Thanks to all you Spurs fans. Thanks even more if you recognise our greater need for points (just now) and grant us an away win on condition you still finish much higher.

The response to my launch of Who Are They? has been tremendous, with articles lined up for future games and a great bunch of postings for more immediate use.

Sappers’s witty offering is already up there and further pieces from Logan Holmes and “Paxton Lee” will appear over the next 24 hours, with yet another, from Greg Meyer, also promised.

Three is obviously too many. Four is absurd. It will never happen again. But this is a launch after all and how can you turn away such kind and compelling stories of and reflections on the history, recent and less so, of our two great clubs? There is truly fascinating reading in these essays.

I will find a way of making the multiple Spurs pieces easily viewable without cluttering up the main postings column. If I can. But with mentions of Raich Carter, Chris Waddle, Paul Stewart, Jimmy Greaves and Ben Alnwick to come, it’s worth sticking around whatever my struggles with blogosphere technology.

With the exception of my very good friend David Sapsted’s words, already posted, these items appear thanks to Jim Duggan, who runs the Topspurs site. And no sooner had I thanked Jim for being such a gent than this arrived (from Jim):

(more…)

See also: A tale of two Keanes
What Kevin Ball did with the goal at his mercy
That’s 100 competitive games between SAFC &s Spurs

**************************************************************************

Sunderland beating Spurs in the first game of the season was the last thing Londoncentric sports writers expected. Weren’t Tottenham going to be one of the big performers this season? David Sapsted – Sappers to his pals – certainly thought so

CAST your mind back to last August, if you will. There was a foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey, fires raging across southern California and – as ever at that time of year – the pulses of Spurs fans were racing notably faster than normal.

The 2007-8 season, we told ourselves, was going to be the one when we finally fulfilled all that promise…our team of perpetual under-achievers (only thwarted, if you recall, from a place in the Champions’ League a few months earlier by some dodgy lasagne on the eve of the crucial West Ham game) were going to come good at last.

No doubt about it. Absolutely none. We were all supremely confident and, for the first time in a lot of years, had good cause to be so.

That supreme confidence endured almost the entire 90 minutes of the opening match at the Stadium of Light. OK, so it was not going to be a win, but an away point against a team with a Keane sense of purpose would still augur well.

(more…)

Salut! Sunderland introduces a new feature – Who Are They? – in which we hear from fans of the teams we are due to meet.

In each case, a rival supporter who fancies his or her way with words will be invited to write on any topic relating to the two clubs.

One concern was whether we would be able to persuade people to take the trouble. We needn’t have worried. Two e-mailed requests have produced a total of three articles written or promised by supporters of Tottenham Hotspur, our opponents on Saturday.

This is an embarrassment of riches, but it seems ungrateful not to publish all three, not least because they are or promise to be rather good. Watch this space; the first will appear later today, the others – inshallah – will be posted between then and Saturday morning.

If anyone knows a suitable candidate from any other team we still have to face this season, please ask him or her to get in touch. Salut! Sunderland already has writers lined up for the games against Liverpool (a), Wigan (h) and Portsmouth (a).