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There are three days during my recent Tottenham Hotspur fandom that have provided me with a level of happiness I struggle to explain to people who don’t spend an unhealthy amount of their lives emotionally invested in professional sports.
The first was Tottenham winning the Europa League against Manchester United, ending a trophy drought that had become such a defining characteristic of the club that opposing supporters treated it as an essential component of Tottenham’s identity. The second was beating Everton at the end of last season to secure Premier League survival, a result that produced more relief than anybody associated with a club of Tottenham’s stature should ever have to experience.
And then there was Saturday.
Tottenham Hotspur went to Stamford Bridge and beat Chelsea 2-0.
I’m going to write that again because I quite enjoy looking at it.
Tottenham Hotspur went to Stamford Bridge and beat Chelsea 2-0.
Oh, what a beautiful sentence.
There are few grounds in English football that have been less hospitable to Tottenham than Stamford Bridge. Before Saturday, Spurs had managed just one Premier League victory there since the competition began in 1992, a 3-1 success in April 2018 that had itself ended an extraordinary period of suffering. Across all competitions, Tottenham had won only once in its previous 41 trips to Chelsea dating back to 1990, a statistic that sounds almost impossible until you remember which football club we’re discussing.
For supporters of most successful Premier League clubs, traveling across London to face a rival presents an opportunity for an enjoyable afternoon and perhaps three points. For Tottenham supporters, a visit to Stamford Bridge has historically involved making peace with the likelihood of disappointment before the players even emerge from the tunnel. Chelsea could be experiencing the most catastrophic season in its history, Tottenham could be playing the finest football ever witnessed by humanity and I’d still expect something unpleasant to happen. Well, except for this past weekend, that is.
Roberto De Zerbi’s team didn’t stumble into a fortunate result against an opponent that had forgotten how to play football. Tottenham was excellent for much of the day, controlling possession, winning the midfield battle and looking more comfortable than a team that had been sitting at the bottom of the Premier League table just days earlier had any reasonable right to look.
There was a confidence to Tottenham’s performance that has been absent for much of the last couple of seasons. Spurs possessed approximately 70% of the ball during the first half, and while controlling possession doesn’t make a team superior, the quality of the opportunities and the intelligence of the movement suggested that De Zerbi’s ideas are beginning to take hold.
And still, because this is Tottenham, I spent much of the game wondering when everything would go wrong.
Fortunately, the other shoe never dropped as the breakthrough for Spurs arrived in the 77th minute when Chelsea goalkeeper Mike Penders managed to punch a Tottenham corner into his own net. It was an unfortunate moment for the young Belgian — only in the game because of Emiliano Martinez’s jaw injury from last week — who had otherwise made several important saves, but I have no intention of pretending I felt anything resembling sympathy when the ball crossed the line. Stamford Bridge has inflicted enough misery on Tottenham over the years that I was prepared to accept an ugly goal as compensation.
Cole Palmer, who had already committed an egregious foul on Mateus Fernandes that probably should’ve seen him sent off, was ejected when he received his second yellow card shortly after the goal, leaving Chelsea with 10 men. It was at this point that I realized that the possibility of something wonderful wasn’t just a theory but could actually be tangible.
When Mathys Tel produced a magnificent individual goal at the 87th tick of the clock, escaping Chelsea’s defenders from one end of the pitch to the other before executing a fantastic finish, I was making noise that I don’t believe can be represented using the English language, and I suspect anybody within hearing distance wondering whether I had suffered some sort of medical emergency.
Minutes later the final whistle arrived, which prompted its own ridiculous reaction from yours truly. I started laughing. I wasn’t laughing at Chelsea, although I wasn’t opposed to doing so. I was laughing because the entire experience was so absurd. Tottenham had spent year after year after year making Stamford Bridge feel like a location of some elaborate psychological experiment designed to determine how much disappointing one group of people could tolerate. Suddenly, the experiment was over, and I was sitting there trying to comprehend how something that had previously seemed impossible had become reality.
Peter Drury, who has spent his broadcasting career finding beautiful language for occasions that leave most of us incapable of forming coherent sentences, understood the significance.
As Tel’s goal disappeared into the net, Drury declared that Chelsea had been buried and described the scene as “Tottenham Hotspur utopia.” He then delivered a closing monologue that captured decades of accumulated frustration being released over the course of one wonderful and rainy day in London.
“Rare and precious in the extreme for Tottenham Hotspur. Four decades and more of pain dissolved in the West London rain. They have come to Chelsea and they have won.
The value of this victory for Spurs is almost beyond calculation.
The degree of dismay for Mike Penders, Chelsea’s young goalkeeper, also beyond estimation. How it must have hurt for him to see the ball squirt off his knuckle for the own goal that enabled Spurs to break through.
Thereafter, Mathys Tel conjured a magical second. Cole Palmer’s sending off rubs in the Chelsea wounds, and those wounds tonight are considerable.
Through the blurs of the rain on the lens, a picture for which Tottenham folk will find immense fondness.
This never happens, Rebecca. It has just happened.
Chelsea nil, Tottenham two.”
I have no idea where Tottenham goes from here. Perhaps this is the beginning of the breakthrough, or perhaps it’s just a blip on the radar. Either way, I know that I’ll hold onto the memory of Tel burying Chelsea in the West London rain for a long, long time.
Tottenham Hotspur utopia, indeed.