The joy and sorrow of being a Tottenham Hotspur supporter

Supporting Tottenham can test your patience, raise your blood pressure and frustrate deeply, but the joyful moments always outweigh the shortcomings. 

Testing sternly one’s resolve and pushing some to the brink, this season has been one of the most disappointing in recent memory. A string of unfortunate events saw Tottenham’s season quickly unravel. Some of the despairing happenings were down to bad luck while others had mismanagement to blame.

I won’t, to spare our sensitivities at this uncertain time, recap the catalogue of incidents that caused the derailment of Tottenham’s train, a locomotive which, frankly, never accelerated out of first gear.

Mauricio Pochettino’s early season dismissal was a tell tale sign of what was to come. Aside from a six week period, upon Jose Mourinho’s immediate arrival, the 2019-20 campaign has been an unmitigated disaster.

Coming on the back of Tottenham’s glorious, heroic, if improbable, run to last season’s Champions League Final made it a much harder pill to swallow. But even last year’s odds-defying Champions League campaign sugarcoated what was an otherwise ordinary season.

That, however, is the reality of supporting Tottenham Hotspur. You must take the good with the bad, and, when the good comes around, cherish, treasure and enshrine it. Because you just don’t how far down the line the next remarkable, transcendent moment is.

Spurs’ fall from grace this season has been well documented. One win away from claiming the most prestigious European prize has made the death-defying fall nearly insufferable. If you are an optimist, you’ll look on the bright side, saying something like “at least we got there in the first place. Nobody expected us to make it that far.”

And while a truer statement has never been spoken, it doesn’t make the heartache any easier.

February 28, 2008 was the last time Tottenham Hotspur tasted the rarefied air that comes with winning a trophy. There have been many glorious moments since, but nothing tantamount to the sweet taste raising a trophy aloft facilitates.

I’ll never forget Jonathan Woodgate’s winner against Chelsea. I was at Wembley, watching with bated breath, the nervous excitement Spurs supporters all know and love. Woodgate scored to send Spurs’ side of the stadium into a state of pure elation and utter joy.

Twelve years is a long time, so long I can’t remember what exactly that euphoria felt like. And without winning another trophy I’ll never be able to replicate nor emulate that unrivalled exhilaration.

But it’s what Tottenham supporters are feverishly chasing. Like inhaling the smoke on your first ever cigarette or seeing your first child born, nothing compares to breathing in trophy-winning air.

No matter the adversity Lilywhites go through, the tumult, frustration, pain, anger we feel in our quest to return to glory, we know at some point down the line we’ll once again taste that sweet rarefied air.

Sometimes it’s the only thing we can hold on to.