I write this, still in shock of a display by a side that were allegedly back to winning ways, back in form. A local derby, one of the biggest a player can ever start in, where confidence can rocket or shatter, possibly making or breaking a season.

As a devoted supporter, the ineptness of Norwich City at Sunday lunchtime brought me to a new low. Like most, I was happy when Nigel Worthington was acrimoniously booted out several weeks ago, and even happier when Peter Grant got the nod. A hard-line disciplinarian, an ex-Canary who knows what the club is about. Yet how can a team picked by the straight-talking Scot give such a toothless, passion-free display, hardly worthy of any match, let alone an East Anglian derby encounter?
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As a Spurs fan I can console myself at a 1-1 draw against a team of dubious morals such as Blackburn Rovers is really a point gained rather than yet another two points lost as the race for fourth place rapidly becomes a race for sixth place in this season’s Premiership. What I can’t have though is “Son of Fergie” Mark Hughes bleating on about how hard done by his poor Blackburn side were and how referees need to be backed up by video evidence if they aren’t to ruin games as Phil Dowd supposedly did yesterday.
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No they can?t be found in the Premiership. Actually it?s very difficult to find them at all in their far flung home at the end of the Northern Line. Nevertheless I?m a determined individual and it was going to take more than engineering works to stop me from seeing the side who are now technically my local club, living as I do in the London Borough of Barnet.

It was my first visit to Underhill and as I descended down the slope which gives the ground its name I caught a glimpse of the stadium between the houses. Corrugated iron and concrete constructing a predominantly terraced ground, I would have been rubbing my hands in anticipation if they weren?t so deeply buried in my pockets safely sheltered from the cold. I was not here to see a gleaming new 60,000 seater stadium with state of the art facilities and a finely cultivated pitch that was for certain. I was here to watch a game of football, played on a surface which could boast more bumps and curves than Jennifer Lopez and watched by fans standing just yards from the pitchside.
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I took a risk last week. As it was Reading v Tottenham, I invited a Reading supporting fan and my mate from work that is also a Spurs fan around to my house for the big game. Having beat the Chelsea the week before, the Reading fan cried off and it was left to me and Birrell to enjoy the game. As we discussed the tactics and line ups, we both agreed that the key was starting well. If we came out all guns blazing and immediately put them on the back foot, we were in with a chance. As it was, we limped out and the writing was on the walls.
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There was no doubt in my mind that football was becoming more defensive in a tactical sense. I?m too young to remember the 2-3-5 days first hand but in this day and age its hard to imagine that such free-flowing gung-ho attacking football ever existed, and Real Madrid seem to prove why all-out-attack has lost it?s way in the game. But I can could see how 4-4-2 naturally progressed as the biblical football formation, with its solid defence, the chance for attacking wingers on the flank, an engine room with the choice of defensive or attacking options and the opportunity for a deadly strike partnership.
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I have a funy feeling that most of today’s overly pampered Premiership superstars would be expecting an arm around the shoulder and some tender loving care from their manager if they had suffered the indignity of having their eyebrow bitten off in a brawl while out on the town but then Neil Warnock is no ordinary Premiership manager and, as is to be expected, he has been less than supportive of Paddy Kenny’s plight.
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Reports this morning suggest that Rangers winger Chris Burke has ?done a Shaun Maloney? and cancelled negotiations on a new contract, preferring to see what is on offer from other clubs in the January window.

It?s a massive gamble for a boy who has obvious talent but who has spent most of his three years in the Rangers first team squad on the treatment table.

Football now exists within a context wherein most of the pundits we see in the media are agents, or at least have an agency stake, so it?s not surprising when you hear some has-been trot out tripe like: ?The boy has to look after himself; football careers are short, you?d do the same?? etc.
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Another match, another goal conceded for England because of dodgy defending from their two “world class” centre backs and, unsurprisingly, the pundits just can’t wait to stick the boot into Paul Robinson and blame him for the goal.

Am I spotting a trend here with everytime England play a game now that the goalkeeper gets the blame for the ball going in the back of the net no matter whether it’s directly his fault or not? Surely we can all say that Robinson should come off his line with a little more confidence these days but having been on the receiving end of so many press batterings over the course of the summer and this season I’m not at all surprised that he isn’t working at the very peak of his powers and when you get idiots like Mark Lawrenson putting the blame on him again last night for not clearing the throw in which led to Holland’s goal then it’s only going to make things worse.
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Graham Rix began his footballing career back in 1974 as an apprentice with Arsenal. He made his debut for the first team in April 1977 and quickly became a regular fixture becoming captain in 1983. His career at Arsenal faltered when a series of injuries kept him sidelined and he was finally released from the club.

Rix continued to play football for smaller clubs before becoming Chelsea youth team coach in 1993 and then being promoted to Assistant Manager under Rudd Gullit in 1996. His career seemed to be going from strength to strength until allegations arose concerning Rix having sex with an underage girl aged 15.

Rix admitted to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse and in March 1999 he was convicted receiving a 12 month prison sentence. Rix was 41 years old at the time and had been married for 17 years when he had sex with the 15 year old whom he met in a West London Hotel.
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It was almost thirty years ago (December 1976) that the Sex Pistols burst onto the scene, declaring that they were anarchists. Let’s just stop for a moment to reflect on that: the punk movement is thirty years old. It probably has two kids and a mortgage now.

But while the Pistols were happy to proclaim their anarchic tendencies (amongst others) to the world, in the thirty years since, there haven’t exactly been many people willing to step forward and declare their bigoted nature.

It is widely accepted that racism, sexism, disability related discrimination and religious bigotry are plain wrong. It seems to be taking longer for the equivalent message for homophobia and age discrimination to get across, which is a shame, but inroads are being made, and I feel that my generation (despite growing up in Thatcher’s Britain) are more tolerant and less bigoted than any preceeding generation.

But the message is still a long way from complete. Step forward the UK’s national sport and flag-flyer for bigotry ? football.
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