People’s reading habits are changing all the time, advancing.
“The great fallacy is that the game is first and foremost about winning. It’s nothing of the kind. 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.”
I occasionally see a West Ham fan on the bus. Yesterday he was positively breezing through his latest summons for shoplifting with just a finger tracing along as he silently mouthed the words. Not once did I see him ask anyone for assistance.
That Blanchflower quote has become almost an unofficial club motto at Spurs. And it has also proved something of a millstone for every team that has followed in the footsteps of the Double winners. It is taken as evidence that the way the team plays is more valued than the results it gets. But this, I would argue strongly, is to misunderstand the point Blanchflower was making. It’s the “first and foremost” bit that gets overlooked. Blanchflower never dismissed the importance of winning. He was a professional footballer with enormous ambition, after all.
The section that talks of “going out and beating the other lot” is a pretty clear indication that winning was foremost in his mind. The point is that for Blanchflower, winning was a given.
Of course you were there to win, because that is the nature of sport. But how you win is what distinguishes mere success from glory and, as he said, the game is about glory.
Mde De Hotspur has a kindle apparently. I only know this as it one of the things with a red sticker on it and I’m not allowed to play with anything that has a red sticker.
He was, in the words of sports journalist and long-time admirer Julie Welch “football’s stylish song-and-dance man, playing the game the way Gene Kelly danced”.
And let’s not forget that point, because for all that can justifiably be said about Blanchflower the thinker and personality, he was without a doubt one of the finest footballers to grace the turf.
Martin Cloake and Adam Powley are quite rightly among other things highly respected authors. This is another reason to appreciate their literary efforts. The pair have teamed up yet again to produce a series of ebooks called Sports Shots.
The Danny Blanchflower Sports Shot is 12 chapters of all you need to know about a revered Spurs legend. After all, aside from that Connor MacCleod bloke and Cliff Richard, non of us are immortal. This is the stuff that keeps the new blood in our tribe well and truly in touch with the past and how important that it is kept alive.
Blanchflower was a clever man, but he recognised the simple pleasures of football and much of his intellectual application was dedicated to debunking the efforts of those who would make it overcomplicated.
At just £2.99 this includes VAT & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet. HERE
Make someone’s Christmas and watch them get merrily stuck in to a great slice of Tottenham’s past (readers purchasing for themselves will have to use a mirror to achieve this).
The Perfect christmas present for my wife!!
POPQUIZ HOTSHOTS…
This weekends game away to WBA, do we stick with our winning 11 or do we look to bring Sandro into the Midfield aswel next to Parker and drop Lennon to the bench? ala 4-2-3-1
Lennon off for me, Cpt :-|
Off off off.
You stay the same and don’t change a consistently winning team. Lennon had a good game last time out even putting a chance on a plate for Ade from 7 yards which he somehow contrived to head wide. Doesn’t go down as an assist but did everything that one could ask of him.
As for Danny, never saw him play, well not that I can recall, but his presence and legend has been with us. Luca and Chelsea should understand you cannot purchase immortality, but you can achieve it!
It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it. We’ll need to put out a decent side on Weds to put the Europa League in hibernation and have ourselves a very merry Christmas in Dublin without any undue pressure.
…don’t you mean 1-3-2-3-2 (including Friedel, that is)…what I mean is you’d have a midfield of Parker-Modric-Sandro, because anyway I thought VdV was playing more as a 2nd forward against Villa than as a midfielder, just behind Ade? Anyway it looks different, might confuse the pundits
Yep, drop Lennon and bring in Sandro. With Parker beside him he will be able to drift forward.
I am expecting a few surprisingly half-decent counter attacks from West Brom so we will need cover in midfield.
Still, I reckon we could punish em if we keep the spirits up, as we have been
COYS
…and I remember watching Blanchflower…and White & Greavsie and all of them, that double year was my first on the terraces and its still vivid. since then I’ve been thinking its been downhill ever since, but maybe not with this team, and its the same thing…its not just that they are winning, its the way they are winning, a joy to watch. But will Levy & Harry be able to keep them together?
I hate to spoil all your wonderful memories, but JG didn’t join us until the season after the double.
I was lucky to see Blanchflower play alongside other Spurs greats such as Mackay snd White. A consummate footballer with great soccer intelligence. I suspect he had an edge to him and did not tolerate fools gladly. Hence his wonderful lack of performance with Eammon Andrews on “This is your Life” and some of his pithy comments to the media. But on the field he was an artist.
Met Danny Blanchflower once – when I was about 10 or 11. He’d played a charity game at the Cape Asbestos playing field in Barking (now Harts Lane housing estate). He parked his Jag ( blue as I recall) outside my house opposite Barking Working Men’s club after the game and went in to ‘socialise’. Me, my brother and another mate (Stephen Caldwell?) waited for ages by his car for him to come out and sign our autograph books. When he came out we were the only kids still there by his car. When we asked for his signature he said “Not now”, got in his car and drove off. I was too young to utter rude words without getting a belting from a passing adult. But my Mum has disliked him ever since. For my part I put my disappointment aside and I still remember him as one of the greatest players ever to grace the white shirt with a chicken badge on it. I did go to Jimmy Greaves’ house once and he was more obliging… but that’s another story…
I was told the same thing as a nine year old by Sir Bobby Charlton, but we’d just given them a five goal slapping. Got all the other’s except that baldy old bastards,including the legend that was Georgie Best.