I last went to the men’s team North London Derby at Tottenham in 2007. I went with my son-in-law who sadly supports the Marshdwellers. Before the game we went into a Tottenham pub – the home support was rabid. At the bar I asked one of the lads queuing what he expected to happen today. “We’re gonna lose aren’t we, we always lose to that lot,” was his reply. When, rather mischievously, I enquired why, he commented, “Because they are miles better than us!” (expletives deleted). We were in the middle of an unbeaten run against them which extended to 17 games. For the record, we conceded a last minute goal by Jermaine Jenas which gave Tottenham a fortuitous point. From the reactions leaving the ground you would have thought they had won the Champions League!
While we were drinking we went into the beer garden. As you might expect, a lot of anti-Arsenal songs were being sung. I expected this but what I naively didn’t expect was the level of hatred for Arsenal. Vitriol was dripping from every pore. Obviously at our place we sing a lot of derogatory songs about Spurs but (and this may be my imagination) they are sung with a degree of humour and amusement. In that garden there was sheer naked aggression. I recalled that moment when I was wending my way through Liverpool Street station on the afternoon when Spurs played that notorious recent game with C115y. The hate towards Arsenal was tangible in the media, among Spurs fan sites and in conversation. It struck me that the relationship, on their side anyway, had become profoundly toxic. I thought I would take a look at how the rivalry has developed since I first followed Arsenal and why it has reached the extremes of toxicity we see now. And importantly, how the balance of power has altered in North London over sixty years. I will look at the different eras and the respective fortunes of the teams and the big off-field incidents that have created the level of animosity which we are seeing today.
About twenty five years ago I was driving back from an Arsenal home game on a Saturday evening listening to the TalkSport phone-in programme at the time. (I know,I know!) The host provoked a whirlwind when he posed a question about what made Spurs ‘a big side’. His very clear contention was that there was an elite in the Premier League but that Spurs weren’t members of it. I remember the first call. It was a Tottenham fan who was apoplectic at the host’s provocation and pushed back strongly. “Everyone in football knows that Tottenham are a big team” he said, without defining what exactly constituted ‘a big team’ and why Tottenham deserved that accolade. The host was a real agent provocateur and went through all the qualities he felt big teams have – from memory it was domestic achievement, European record, size of fan base and average attendance, quality of stadium and what he called ‘influence’ – were they a mover or shaker in the game? One by one he dissected Tottenham’s claim in each category and in doing so drove the caller into a frenzy. The Spud clearly felt that Tottenham had a divine right to be ranked as a big, successful club but apart from the fact that they had quite a lot of fans he had little in the way of facts to back up his argument. For the record (and it was a generation ago) the host claimed that the only big sides were Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal with a suggestion that Chelsea were almost there and were certainly bigger than Tottenham.
I thought I would examine the relationship between the clubs a generation on, and try to achieve an objective comparison of where they are but also, intriguingly, how they got there. If you are under 40 and an Arsenal fan you may never remember a time when Tottenham were consistently more successful than Arsenal other than a short period recently, under Pochettino and Conte, when they held bragging rights.
Before that, we were able to celebrate St. Totteringham’s Day regularly. But, taking a longer historical perspective the ebbs and flows in the rivalry have created some very dramatic shifts. So, let’s examine the historical evidence.
Firstly, let us look at the playing records of the two clubs:
As of 28 April 2024, 195 games have been played between the two teams since their first game in the Football League in 1909, with 82 wins for Arsenal, 61 wins for Tottenham and 52 games drawn. Interestingly, in the early 1970s I remember the two clubs were locked at an identical number of victories.
The Honours Board
Honours won by Arsenal
Football League: 10
Premier League: 3
FA Cups: 14
League Cup: 2
European Cup Winners Cup: 1
Fairs Cup: 1
Total trophy haul: 31
Honours won by Tottenham
Football League: 2
Premier League: None
FA Cups: 8
League Cup: 4
European Cup-Winners Cup: 1
UEFA Cup: 2
Total trophy haul: 17
The presence of the clock on the Goonerholic blog means that the disparity in league titles will be no surprise to Holics everywhere. As I was writing this I noticed it is 63 years, 2 months and 26 days since Tottenham won the league title.
However, I am going to begin my examination of the respective fortunes of the clubs by looking at the sixties which is when I became aware of the rivalry.
The Sixties – The Cockerel Reigns Over the Cannon
When I began to support Arsenal in 1958 I was very young (even I was young once!), following them from a South London base, not attending matches and there was virtually no television coverage, so the extent of the rivalry in North London was lost on me. I remember being happy that Spurs won the double in 1961 and seeing the incredulity and disgust on my Dad’s face that he had sired offspring that didn’t hate Tottenham! Tottenham were a very elegant team then who played great, flowing football and were in the market to sign the biggest players – among them Greaves, England, Gilzean and Chivers. Arsenal were defensively a shower but were full of goals and my first real experience of a North London Derby was a titanic clash at Highbury in the autumn of 1963. With the crowd spilling onto the pitch for safety reasons, the game was a classic. It is one of the games that live with me even now over sixty years later. Spurs took a 4-2 lead at half-time but two Eastham goals, one a penalty, had kept us in it. The score stayed the same until five minutes from time when Joe Baker made it 4-3. In the last minute Geoff Strong headed in a corner at the North Bank end and bedlam ensued.
The game underlined to me the playing superiority of Tottenham then and they were unlucky not to win. Apart from the Double in 1961 they won the Cup again the following year with Greaves in tow and then became the first English team to lift a European trophy beating Atletico 5-1 before winning another FA Cup in 1967.
It is worth pointing out that it was then not unusual for people to watch Spurs one week and Arsenal the next and for them to regard the neighbours as their second side! I used to travel occasionally to games at the Lane with two delightful characters who lived in Stamford Hill and, while rabid Spurs men, had a soft spot for Arsenal. That is impossible to envisage now. I also know that the Arsenal and Spurs players regularly went drinking together in North London hostelries and to underline the different relationship that existed then when George Graham got married he chose Terry Venables as his best man. What made this particularly significant was that the ceremony took place on the morning of a North London Derby at Highbury. George had an early wedding present as Arsenal won the match 4-0!
Arsenal drew a blank in this decade and had gone 17 years without a trophy. But they reached two League Cup Finals at the end of the period and had found in Mee and Howe a management team to compete with the legendary Bill Nicholson. While the Swindon debacle is etched on my memory, two finals in two years was nevertheless a clear sign of progress and, tellingly, we reached the 1969 final after winning a two leg semi with Tottenham due to a late equaliser from John Radford. It was clearly Tottenham’s decade in terms of achievement and trophies but momentum was shifting towards Arsenal.
The Seventies – An Arsenal Double Sets off a Decline at White Hart Lane
This momentum was slow to flower as we entered the seventies. Arsenal exited the FA Cup ignominiously to Blackpool and had lost to Tottenham at Highbury at the start of the 1969/70 season. But we had Europe to cling to and as the team gelled we ended up winning our first European trophy in 1970 against Anderlecht. I remember going to White Hart Lane a few days after the Fairs Cup triumph for a meaningless end of season game (if ever such a thing exists between these two clubs). There was a real sense that a new era was beginning even if Gilzean, our Nemesis, scored again to decide the game.
That new era feeling was in full swing as soon as the next season began and the first part of a glorious Arsenal double was clinched, unforgettably at the Lane. That season Tottenham actually finished third and won the League Cup but they were very much put in the shade. Nicholson departed and Tottenham went into a decline that was even steeper than Arsenal’s, despite a solitary Spurs League Cup triumph. The departure of Don Howe set Arsenal back enormously but Tottenham’s decline saw them cling to survival on the last day of the season in 74/75 only to be relegated the following season. Arsenal were also very poor but there were obvious green shoots with the emergence of Brady, O’Leary, etc. and the transfer of a useful young goalkeeper, Pat Jennings, who was ditched by Tottenham when still one of the finest keepers in Europe. Arsenal had three ex-Spurs in their team with Willie Young and Steve Walford by the end of the decade and had purloined Tottenham’s manager, Terry Neill, who had spent most of his career at Arsenal and had rebuilt Tottenham after their instant return to the top-flight.
Arsenal started to develop a much stronger team, mainly because of the return of Don Howe to Highbury, and reached four finals in three years at the end of the decade. Three FA Cup finals saw us win against Manchester United in the legendary five minute final but lose the other two and fall exhausted against Valencia in the Cup Winners Cup in Brussels on penalties. A game no Gooner will forget was a 5-0 triumph at the Lane at the end of 1978. Tottenham had created a sensation by signing two Argentinian World Cup winners but even with the addition of Hoddle they were murdered by Brady, Rix and Sunderland providing one of the most glorious pre-Christmas moments Arsenal fans have ever had.
Visiting White Hart Lane for an Arsenal fan was becoming increasingly precarious as hooligan spectators abounded (on both sides) and ‘aggro’ was a regular and frankly terrifying feature of attending football in the late sixties, the seventies and the eighties. After entreating my mother to let me attend my first away NLD, I returned home after a harrowing day and then managed to persuade her that everything had been serene at the Lane that afternoon. She would have believed me had the news not immediately relayed the fact that an Arsenal fan was arrested in the Park Lane End with a rifle in his possession! So much for rigorous stewarding! But all Football was dangerous then, not just the NLD and I did visit Tottenham several times to see non-Arsenal games without suffering severe mishap.
Arsenal, in collecting four trophies , including our first Double , and avoiding relegation clearly had a much better decade than Tottenham. But Tottenham had made ambitious moves to get back towards the top table of English football and these moves were about to pay off.
The Eighties – Tottenham’s Heyday is Cut Short by George
The Eighties were one of the most interesting decades in the Arsenal/ Tottenham rivalry. They began with successive victories for Spurs in the FA Cup followed by a UEFA Cup win via a penalty shootout. Ardiles and Villa had written their names into Tottenham folklore and Crooks, Archibald and Hoddle gave them a cutting edge that Arsenal strikers Lee Chapman, John Hawley and Ray Hankin failed to match (those who will remember them know I’m using supreme irony!). Arsenal had made Don Howe manager but then tried to recruit Terry Venables from Barcelona. Howe left in understandable disappointment (at a time when Arsenal had an outside chance of the league). At this stage the two sides were very close in terms of games won/ lost against each other. Step forward George Graham who was to build a successful and resilient Arsenal and one that won trophies too. Tottenham parted company with Keith Burkinshaw and memorably recruited David Pleat who is best remembered by Gooners for his kerb- crawling activities.
Graham was an elegant player with a reputation for enjoying the finer things of life but he built a very well-organised team with a superb defence built around the colossus that was Tony Adams and through harnessing some exciting youth team players in Rocastle, Davis, Thomas, Quinn and Merson who had come through the ranks at Arsenal. A few years into Graham’s reign I was part of a tribute to George after he had won a second title. One of the biggest accolades came from the editor of one of the Tottenham fanzines who claimed that it was George who started to create clear blue (or perhaps red) water between the clubs.
The decade opened with Tottenham success and a degree of coherence that hasn’t always been the case with that club and ended with George Graham’s first title success in 1989 in dramatic style at Anfield. But shuffle back two years and we saw Arsenal eliminate Tottenham in the League Cup semi-final (shades of 1969) with a late goal by Rocastle. It felt like tectonic plates were shifting in North London as it did when we beat Tottenham four times at White Hart Lane in 1987. And Arsenal won their first League Cup at Wembley in 1987, despite Ian Rush scoring first for Liverpool, the finest moment of Charlie Nicholas’s stay at Highbury.
The demise of the unfortunate Mr. Pleat led to the eventual recruitment of Terry Venables who might have preceded his friend George Graham in the Arsenal dugout. Arsenal had overtaken their rivals and secured their first title for 18 years and importantly had done so without spending huge amounts of money. One of Graham’s gripes was that Arsenal had severely restricted his spending but by intensive coaching and careful recruitment he built possibly the most efficient defence in Arsenal’s history.
A new chapter was about to begin. Fascinatingly it pitted two old friends against each other: Alan Sugar who had become Tottenham chairman against David Dein who had bought his way onto the Arsenal board in the early 1980s. Dein was a successful commodity trader who suffered some terrifying business traumas but built up an incredible network in top-level European football. Despite his reputation as a business guru, the next few years were to expose Sugar as a man with a limited vision of how to develop Tottenham. Dein was starting to hatch plans that would make Arsenal a major English football super-power. We will see how in our next instalment.
A delightful wander down Memory Lane, TTG. You stir some terrible memories, however. Going to matches in the late sixties and seventies was not for the faint of heart.
The neighbour’s double team of 63 years and however many months, days, hours, minutes and seconds it is when you are reading this was encapsulated by its skipper, Danny Blanchflower’s immortal quote, “The game is about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom”.
Thanks TTG, a very enjoyable piece and I am looking forward to Part 2.
I remember when it was about equal for wins too. Of course that was in the old days before we opened our legs and showed the Spuds our class over the last 30 or so years.
Haven’t been to an NLD since I lucked into some tickets for me and my son to go to the return of Flamster when Giroud scored, we won 1-0, and serenaded the expensively assembled spud shower with “we’ve spent fuck all, 1-0” for the rest of an enjoyable afternoon. The occasional violence, hatred and bitterness before and after the game were less fun.
A brilliant piece TTG. It is a game truly like no other. When I was about 15 (1972), I used to go home and away to the NLD with three friends. There were two Gooners and two spuds and we used to go into the boys’ enclosure at both grounds. This season was the first time I have returned, this time with my son, due to fears of violence, to the High Road. I’ve written about that away day separately.
But, home or away, I never enjoy this game till it’s comfortably won. There is a tension in the ground, a nervousness. It matters too much, and in a way that games against City, or Liverpool, or United, can’t replicate, no matter how important they are.
Very much looking forward to part 2!
Brilliantly written, TTG – a mix of good and bad memories of games and atmospheres to watch them in. It was literally life in your hands time at some games.
I was at school in the seventies with a lad whose father was in the drug squad of the met police, which gave this lad a pretty much guaranteed route in himself. That was indeed his ambition as he could then get on the terraces as a lad from a Tottenham supporting family and beat up Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham fans with impunity.
Happy days 😡
Looking forward to Part 2 already.
More former members of this parish are on the move. Calum Chambers and Chris Willock have joined Cardiff, where they will find an old, familiar face in Aaron Ramsey.
A wonderful romp through the bulk of the post WW2 20th century history of this rivalry though it’s hard to identify the point at which competitive rivalry developed into tribal hatred – perhaps that’s still to come. From the dismal sixties (Dave waxed bitterly about those depressing late sixties league cup finals), through the donut seventies (how could that ’71 Double winning squad be allowed to deteriorate so quickly – but what joy in that 5-minute final!), the dire early eighties (beginning with the omen of the departures of Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton) culminating in the return of Gorgeous George as manager first lifting the League Cup then ending the long wait for the league title in that glorious game at Anfield in ’89.
During the 60’s and 70’s I watched from afar, mainly the short segment of a match offered at the end of Sportscene or Scotsport and was thus unaware of the intensity of the rivalry apart from tangential comments from the likes of David Coleman. I was far more aware of the Old Firm rivalry, the frequent street and occasional on-field battles, stabbings and deaths and the risk for a third party fan of attending either of their lairs.
However by the time I moved to London in ’83, attending a football match was a low priority in part because of work pressures, a young family and lack of spare cash. In 80’s London I was unaware of any vitriol directed towards Arsenal by any of my colleagues or acquaintances, several of whom protested Spurs affiliation, though as the decade closed there was widespread contempt summarised in the “boring, boring Arsenal” chant which of course we adopted ironically as Wenger transformed the game – but I’m getting ahead of myself and look forward to Part 2 with enthusiasm.
The intensity of the rivalry can be dated back to 1919 and the resumption of the Football League after World War One. In the final season before the war, Chelsea and the neighbours finished in the bottom two of the old First Division, while Preston and Derby County topped the old Second Division (with The Arsenal sixth). After the war, the League agreed to expand its two divisions to 22 clubs each from 20. There was no argument that Preston and Derby should be promoted to the expanded Division One. Yet, how to fill the two new vacancies? Should Chelsea and the neighbours get a reprieve from relegation, or should the places go to Barnsley and Wolves, who had finished third and fourth in the Second Division in the 1914/15 season?
By common consent, Chelsea were to be reprieved; They, not Man Utd, went down because the Red Mancs had fixed their final game against the Scousers.
The wrong righted, there was one place in the First Division left to settle.
The choice appeared to be between Tottenham and Barnsley. It went to a vote of the clubs at the League’s special general meeting in Manchester on March 11, 1919. The Arsenal received 18 votes, Tottenham eight, Barnsley five, Wolves four and Birmingham, Hull City, Notts Forest and Stockport Co. got half a dozen between them (with Stockport withdrawing during the proceedings). The Arsenal ascended to the top tier, from which we have not fallen, while the neighbours were banished to the Second Division. Sir Henry Norris, Arsenal’s then chairman and a powerful and well-connected man, had argued a compelling case, shall we say, behind the scenes — and he has not been forgiven since at the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road.
Complete chaos at the Copa America final in Miami. Unticketed fans have breached the barricades and have swarmed into the stadium in what looks to be their hundreds if not thousands. Not a good look given that the US are co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup.
I suppose I will have to think a little more kindly of Cardiff if they are accumulating ex-Gooners.
And congrats to David Raya, though he only played once. I don’t think anyone can argue Spain have been the best side in the tournament and to roll over Germany, France and England to win isn’t doing it the easy way by any means.
So here’s a question. How long do we give Saka, Rice, Ramsdale and Raya before getting them back to Colney? Two weeks? Three? Four (in which case they’ll miss the first game of the season)? Same question applies to all those who played in the Euros or the Copa America, even if they didn’t make the finals.
I don’t think there’s a one size fits all answer really, Saka and Rice played a lot whereas Raya only played one game and Rammy none. Saliba and Kai played quite a few games too, whereas Gabi and Gabi barely played for Brazil I think.
Just a feeling but I thought Declan looked most in need of a break.
The standard Premier League contract provides players with five paid weeks of holiday a year, with clubs required to allow three consecutive weeks. These days, players follow fitness programmes even while on holiday, so they return to pre-season training refreshed but with base fitness in place.
Arteta has said that the squad will be returning to pre-season training in four waves. Those who had no international football and thus had a five-to-six-week break are already back to work at a training camp in Marbella. Then comes the internationals who only played in pre-Euros/Copa America friendlies, followed by those who had an early exit from the two continental competitions, and finally, those who played deep into it.
I would guess that Saka and Rice would get at least three weeks off before returning to training and then be eased back into the team. A keeper could probably have three weeks off and go straight back into the team, especially as Raya and Ramsdale (if still with us) spent most of the Euros on the bench. The likes of Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Kiwior (also, if still with us), Jorghino, Havertz and Trossard should all be available for the start of the season on August 17.
It is going to be a long and physically demanding season, especially with the new format of the CL. Last season, Arteta showed he had learned the need to conserve energy for the later part of the season, so I would think that he will be cautious about rushing Saka and Rice back. (OM: Don’t you think Rice always looks knackered from the first minute? There is something about his expression and his gait that gives that impression even though he is an Energiser Bunny.)
Just as crucial will be bringing in a winger to the first-team squad, who can rotate with Saka during the season so he is not run into the ground again.
C100
Ned has answered very helpfully with details of current contract provisions but leaving those aside we would be very silly to rush Rice and Saka back in haste for the start of the season. Interestingly, if we were to sign any of Williams( please) , Olmo ( alright then ) or Merino we would also need to be cognisant of their exertions especially if adapting to a new, very intense , league . I suspect we will ease Rice and Saka back with a view to having them ready for our third game , although if the players are keen to return…and fit Arteta may put them on the bench for our second match . C115y have to ease back Foden, Stones and Walker and presumably Rodri and Alvarez . Guardiola is usually very careful not to rush his players back after international tournaments .
The key learning point is to sign Norwegians – they are brilliant but don’t play tournaments.
Informative and entertaining review of our relationship with the neighbours, TTG. Because of my home town’s proximity to North London, I find myself hitting little white balls around with several of their fans on occasions. There is nothing like a good whistle of “We won the league, we won the league……” to put them right off their putting, I’ve found.
Social media had a picture of Bukayo, aged nine in his first Arsenal shirt, circulating last season with the caption “Last time Saka didn’t start for Arsenal” I will not be at all surprised to see his name on the team sheet for our first game.
Cheers TTG. Great stuff, looking forward to the next instalment.
This suggests that those appearing yesterday in Berlin will return second week in August.
Reports around that both Fulham and Crystal Palace have had bids for ESR rejected. Edu clearly reads TTG’s posts!
TTG@13: City has used its ill-gotten gains wisely in building a squad that has like-for-like cover in every position. That gives Pep plenty of scope to give his stars time to recoup from international jaunts but also to get them out of games after 70 minutes or so to let them put their feet up.
Watching Pickford pump the ball long for a Spain goalkick makes me appreciate Raya even more.
I see Sambi and Nuno’s loans were confirmed, best of luck to them both.
Good we got those deals done early.
A fun read TTG, and I’m looking forward to part 2. Interesting news c100 on ESR @17, I hope he will make a breakthrough this season. Good to know Edu and Arteta have been keeping busy.
C100@16: That suggests Saka will have four weeks off and be back a week before the first league game against Wolves.
This reminds me that the new season is only a calendar month away, and with it will come the 2024-25 Predictathon. So time to start polishing up your crystal balls. More details to follow, probably at the start of August.
SP@19: I doubt Pickford’s future will be in tactical coaching. Why would anyone pump long ball after long ball up to a centre-forward who wants the ball played into his feet, especially when the centre-forward is not surrounded by other attacking players running in behind to pick up the knock-ons on the rare occasions he wins the ball in the air? Four Four Two’s Adam Cleary put it this way: Either Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham are the absolute wrong kind of player to be playing behind Harry Kane, or Harry Kane is the absolute wrong kind of centre-forward to be playing in front of them. It was a rhetorical statement.
Ned,
@12 yes, you could well be right about Declan as it was just a feeling that he didn’t seem quite right. Of course that could be related to some of the players around him being at a different level or playing in a different way to The Arsenal.
OM@24: I know what you mean in the sense that Rice made some uncharacteristic mistakes during the Euros.
There is an argument that England made a mistake by using him as the deeper of two DM pivots. While his defensive work when England didn’t have the ball was as good as you would have expected, once England regained the ball, he did not have elite forward passing range from the defensive third to break a press with incisive passes to Bellingham or Foden between the lines (although Pickford’s preference for hoofing everything towards Kane’s head may have made that hard to spot).
Clery, who is emerging as the best of the YouTube video analysts in my book, has made the point in the past that although Rice played as an orthodox DM when he first joined us, Arteta spotted that problem with progressive passing, and, after the run of poor results last December, switched him from a 6 to an 8. We went nearly unbeaten thereafter. Clery explains it about a third of the way into this video.
Thanks Ned, it’s a good argument from Clery as usual.
Other than the untested Wharton I am not sure there was any real option available for England but to use Declan in the deeper role. Anyway, as you say it was the uncharacteristic errors that I noticed, I wondered if he was just half a beat slower mentally.
Anyway, it will be an issue for the next manager now that Southgate has gone 🙂
And wasn’t Rice back at 6 for the fatal Villa loss also Ned?
SP@27: He was. But also in the next match v Wolves, which was won. However, he played higher up the pitch against the Wolves, as evidenced by his 12 progressive passes and five progressive carries, compared to seven and none against Villa. Opta only includes passes and carries started in the 60% of the pitch nearest the opponent’s goal for these two stats, so the higher numbers indicate a more forward position.
in case anyone is wondering from whence came the previous post (about the predictathon from 23-24) that was me and some wordpress majick. we’re going to have a new contest soon up on the board, the same as last year, in principle.
i’ve been largely absent since i got sick in may, and am still playing catchup in so many areas. i hope all are well, and i look forward to reporting about my trip next week to see arsenal v. united at sofi…i’ll miss the bournemouth game as it was announced too late for me to extend my trip. COYG!!
The Arsenal/ Spurs history piece has thrown up more material than I expected – so it will now be a three parter with the second part coming out quite shortly . Spoiler alert: There is quite a happy ending !
Three being more fun than two, at least for the more unconventional among us, I mustvsay I am looking forward to your next two installments TTG. 👍🏼
Re: scruz @29. I hope your summer has been a good one to this point and your recovery has been complete as can be. Thanks to you and Ned for getting to work so promptly on the new season’s predictathon. I don’t know exactly how much work is involved but it’s all appreciated, and just so you know you are not too late or early, the Premier League fantasy game is similarly being updated as we speak. I tried to log in to see if I could register my clever new team name and saw this message:
Game Updating
Fantasy Premier League is currently being updated, please try again later
Unfortunately, in all the excitement I forgot my clever new team name but there’s still time to remember!
I noticed you hadn’t been around much scruz, you were missed mate and I hope you’re getting better.
cheers, gents. my health is back, has been for a month…but i got so far behind, had an employee terminated, and other post-covid work crap that makes me look so enviously at those retired…but i only have 29 months 1 week 6 days 4 hours until i’m gone, not that anyone’s counting.
needless to say, my time and attention for all my passions is narrowed considerably, so am just in maintenance mode. i hope to be more present here as the summer progresses.
Take care, scruz.
cheers, ollie. nothing that a bunch of antibiotics and sleep couldn’t cure 🙂 retirement will cure the rest 🙂
For anyone wanting to take a trip down memory lane, the club posted a list of former first-team players who have been on the move this transfer window:
Calum Chambers – Aston Villa to Cardiff City
Francis Coquelin – released by Villarreal
Craig Eastmond – Sutton United to Wealdstone
Olivier Giroud – AC Milan to Los Angeles
Matteo Guendouzi – Marseille to Lazio (loan made permanent)
Gavin Hoyte – Maidstone to Folkestone Invicta
Carl Jenkinson – released by Newcastle Jets
Matt Macey – Portsmouth to Colchester United
Zach Medley – Oostende to Fleetwood Town
Shkodran Mustafi – retired
David Ospina – Al Nassr to Atletico Nacional
Gabriel Paulista – Atletico Madrid to Besiktas
Nicolas Pepe – released by Trabzonspor
Mathew Ryan – AZ Alkmaar to Roma
Jeff Reine-Adelaide – released by Molenbeek
Alexis Sanchez – released by Inter Milan
Chris Willock – QPR to Cardiff City
Re: Ned, I suppose the big question there is whether Jenkinson will settle innAustralia assuming his football career may be over. Closely followed, in bigness of the question, by why the Folkestone folk call themselves Invicta.
Re: Ned again. Those two questions above being mostly rhetorical, I also wondered in what country Atletico Nacional plays so looked it up, and they are based in Medellin of his home country, Colombia, which seems a suitable place to end his career. I wonder if Alexis Sanchez will do the same thing by returning to his native Chile.
I didn’t know Gabriel Paulista had been at Atletico Madrid until now but based on the importance of the clubs involved he seems to have made a decent career for himself. In his relatively short time with us he gave me considerably more confidence than (say) Mustafi who may be a bit older (?) but I see is retiring and evidently not even wanted by a club of the level of Besiktas, which is still a relatively important club in the scheme of European football even as it is in Turkey (which I wouldn’t hold against them, particularly as it is in the great city of Istanbul).
Pepe is the saddest one for me. How on earth did someone at the club think he was worth 72m? Oh..oh yeah right. I get it now.
Thanks for the list Ned.
Perhaps a step up for Matt Ryan, and maybe sideways for a couple of others.
Mustafi, Osp and HFB are more or less riding into the sunset. I wonder what’s
next for Alexis, Le Coq and The Jeff…..
bt8@38: Invicta, Latin for unconquered, is the county motto of Kent. In the 1930s, it was a popular addition to their name by many sporting clubs in the county, not just football teams. There was a Margate Invicta FC (fishing club), for example. There were also several Invicta football teams in East London. I recall playing a cup game of some sort against one of them in the 1970s. Folkestone Invicta was founded in 1936 and played in the East Kent Wednesday League; presumably, its first players were trades and shop people who worked Saturdays but had a half-day off on Wednesdays (younger ‘holics may be amazed to learn that once upon a time you couldn’t shop 24×7 and that shops used to close on Wednesday afternoons — and all day Sundays). They would have needed a name to distinguish their team from Folkstone FC, which then played in the Southern League. Folkestone FC folded at the end of the 1980s, and Invicta took over its ground. Invicta plays in the Isthmian Premier League now.
Note that ‘released’ is not always what it seems: in the case of Coquelin, he was offered an extension but declined. Rumours are he might come back to France, we shall see.
Won’t be for Bordeaux though as it looks like in a couple of weeks the club may be no more. 🙁
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