers. A squirrel has never lost to Grimsby (only two more
weeks of the Grimsby gag, kids, stay with it). A squirrel has
never lost to Leicester.
 And
a squirrel has never cheated on the famous Highbury turf. Never
played on when a man was injured. Never celebrated a cheated
goal. Tottenham sunk to new lows with their cheaty cheating
antics on Saturday but, hey, Arsenal rose to new heights on
Tuesday night. The first London team to reach the European Cup
final – drink that up Chelsea – the Gunners deserve
to be there.
In fact, Jens Lehmann’s magical penalty save was a life-changing
moment for me. In that one emotional moment, I realised that
I would never get to dance hip-to-hip with Natalie Imbruglia,
never understand the humour of Dad’s Army, never see Spurs
relegated and never get hold of a new duffel coat.
Nope, all my wishes had come at once in that one moment, no
other dream matters now. Arsenal are in the European Cup final
and it doesn’t come bigger than that.
 I’M
ashamed and embarrassed. What was that lanky streak of pickle
Michael Carrick thinking when he played to the whistle and set
up the goal that spoiled Arsenal’s Highbury party on Saturday?
 He
could see poor old Gilberto and Eboue were in absolute agony
after tumbling into one another like a pair of Keystone Cops.
Only the very naughtiest footballers would have ignored their
plight and carried on playing.
No wonder Arsene Wenger jolly well told Martin Jol what he jolly
well thought of his team.
Shame he had to rush off and get the treatment table ready at
the end instead of abiding by that un-written rule of shaking
hands with the opposition after the match. And it’s not
as if Spurs had deserved to get anything out of the game. They
didn’t even turn up until the final quarter of an hour
and were totally out-played, out-thought and out-fought. Oh
no, that was Arsenal. Ignore that last bit. Anyway, I’d
like to apologise to Gooners everywhere for my team being boring
and the manager being a bad sport.
I only hope we can get our act together when it comes to playing
in the final stages of the Champions League next season. Oh
come on. If Villarreal can get that far, so can my talentless
bunch of ‘cheats’.
|
| |
|
|
|
