The ACN Match Review – Tottenham Hotspur (a)

In 2004, writer David Foster Wallace was asked to write a review of the Maine Lobster Festival for a pretty bog-standard food magazine called Gourmet. Wallace (who later wrote the novel Infinite Jest which, let me tell you, is absolutely incomprehensible yet somehow genius at the same time) later filed as his copy a 5,000 word essay including dozens of footnotes (and footnotes of footnotes) that, while briefly touching on the lobster festival itself, mainly concerned itself with debating the morality of whether or not it was ethical to boil lobsters alive for the purposes of human enjoyment. To the credit of Gourmet magazine, the whole essay was published in its entirety, footnotes and all.

I am thinking much about this as I sit down to write a review for this Tottenham v Norwich association football match because, frankly, I am in something of a quandary. I was not at the match, nor did I watch it on a stream, nor have I seen the highlights, nor did I even listen to it on the radio (my shit Bush DAB has given up the ghost only a few months after my ill-advised Rioja-induced purchase from Argos). As it turns out, a combination of poor luck and a bizarre schedule of Sunday Premier League matches of which only Aston Villa v Leicester City was televised (we see you Stevie), meant that, as is sometimes unavoidable, no one in the ACN pool of writing heroes was available to pass comment on the game having watched it live – either in person or via television (legally or through the magic of some internet servers based in Yekaterinburg). This further means that it falls to me to rustle up at least 500 words on, what sounded like, a classic along come Norwich of a performance away at a Premier League club that is usually considered less a football team and more of a TikTok parody.

So, here I am tapping away on my keyboard thinking that I might just get away with this if I pull a David Foster Wallace and write some sort of stream of consciousness instead of an actual review of the game. The ethics of salmon fishing perhaps? Do they feel the pain of the rod punching a hole in their mouth? Do they get claustrophobic when trapped in that net? While DFW did actually attend the Maine Lobster Festival, lots of people asked tongue-in-cheek after the publication of Consider the Lobster if Wallace did it merely as a way of getting paid more by the word. And if that was the case, then he is even more of a genius than his Pulitzer Prize already suggests because, that’s it, he’s done it. He’s gamed the writing system.

Alas, this is ostensibly, a football website. And, while I didn’t watch or listen to the game, as we all know I am sure, it is impossible to otherwise not experience and have memories of a football match even if you directly did not have anything to do with it. Heck, while many games I have attended in person have been rolled into one in my mind, I will never forget when Norwich beat Manchester United at Old Trafford and the Tettey toe-poke because, at the moment that goal went in, I was 30,000+ ft up in the sky on my way to Singapore and thence New Zealand. Once landed, my mate, (an Ipswich fan, lol) managed to get to phone signal faster and informed me that Norwich had won 2-1 and I, in the fugue like state only huge amounts of air travel can provide, thought that I was dreaming the whole situation. In fact, to some extent, I still believe I was.

Reeling, like everyone, from a team news that was both confusing and entirely understandable (such is Norwich in the Premier League), my attempt to get some sort of live audio/visual access to the game started with a mess around with a VPN at around 1.45. Look, I know there are more easily accessible streams out there, but I like a. better visual quality, and b. not having to click a tiny cross on thousands of pornographic and sports betting adverts alright? Anyway this ended in failure as soon as I realised that I still needed to pay US Dollars to some small-time outfit called “NBC” to access their coverage of the Premier League, while pretending (though the magic of virtual private networks) that I was sitting in some swish New York apartment and about to order myself a Famous Ray’s. I tried being in both Australia and New Zealand and China, knowing deep down I didn’t really have the energy for it, and it all ended poisoned-fruitless.

Next stop was the Norwich official website to see if I could pay to watch the game as though I was from overseas. This hit a snag when it became obvious that this wasn’t possible. Also when it proved that I needed to complete the Krypton Factor to login to my account on there, this nixxed any plans to get the radio commentary as well (when did we start offering so many goddamn membership options?). Finally I tried to VPN a standard Radio Norfolk commentary which showed early promise when Butler and Goreham filled my ears for the pre-match chat, only for it to all get cut off by a voice exclaiming, a little too enthusiastically for my liking, that due to rights issue the current programme was not available – despite, if the authorities ask, being in Slovakia.

All the while, I had utilised the emergency backup option of listening to Five Live who, of course, were doing comms on the Man Utd v Someone game (I genuinely cannot remember who they were playing) but with updates from the Norwich game. I continued to try and fix my DAB radio to pick up Radio Norfolk, but by this point I was already hearing about the along come Norwich juggernaut bearing down on North London – first Pukki missing a golden opportunity and then, inevitably, Tottenham scoring what was apparently a screamer which made me laugh due to that old thing where, if you ever watch through a Goal of the Month/Season montage, a seemingly massive unproportionate number seem to be scored against Norwich City. The phone vibrates as Livescore gives the raw facts. Twitter goes into meltdown. 1-0 Spurs.

Having now become all rather pointless to track a stream down I give up and turn to Football Manager, while still listening to the Five Live comms, to see if I could turn Arbroath into a European footballing powerhouse. With a sizeable chunk of possession in the bag according to the BBC’s yellow boxes of taunting aggravation, there was some cautious optimism on Twitter at half time, but this was instantly killed off with the second Spurs goal which was delivered to me with glee by the BBC’s correspondent. Radio off, time to watch the snooker instead.

I barely register the Spurs third goal, and to this moment still fail to recognise its existence, but what I cannot ignore is Josh Sargent’s miss – which sounded like a calamity from a man who is increasingly seeming like someone who won the opportunity to become a professional footballer by winning a raffle. Okay, Pukki and Idah both missed critical chances as well, but Sargent cost £8m as part of Stuart Webber’s Queen’s Gambit this summer and, good grief; must he be shifting uncomfortably in his seat as each one of these revolutionary signings drops like a fly into the Van Wolfswinkle Bad Signing Bowl of Doom? “Whass goin’ on with the recruitment, Neyul?!” howls the endangered Norwich lion on Canary Call. Indeed. With Farke gone, there is no fall guy now.

So that was it for the match. The quasi-existence of another Norwich Premier League loss in London. Schrodinger’s defeat. Flitted away like a Pombears packet in a gale. One of those classic losses away against a top sixer where the home crowd, not really caring due to their own sense of entitlement and thinking that celebrating a simple win against Norwich City is beneath them, can barely muster a cheer for each goal. I find myself not annoyed, or even disappointed. It all barely registers on yet another Sunday afternoon spent bottom of the Premier League. Where fun and enjoyment is banned and you have no choice but to take your medicine, no matter how bitter it tastes.

By this point it’s all getting rather depressing, and I am dangerously close to “what’s the point of football?” territory. So let us consider the salmon instead…