Hi, everyone! Fitzie’s stuck in day-job travel hell so Matty and I will be covering the Hoddle for most of the rest of this week.
I’ve been covering transfer deadline days for Carty Free since 2012 when I was a mere Commenter-American and part time Spurs poetry writer and occasional article poster under Kim McCauley. Tuesday is Deadline Day and I can’t decide yet if it’s going to be a relatively quiet window or if there’s going to be tons of action.
Obviously a busy transfer deadline day is great for
traffic, and traffic pays the bills. There have been deadline days where I’ve posted upwards of 15-20 different articles as rumors flew, deals emerged, and then disappeared back into the wilds of Bat Country. But Tuesday is also the second day of classes at the college where I work, and the day before a treatment, so I’m kind of hopeful that Spurs may have wrapped up all their business before then because I am never busier, nor more tired by the end, than on a busy deadline day when I have a day job as well. It’s not like during the Levy years when Spurs left everything late so that they could get the best possible deal. Those were WILD years — and while sometimes things fizzled out, there were always crazy stories.
There was Paulo Dybala’s transfer that fell apart due to image rights. There was Moussa Sissoko literally ghosting Everton, who had a plane waiting to take him to Liverpool to sign. There was Eden Hazard, who famously had a medical at Spurs and then left them in the lurch to sign for Chelsea. And plenty more besides.
But perhaps my favorite transfer deadline day story was on deadline day in 2010 when Spurs signed Rafael van der Vaart from Real Madrid out of nowhere and with minutes to spare before the window closed. Back then the idea of signing someone like van der Vaart was unthinkable. I was only three years into my Spurs fandom and still barely knew what I was doing or what to think, but finding out that Rafa was signing for us and not for, say, Manchester United was an incredible rush. It was pandemonium and pure joy amongst online Spurs fans back then, and I’m not sure there’s been a last-gasp Spurs transfer since that has ever come close to sparking the emotions of that day 16 years ago. No purple dildo in a Sky commentator’s ear could match that.
What are your best memories of Tottenham Hotspur on transfer deadline day? Put them in the comments.
Song of the Day: The Felice Brothers, “Jazz on the Autobahn”
Here are your daily links.
Wanna get mad at Jonathan Liew? You know, madder than you already are. Well, his latest column, which suggests that Tottenham is suffering from “generational trauma” and that’s why they are still bad. (The Guardian)
American TV darlings Wrexham are winless in the Championship this season, and manager Phil Parkinson might be under pressure “for the first time.” (BBC)
Tottenham Women’s “under the radar” purchase of Kirsty Hanson from Aston Villa might be the summer’s smartest move yet. (BBC)
