FA Carling Premiership Game 13: Saturday 1 November 1997 Tottenham Hotspur 0 - 1 Leeds United (Half-time: 0 - 1) Crowd: 26441 Referee: K W Burge (Tonypandy)
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Listers In TV Shock! - Andy King

A lively pre-match meet in The Phoenix (Once again Guy delivers the goods and recommends a top pub, excellent food, excellent beer at cheap prices, and friendly staff). It was good to meet a few listers that I'd not previously met, including Maggie - its's strange how you build up a picture of someone in your mind and they turn out to look almost normal isn't it ?

We were all over 'em in the first half, and all though Spurs came out after the break a different team, they weren't different enough to cause any real problems.

From very early on we threatened to score a hatful, Wallace blasted just wide after a coupe of minutes, then Hopkin was denied by Walker following a quick break after a bad Spurs free kick.

After about 20 minutes, Wallace broke free to the left of the area and slotted the ball home past Walker.

Kewell and Ribeiro both missed chances, and how Wallace didn't get on the end of Brunos low cross is beyond me, even on MOTD this morning this one looked to be going in all the way.

Only Dominguez and Sinton (I think) caused us any real problems in the first half. Both of them causing Martyn to make good saves.

Spurs came out in the second half looking to take the game to Leeds more, they tried and failed, Ginola looked more dangerous than he had in the first half, but Haaland still had the measure of him most of the time.

There was a second half scuffle on the edge of the area when Haaland appeared to bring Ginola down, Haaland claimed it was a dive, the ref gave a free kick to Spurs and then Hopkin got involved, a bit of pushing and Hopkin ends up with a completely needless yellow card.

All in all a far more composed performance than the week before, the scoreline really didn't do the game Justice, we should have come away with 3 or 4 more goals.

Obligatory Scores on the doors bit :

Martyn 8 - Largely untroubled, but made excellent stops when called upon.
Kelly 8 - Another solid game down the right wing
Robertson 7 - Steady, didn't mess up too often that I saw.
Haaland 7 - Kept Ginola out of things for most of the game.
Wetherall 8 - A defensive giant who is only overshadowed by ....
Radebe 9 - Didn't put a foot wrong.
Ribeiro 9 - Must be one of the best buys Leeds have ever made. Sharpey must be getting worried about his place when he regains fitness.
Hopkin 7 - Silly booking marred a solid game.
Maybury 7 - Who'd have thought how inexperienced this guy is? Slotted into the team really well.
Kewell 7 - A few good chances, but still seems to try to beat too many players.
Wallace 8 - Caused the Spurs defence no end of problems - should have had a hat-trick.
Their fans - 1
Our fans - 10 Just listen to match of the day, we out sung them all afternoon.
Favourite Chants :

Englands Number 6 - To Walker
Time To Go - After 20 minutes when we were 1-0 up.
Radebe-Debe (LEEDS!) - This one will catch on.
You're just a shit Frendh Bastard - to Ginola
And the perfectly pronounced French chant that upset Ginola when he came to take a corner near us. Mike, what did it mean ? (We didn't cover advanced incults in 16+ French!)
Went back to the Phoenix after the match, for what was quickly christend the best post match piss up this season.

The bar staff were a little taken aback by the goings on, and they commented that it wasn't true what every one said about Leeds fans, so its good to go out get pissed and still be an ambassador for the club.

The Austrian karaoke woman couldn't compete with the renditions of Marching On Together, so quickly left. The old bloke in the corner couldn't beleive his eyes when the dancing started, and didn't move, blink or shut his mouth for a good 20 minutes.

We even got free sarnies and chips - which upset Gav who'd just left in search of food, and returned to a pile of empty plates.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, involving the balcony bar at Waterloo, the buffet car on the train, a bus through the New Forest, and home. Managed to coordinate myself enough to set the video for MOTD before crashing out.

Watched the highlights of thegame on MOTD this morning and could clearly see the list faction on rows 7 & 8 just after Dominguezs' shot in the first half - Fame at last.

Saturday - Mike Sewell

Big thank you to Guy T - another excellent suggestion pub-wise. Decent food, handy for the ground, friendly people, good beer. We managed to be so affable and entertaining in the evening that they produced free sarnies and chips - but only after Maggie had left. This may have been thanks for the song and dance routines of the List 'Saturday night fever' re-make cast, or was it 'They shoot horses, don't they'? It could also have been for us seeing off the pub singer (I kid you not) when she tried certain standards to which we could bellow Leeds chants. Or it could just be that we'd doubled their usual Saturday takings on Pride. Not sure what the old racing geezers made of it all, but the Spurs fans I talked to were obviously not averse to us going back next year "If we're still in the same division as you lot."

Which brings me to the footy. We were really rather good. They were really rather piss poor. Should have wrapped it up by half time. Plenty of chances created, good approach work and too little to show for it. They got better second half but reminded me of how we have too often been in recent years - possession and territorial advantage against a side that knows you are unlikely to score. Our defence was excellent, again. We could have sealed it on the break, but didn't. So it is thanks to big Nige that we got all three points. Superb save from Campbell. The latter held them together when we pressed and without him and Walker they'd have really been in trouble. That said, Walker got beaten on his near post.

Passing, movement, mixture of high balls and neat triangles, Kewell excellent, Ribeiro just as good, Kelly magnificent. The defence rock like. Even Robertson deserves praise. Some fans were complaining that he let Ginola and Fox run too much, but in his defence 1. when anyone dived in they went down like felled timber; 2. their runs generally led nowhere anyway; and 3.he was probably playing to instructions. He seems to be growing in confidence. Maybury was good enough that no-one noticed him. It was good to see the youth team style fitting in with the first XI for a change. Eddie's influence? Footy conclusions:

Hopkin needs to button his lip - even when he thinks someone has dived; We need a striker who plays through the middle. As someone said during the game, we make great wide runs and then find no-one to hold it up in the area. We also need an efficient striker - this game should have been wrapped up before half time. There isn't really that much to choose between Walker and Martyn. But chanting "England's number 6" was fun, as was "If Walker plays for England so can I." One has a shot-stopping weakness on his near post, the other seems sometimes lost with the ball bouncing between him and his defenders. I'd pick Nige behind Seaman, but I'm biased.

And on to the fans. We was great. Terrific volume, fine wit, much bemusement from the home fans. WATC-COE done well. And I swear that Ginola heard and didn't like "Ginola encule" - BTW it is a trad French chant. For those who want a translation, it ends up [sic] much along the lines of "Ginola take it up the arse." Tottingham stewards were well confused. I thought the list rows did a fine job of mastering the pronunciation of the u and the acute e. Pity Damian wasn't there to help.

Did the day have a downside? Well there was always Mr Mordue and the Scotch Eggs in brown sauce. I can't go on, I have to go and be sick now at the very thought.

I ended up talking to a local in the pub about how they needed a midfield more like ours in combining skill with some guts and tackling. Nice feeling magnanimity in victory.

Metropolitan Merriment - Maggie

Missing the chance to sit next to the tasty bird who started talking to me at Beeston station as I decided to go for my reserved seat; finding the Phoenix with ease (I know London, me); relief as the listers turned up en masse; putting more faces to e-mails (Andy King and Richard Naef) and confounding their expectations (one of these days I'm going to get a police artist to sketch some of the mental impressions people have of me); having the last beef stew and chips - luvverly; the Johners lookalike on our table; Simon Mordue risking life, limb and his relationship by eating two of the dubious-looking house scotch eggs; the brilliant attitude of the bar staff - even the Rev would agree that they were decent people for Southern jessies; trying vainly to impress everyone with my sooper dooper new G-Spot watch; flogging two more BDTR stickers (grand total now: 5); the endless flow of London Pride (which had no bad after effects - a sign of a decent beer in my opinion); actually getting to the ground on time - a first!; the Gods putting in yet another solid performance; young Maybury slotting in effortlessly for Halle, especially as his confidence grew as the game progressed; marvelling at Kelly's awesome stamina; telling all and sundry that Bruno will become a Leeds legend - if we can keep him; the utter silence of the Spurs fans in the first half; planting the seeds of the "Radebe-debe" chant and seeing the sprouting of the first green shoots; bumping into Nif at half time; joining the list mob party in the second half; the genuine looks of joy on the players faces at the final whistle and their acknowledging of our support (which was, our racist nutter faction apart, exemplary); back to the Phoenix after the game; breaking the bad news to everyone about the Scum thrashing Wednesday 6-1; 70s disco dancing with Julia and Claire next to the bar and making a great whopping horse's arse of meself!; deeply regretting having to leave the list party to meet some friends in central London; doubly so when I nearly got into a fight with some po-faced miseries at this poncey, pricey restaurant they dragged me to, dodecatuply so when the bill came - fourty-fucking-five quid each!!!!! - and I wasn't even that full. Next time I'm staying with the list mob for the duration.

Sorry if this ramble means bugger all to you, but it's your own daft fault for not being there. This list is bloody fantastic.

P.S. I just want to add my thanks to Guy for coming up trumps with another excellent pub recommendation - even the bog was clean enough for me to have a relaxed pre-match "Barry White".

Tottingham on Saturday - Richard Naef

I only get to a few matches, but the crowd was a good as I've experienced, standing up and singing through the first half and half time. I only heard the spurs fans on the south stand 2 or 3 times, now I know that its always difficult to judge the real crowd noise when you are in the middle of Leeds fans, but MOTD confirmed that we mashed 'em. I could have done without the gas and belsen chants, but there you go - next time maybe I'll have the balls to do something.

The team played well. IMO, Maybury slotted in like a regular, Radebe did nothing wrong, Robertson set up the goal and Rod could have had 3 at least.

Favourite moments;

One spurs fan in the South Stand standing up and flashing a solitary fiver at us and us responding with "He's only got a fiver!"

A superb footballing experience (no really)

Wearing my wifes tights, cos it was too cold to be out on the bike otherwise.

WAT-COEing while waiting for a veggie burger (ahem).

Belting past a car full of spurs fans at 90mph, signing one nil, one nil (don't try this at home children) , I don't supose they had an idea what was going on but who cares.

rows of open mouthed spurs fans agog at the cheeky antics of our fans.

Getting a honest to goodness "mind altering" buzz from being in the midst of a the beast which is the Leeds fans.

A Plea

Super Saturday - Bazzer

What can be said ....other than we are a truly good footballing unit!

Saturday showed the world, that on their day this Leeds team can beat anybody. What's really encouraging is their day is happening more frequently.

After watching Tottingham pass the ball to both linesman for the first five minutes. The White legends saw that the game was there for the taking. Smooth flowing moves were only let down by some premature and nervous finishing. Walker saved well from Hopkins and Ribero, whilst Wallace missed the easiest chance of the season on Walkers far post.

This didn't deter the Gods or the Gods disciples, who were as usual, outsinging the home fans.

On 19 minutes Robertson, playing by far his best game for Leeds, (although I still think he's crap!), slotted Super Rodney through one on one with the keeper . The little man made up for his previous miss by pushing the ball under Walker, for what looked like the first of many.

More flowing football followed but we just couldn't add to our tally.

It was a superb first half performance, with Alfie superbly disciplined in taking Ginola out of the game, Kewell and Wallace making great off the ball runs to create space for the midfield and Ribero probing and working non-stop......what a find!

In the second half, Spurs reorganised and were more potent. Cambell had a bullet header superbly saved by Nigel, but Wethers, Maybury and "Lucas the wonder man" were as good as the forwards were in the first half.

Harry and Rod both had great chances to add to thescoreline, but Walker came out well twice. All in all a great performance, and a great return from the reverse at Wimbledon last week.

Once again the Leeds fans were brilliant, except for one very sad fact.....racisim. We had 900 hundred tickets , approximately a third of our fans were hissing, or singing Spurs were on their way to Belsen, Hitlers gonna gas 'em again!

As a human being I find this offensive, as a Jew it makes me sick. Last year I got nabbed by the police for smacking a bloke near to me who was singing this. I purposely picked the biggest bugger I could find. As I wanted to see the end of the game this year I kept silent, but fuming. I don't care about people using the word Yid, I'm proud to be a Yid, and proud to be a Leeds fan.

Unfortunately there's still a lot of scum following the whites. It's also sad that the police won't stop the racists, just the people who want to stop them.

Spurs: Good bits and bad - Claire

Loads and loads and just about everyone has said what. A fine day out. Top pub, with friendly home fans. Good game, attractive _and_ effective footie. A joy to watch and shout at.

Kelly gets better and better, in whatever position he plays. You really wonder how much better its possible for him to get! Lucas was a star as ever. Some awesome passing and moving. (well compared to what we have been doing). I sense the influence of Lord Eddie in this. Little Rodders could and should have had a hat trick. Harry is growing into one hell of a footballer. although I still maintain that he is a natural wingback. Forwards just do not tackle like that-unless they are Ruud Gullit (hey, what a thought....) However the attempt by Mr Renouf and I to do the Harry Harry chant to the tune of Hari Krishna didn't really catch on, not surprising as the amount of beer we'd had made it difficult to co-ordinate the change to 'Kewell'. It was great being able to shout at the payers and for them to hear. Not only in the baiting of M Ginola, but also to cheer Bruno and GK when they took a corner, which you might swear they appreciated.

I agree with the bias of MOTD. They didn't show anywhere near as many chances as we had. Sky was completely different and much fairer. What is amazing is how nice the papers are being about us today. I can hardly believe I'm reading such positive things about a GG team, and about _Leeds_!!. The fact that we deserve the plaudits is usually beside the point.

The bad bits

Simon Mordue and the scotch eggs! yeurch. They must have been bad if even Gav couldn't eat one.

But seriously the other thing is the stupid anti-jewish chanting that always seems to happen at Tottingham. Because we were down the front and the acoustics at WHL are odd, we didn't hear very much of it, but we did hear the hissing. Now I understnad what was happening when we heard a chant starting and getting drowned out by another. I entirely agree with Matt on this. It is very worrying. I thought that the advent of membership cards was supposed to get rid of this sort of idiotic fascist stuff, like 'no surrender'. But it clearly hasn't. The problem is that, as Matt says, too many people join in. There have to be a hard core that start it though and they need to be identified and banned. The problem is that if you object to the 'joiners in' they can be pretty offensive, as Mike found at Coventry. The club has to act, and make it clear that this is not acceptable, so that we can then complain at the time and feel it will be taken seriously. If people fear that they might lose their right to go to away games if reported then they might think twice about joining in. Yes, that's sad. They should realise why not anyway, but they don't so steps need to be taken.

The match itself, and the list meet were great, and my report on Saturday should have been all positive, and it annoys me that mindless idiots _off_ the pitch should mean that this last paragraph was necessary. Moley, get this sorted, it's far too important to be ignored.

Writing on the wall for Francis - Martin Thorpe

Given that Alan Sugar is already understood to be a covetous admirer of George Graham's managerial talents, Saturday's first-hand demonstration of their effectiveness could not have come at a wors e time for Gerry Francis.

Although doubts remain about the true depth of the Tottenham chairman's football knowledge, even he must have spotted that Leeds's performance contained, in one impressive package, nearly all the attributes that Tottenham's season has touched only fleetingly.

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