NORMAN GILLER'S SPURS ODYSSEY BLOG No 558
Submitted by Norman Giller

The only way to get through this embarrassing start to the season is to waffle, and as you will know I am fluent in talking rubbish. Back in 1957 bass-baritone jazz singer Billy Eckstine and diva songstress Sarah Vaughan had a dual hit with an emotional song called Passing Strangers. This came to mind as I watched a side posing as Spurs going through the motions on the way to a humiliating defeat against a very together Brentford team.

How's that for waffling! There's more.

You may recall I said last week Roberto De Zerbi would be fielding a team known as The Unrecognisables. What I didn't predict is that they would be like blind men in a maze and that we would be aching for the return of players like Cuti Romero and Djed Spence.

I live in heavily West Ham-favoured territory on the Thames Estuary, and none of us are smirking following their home defeat against neighbours Charlton Athletic down in the Championship. At least they couldn't laugh too loudly at me.

Let's see how my neighbours are treating me after Wednesday's League Cup encounter with, yes, Charlton Athletic.

Things can only get better, and the first job De Zerbi faces is to convince his players - several of whom he will hardly know - that this is a time for positivity and to ignore the sort of negative talk that is, for instance, coming from this Blog.

You can, of course, get the right vibes from our Spurs Odyssey guru Paul H. Smith, who I see is using such phrases as "grounds for pessimism." Enjoy wallowing in his eyewitness misery HERE. Both Paul and I are struggling to remember a more depressing start to the season.

The usually cheerful De Zerbi was looking a little wild eyed to me as he tried to put on a brave face at the after-match Press conference, and he now has to figure out how to juggle his expensive squad boosted (we hope) by the arrival of Manchester City duo Savinho and Omar Marmoush. And apparently there is one more still to come in. The Tottenham Ark is going to be very crowded.

We must all now keep our nerve and get behind the team, starting with that testing League Cup tie with Charlton. I just hope my neighbours are not laughing at me when it is all over. Then, on Saturday, Newcastle are the visitors. It's never easy, but we have the comfort of De Zerbi saying that he believes in his players. I just hope he recognises them!

We bid a sad farewell to the "Yorkshire Tyke" Terry Dyson, who will be remembered with a black armband tribute against Charlton on Wednesday evening. That leaves only three surviving members of the Double squad: 91-year-old Cliff Jones, Les Allen and Frank Saul, who was then on the first-team periphery.

Terry, of course, had his greatest night when scoring his two goals in the European Cup Winners' Cup final against Atletico Madrid in 1963. He was from Bill Nicholson territory of Scarborough and from a sporting family. His dad, Ginger Dyson, was a top jockey in the thirties and forties.

I would like to shoot down the wrongly held belief that Bill Nick signed his fellow Yorkie. Tottenham scouts spotted Terry during his National Service after he scored five goals for the Army against the Guards. He joined Spurs as an amateur in December 1954 and signed professional forms in April 1955, when Arthur Rowe was still officially manager and Bill was coming to the end of his playing days. Nicholson moved into coaching later that year, under Rowe's successor Jimmy Anderson.

Tiny Terry, just 5ft 4in of atomic action, was a blunt-speaking Yorkshireman who was a smashing bloke when you fought through his veil of not trusting we soft southern reporters. Rest easy, mate.

It doubles my determination to write the definitive story in digitised format of the Double Year when Terry was a formidable force in one of the greatest of all club sides. I just want to convince future generations that there was football before the Premier League.

Please send me any memories you or a family member may have of the Double season by email to me at normangiller@gmail.com. Be part of the tribute to those Glory-Glory days gone by.

Share this with any veteran Spurs supporter who remembers the days when we did not start a season with a 3-0 defeat!

Here we go with the second week of our returning quiz that tests your knowledge of Tottenham players and the club's history ...

Which Tottenham Hall of Famer played 21 times for his country and against which team did he play for Spurs in a League Cup final? He later joined them on loan before briefly becoming Tottenham assistant manager.

Email your answer to me at soqleague@gmail.com and make the subject heading Quiz Week 2. Deadline: midnight this Saturday. I will do my best to respond to all who take part. Answer in next Monday's Blog here at Spurs Odyssey.

The rules are the same as in the previous 12 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 is when I lose what few friends I have.

This season's main prize will be a framed certificate announcing the winner as SOQL champion 2027, plus three signed books to be revealed at a later date.

Last week: Who was capped 119 times by his country, scored one goal for Spurs, later moved to Highbury and from which club did he join Tottenham?

Answer: Pat Jennings/Watford.

Ps You can still get the perfect post-free gift of my World Cup 1966 book at www.normangiller.co.uk. It's got lots of Greavsie in it and is a lasting tribute to the greatest season in English international football history. And don't forget it was a Spurs-raised man - Alf Ramsey - who made it all possible.

See you back here next Monday, same time, same place, and hopefully celebrating a victory over the Geordies! COYS.