Partly in an effort to put off the ending of the football season for a couple more days and partly because I'd never been there I couldn't resist the temptation to watch the academy boys play at White Hart Lane.The marketing for the game had clearly gone well because there must have been a good couple of hundred through the door. Most were schoolkids who weren't always as interested in watching the football as mucking about with each other but it still made for a better atmosphere than at some Carling Cup games I've been to.
Whilst outside of the ground isn't anything to write home about I did like White Hart Lane a lot. You get the sense of it always having been there with the local community growing and changing with it, rather than the new Arsenal or Wembley that seem to delibrately cut themselves off from their locality in the same way Legoland or Thorpe Park do. Inside its kind of like a bigger Loftus Road, with the stands very close to the action.
The pitch looked magnificent in stark contrast to how the Vic has looked recently. The pitches at Ipswich, Donnie, Coventry and even Marlow are far better than our own which on Sunday looked like my garden does in February. Sorry Sarries but under a boss who wants us to play such nice football as Brendan I really don't think we benefit from having you ground share. Spurs pitch looked how I remember ours used to look at the beginning and end of a season. A beautiful green carpet rather than a churned up farmers field.
Spurs came out with all guns blazing determined to impress their young crowd and within a minute we were 1-0 down. A very hard hit shot from just outside the area beat the wonderfully named Bo Antal in the Watford goal. Ten minutes later it was 2-0 from the spot after one of our defence brought down a Spurs forward. It looked like they might run up a cricket score but Bo made some fine saves and we managed to get back into it. Our reply came after about half an hour in the typical fashion of the seniors. A quick break down the right and Matty Whichelow resisted the attentions of the Spurs defenders to fire high into the top corner.
That was how it stayed despite us always looking threatening on the break and them firing some very fierce shots that Antal did well to stop. There was something a bit Edwin Van de Sar about him and I'd say he looks a good prospect for the future. The same with Whichelow who I've seen score twice in two matches. Lee Hodson captained the side and played well in the centre of defence rather than down the flank as he did on Sunday.
As with the reserve game I saw recently there were two very obvious pretend injuries midway through each half that were clearly just being used as a refreshment break. Both last night and at Marlow I was struck that the referee waited until the players had returned from the touchline ready for the restart rather than hurrying them to restart as soon as the 'injured' player had left the pitch. I do wonder if there is some unofficial experiment going on that will eventually see a sanctioned break for drinks midway through each half. I'm sure the sponsors would appreciate it but maybe from a dehydration safety point of view it is a good idea. However if it is going to be part of the game lets make it official rather than going through the charade of a player needing treatment.The second half was made additionally interesting by some dire stewarding. You can't expect to let kids in for a quid and then not for them to behave like, well, kids. But one steward took exception to the occasional banging of seats and general not paying attention and kept hassling one group of teens. I even heard him say to his colleague "I like annoying people, that's my job". But in annoying these lads things got a little tense for a few minutes and it was totally the fault of the steward. Had he just ignored them like everyone was doing nothing would've happened. Luckily nothing really did but it was all unnecessary and his comment just confirms the fact that there are some stewards out there who really don't have the best interests of the crowd at heart.
At the end I was pleased I'd made the effort. I was impressed with our youngsters. Okay, they lost but apart from the opening ten minutes they'd been a match for the Premiership youngsters. Add in their victory at Chelsea on Saturday and we may have some ready made replacements should we need to sell in the summer.
