Bit of a strange thing to say about a 0-0 draw, but Saturday’s encounter between County and Aldershot was genuinely enjoyable: a terrific game of football. The Shots defended well and were threatening on the break, especially in the second half, and although Notts pressed through0ut they just couldn’t squeeze the ball past the goalkeeper or over the line. Almost entirely a different team from last season, the home side are benefitting not just from new personnel, but a new approach: gone is the hopeful boot up front for a hapless striker to run on to, instead this is proper football played on the deck, the ball being moved through the midfield [Davies from Shrewsbury and Jackson from Tottenham, outstanding] out to the wings or up into the area for men to run onto. There just remained, on this occasion, the small problem of putting the ball in the net. Not something that bothered my other team the following day .
To be amongst the 36,000 plus at White Hart Lane on Sunday was to bear witness to something joyous and remarkable. And it will, I imagine, become one of those occasions where the numbers claiming to have been present would have filled the stadium umpteen times over. In case you’ve missed the headlines, Spurs beat Wigan 9-1, Jermaine Defoe scoring five.
The first half was a curi0us mixture; Spurs were so fast and skilful for the first fifteen or twenty minutes, it looked as if Wigan might get overrun, but then, somehow, the home side took their foot off the pedal, lost focus and concentration, and let the visitors back into the game; by the half-time whistle we were fortunate to be a single goal ahead. During the interval, Harry Redknapp must have had a quiet word in his players’ ears. The effect was electric. Three goals for Defoe within seven minutes, Lennon running at the Wigan defence at speed and, on the other flank, Niko Kranjcar challenging hard and then playing neatly threaded passes and long, curving through-balls that were sublime. As the goal after goal went in, a sort of half-dazed, half-crazed euphoria spread around the stands; this couldn’t be happening, except that it was, right before our eyes. “We want six!” ‘We want seven!” “We want eight, nine, ten …” We were there: a day to remember for sure.