NORMAN GILLER'S SPURS ODYSSEY BLOG No 501
Submitted by Norman Giller

For months I have held off being too excited in print (okay, on line) about Archie Gray, for fear of putting too much pressure on his young shoulders. But now his potential is so obvious I cannot help but shout from the rooftops: "The future's Gray."

I would say he is the best young Tottenham player I've seen since a young, angel-faced Steve Perryman made his debut as a seventeen-year-old "unknown" back in 1969. Steve went on to play a club record 854 games for Tottenham and skippered them in back-to-back FA Cup triumphs.

Young Archie has only played yesterday's FA Cup third round tie on the sloping, plastic pitch at Tamworth but already to this old man's eyes he is looking (get ready for a new word) Perrymanish. That means he is a born leader.

He comes from a thoroughbred footballing family, and many moons ago I used to write about his granddad Frankie Gray and great Uncle Eddie, whose skill on the ball for Don Revie's brilliant but brutal Leeds United was legendary.

Archie has brought the sparkling family footballing traits with him from Leeds and - along with Mikey Moore, Lucas Bergvall, Djed Spence, Destiny Dogie and Radu Dragusin - it means the future for Tottenham Hotspur is shining bright.

And how about goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky! He really looks the business and has yet to pick the ball out of the Spurs net. He could give veteran goalkeeper Fraser Forster lessons in footwork on the ball. Mind you, he is an "old man" of 21.

Gray, in particular, stands out and I will be astonished if he is not captain of Tottenham within a couple of seasons. We have yet to see him play in his favourite midfield role, but his emergency defending to help Spurs through an injury nightmare has been exciting and exemplary. Archie is getting a great education (a little pun for the older of you among my readers!).

Yesterday's visit to Tamworth was a banana-skin match in which Spurs could so easily have slipped to an ignominious defeat. Sadly, there were a lot of Ange-haters who you could sense were actually hoping for this outcome. The vitriol the affable Aussie is facing even after the nervous 3-0 victory over the eager Tamworth part-timers is beyond my comprehension. What on earth happened to good old-fashioned support?

So many of the supporters aiming for Levy and Ange (in any order) can be described as the enemy within. When I get on a one-to-one conversation with any of them, I find they have never played football professionally, have never taken on a building project larger than a loft conversion and have no idea of the economy of football. And many of them hide in a cowardly way behind a shield of anonymity as they fire their wounding bullets online.

Do they not realise they are bringing down morale and confidence with their eternal criticism of the team? Just as bad are the ITKs who will link the club with any player for click bait. I stopped counting at 54 players linked with moves to Spurs last transfer window and not one of them arrived at Tottenham. Don't believe it until you see them holding a Spurs shirt. How many of them got wind of Kinsky's move? Not one that I know of.

If any of Ange's and Levy's critics feel I'm mis-representing them and think they know how to run a football club and a multimillion pound business please email me at normangiller@gmail.com and let's hear your side of things. Meantime, shut your moaning and groaning and do what true supporters do - support the team, NOT get in its way.

You can read our Spurs Odyssey guru Paul H. Smith on how Tottenham struggled but eventually triumphed at Tamworth HERE. I felt sorry for the gallant National League team, who in the good old days would have survived to a money-earning replay at Spurs. They deserved that much after 90+ minutes of sweat and toil.

But in the end class told, and it was eventually Spurs who clinched a fourth round draw against Aston Villa at Villa Park. Now that IS going to be difficult.

The Ange baiters will no doubt be back in full voice if Spurs fail to get at least a point at the Emirates on Wednesday in a North London Derby that has come around too soon. I wish them laryngitis.

COYS.

Week 21 of our eleventh season of the Spurs Odyssey Quiz League, and the question is:

Who was the son of a top jockey, the only player to score a hat-trick for Spurs in a North London Derby and what number Tottenham shirt did he usually wear?

Please email your answer to me at soqleague@gmail.com and make the subject heading Quiz Week 21. Deadline: midnight this Friday. I will do my best to respond to all who take part.

The rules are the same as in the previous ten seasons. I ask a two-pronged question with three points at stake - two for identifying the player and one for the supplementary question. In the closing weeks of the competition I break the logjam of all-knowing Spurs-history experts with a real stinker of a tie-breaking poser that is based on opinion rather than fact.

This year's main prize will be a framed certificate announcing the winner as SOQL champion 2025, plus three signed books to be revealed at a later date.

Last week's question: Which Antwerp-born midfielder won 82 international caps and from which London club did he join Spurs in 2012?

Answer: Moussa Dembele/Fulham (Please note for the record that I asked Dembele how to spell his first name and he told me, "Everybody spells it with one "s" so I go long with it, but on my passport and birth certificate it is double "s".") (Ed:- All my records spell his name with one S)

See you back here on Monday. COYS!

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