Introduction/Why I'm a Spurs Fan

My reasons for starting this blog are simple: As a new football (soccer) fan about three years ago, I desperately tried to find a way to relate to a sport that I knew essentially nothing about. Sure, I knew that there were 90 minutes in a game and that when the ball went into the back of the net, a goal a was scored and that when a player was issued a red card he was ejected. Outside of that, however, I knew little else. I didn't know who the star players were, how the transfer windows worked, or even who the game's legends were.

Now, however, I feel that I know enough about the game (and its players) to relate to an audience of people either like me three years ago, looking to become interested and involved in this sport that the whole world loves so much, or people who have followed the game considerably longer than I have.

In order to truly understand where I'm coming from, though, you must first know why I am a fan of Tottenham Hotspur, that perennially underachieving club that seems to constantly play third-fiddle in London and can't break the Top Four.

Growing up, I was a sports fanatic. I will follow pretty much any sport except for golf (for proof of this, see my other blog). I had not, however, ever been exposed to football because of an inability to watch the games (it's difficult to find a football game on TV over here). After the 2004 World Cup, however, I decided that I would become a football fan.

I knew that I didn't want to be a fan of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, the so-called Big Four. These teams already have entirely too many fans in the United States, many of whom have little to no reason to root for them outside of the fact that they win a lot. I felt that this would be the equivalent of a foreigner coming to America and deciding to be a Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers or Braves fan, and nobody likes a bandwagoner.

Plus, it's not fun to win all the time. Yes, the goal of every game is to win a championship, but those teams like Real Madrid (nine managers in 11 seasons?) where winning is simply expected are absolutely absurd. At the same time, though, it's not fun to root for a constant loser, either, particularly in the EPL where relegation is a reality.

There were also logistic problems with rooting for a team like Charlton or West Brom, as it's much more difficult to find a game in the League Championship on TV than it is to find a game from the Prem.

That basically left me with all of the so-called second tier EPL teams to pick from, including Aston Villa, Blackburn, Everton, Manchester City, Newcastle, Tottenham and West Ham. These teams are the ones competing for the fifth and sixth spots in the EPL every year and qualification in the UEFA Cup instead of the Champions League, meaning that any team that I picked would be competing for a spot in Europe every year.

I quickly eliminated Blackburn from my list of potential teams. They just didn't seem exciting enough (granted, that changed last season with Bentley and Santa Cruz), but in 2005 they weren't exciting. Their elimination was quickly followed by those of Everton, Newcastle, Manchester City, Newcastle and West Ham, all of whom just seemed too boring or unsuccessful in one way or another. That brought it down to Aston Villa or Tottenham, with Tottenham winning solely on the premise that it looked like they were going to be the team to break the Big Four.

Of course, I didn't know that this was the same year in and year out. Now, however, I have gone through the sale of Michael Carrick, the disastrous firing of Martin Jol, the false hope of the Ramos regime, the botched sale of Dimitar Berbatov and the most abysmal start to any season in the history of the franchise.

And of course, like any fan of any team, I still try to watch every single game, be it in the UEFA Cup, the Carling Cup or the EPL, which is more than some fans (AKA Bill Simmons, who picked Tottenham as his team two weeks after I did and never wrote another soccer article) can say.

As a new fan, however, this blog will sometimes have more than just Tottenham content on it, as I am interested in watching and writing about as much football as possible and not just the little bit of the football world that is Tottenham. With that said, I am devoted to my team (and to all of the make believe and real transfer rumors about that team) and, as such, will cover as many aspects of the club that I love as possible.