Early doors is the term favoured by football pundits, I believe, but I doubt very much if any of those overpaid opinionated gits have been out of bed at the crack of craa shite to visit a ground at yon end of the country.

Some of us were. The bait was duly put up, the seats on the bus claimed, and the heads laid against the pervy pillows and a few extra minutes sleep gained. By the time we’d stirred ourselves, it became apparent that the pork pie selection that I’d brought was lacking the essential ingredient –mustard. Thankfully, one of those lovely ladies on the bus made clever use of a coffee-cup top from the services to bring sufficient of said condiment to see the pies away. The driver being a good guy, we were dropped off as close to Enfield as possible, and legged it to the Kings. Except the Kings had plywood where the windows should be, which was a bit of a blow. We quickly found a (rough as bull’s lugs) pub over the way, met up with nephew Mat, and gave him enough for a beer. Being related, he chose the cheapest (Greene King IPA) at £1.65, but he was robbed. Still, we had a good bevvy, Lee got the shots in (see that? Lee – Enfield –shots) only slightly spoiled by the natural reaction of English people to remove the lock from every toilet door in every pub in the world. If you’ve ever done that sort of thing, please don’t do it again. I can’t reach.

So we managed to get to the ground without paying our trainfare, thanks to the far less than useless ticket machines. I’d have happily paid my fare, but I couldn’t find a machine or person who was capable or willing to take any money from me. All of which meant that we had enough time to use the hopelessly marshalled bogs and find our seats – just in time to see a replay of our last visit. So we lost 3-2, but it seemed to fire up the visiting fans a lot more than the somnolent home folks. They’d managed to crash-land the Starship Enterprise in the middle of our seats, just to get in they way of your view, like, and they turned up the volume of the PA to such an extent that every sound was distorted….and wasted , as the home fans steadfastly refused to get involved in the business that is a football match.

Kevin Prince Boateng? Oh, give your head a shake and tell them what your real name is. We started with Gordon, McShane, Nos, Evans, Collins, at the back, Whitehead, Miller, Yorke, . Off we went, Noz tried a dopey bit of showboating in the right-back position and left Macca with no real chance to clear upfield, and the rebound allowed an easy cross by Spurs and an easy goal at the back post. 90 seconds gone, no chance for Gordon, and the game going the way games did in our last two Premiership campaigns. Being a goal down seemed to spur the opposition on (see what I did there –Spurs and that?) to exert more pressure on us, which they did. Berbatov missed one that I’d have put away, then a couple of other Spurs players decided not to score before Gordon decided to show the world that he is a top ‘keeper and produced a string of decent saves.

Evans joined in the fun with a few good tackles to prevent Spurs getting back into the game after the goal, but then we spent the best part of the first half watching the home side waste chances and our defence doing their job. Jemaine “daft haircut” Defoe broke through but we managed to keep him out, then Gordon produced a great save on 34 minutes. Soon after this, and offside-looking Berbatov drew another good save from Gordon. McShane was rugby-tackled on the halfway line but found his name in the ref’s book, just before Stokes was replaced by Chopraand we went from one up front to a more positive 4-4-2.

Half time and a goal down was probably about right, as they’d been at us like mad things for most of the half and relied on Gordon’s long legs to keep it to one. In the second half, however, we were right into them, and must have had at least 75% of the ball.

Does all that possession count for anything? Does it bollocks. For 45 minutes, Murphy busted their right back and got the crosses in, and for 45 minutes we steadfastly refused to put the ball in the net. Collins headed just over, Chops swung a leg and missed, Jones broke through a couple of times only to see his efforts blocked, then we went all Sunday morningish. Corners came in. Spurs got bodies in the way, we missed the target. Miller and Yorke pulled as many strings as they could, but it wasn’t enough. For the last 30 minutes, it was all Sunderland. We piled into their box, we got the shots and corners, but we didn’t put the ball away. Play as well as you like: if you don’t score, you don’t win.

All that second-half pressure, and nowt to show for it. If we are to survive, we really need to start taking points off moderate teams like Spurs. But then, are they really that moderate when they score after a minute, and then when we let Robbie Keane a clear shot at goal in injury time? No, it means they’re better than us. They might be passionless, overpaid, and almost silent, but they won.

I got back to Bish in time to catch an hour of the Grumpy Old Men (appropriate, and I could show them a thing or two about being grumpy) at the Grand then into the Tut for the Smiths and Heaven Knows I’m Miserable now. How do they know I’m on my way?

As for the Man of the Match: Gordon had a tremendous first half, and I’ve yet to see the second goal in detail. Collins almost scored twice and defended well, while Miller pulled a lot of strings, but for me, despite curling a right foot shot side, it has to be Daryl Murphy fro his general bustling play and string of good crosses.

Please feel free to disagree. On another day, we’d have won that game 3-1 but that’s not our way, is it

Keep the faith. Please.

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