You Had To Be There - Ep1 Spurs vs Inter 2010/11

18:28Tom Foins:It sounded like he just had to be picked up off the floor watching Bale just rinse them once again.

18:35Jack:Needs a cup of tea and a bag of crisps. It's a little pick-me-up. So let's turn the lens on to you for a moment, Tom Foynes. I mean, where were you at in life at this point? You said you were at the game. I'm assuming you were attending games more regularly at that point.

18:58Tom Foins:Yeah, this was season two of my season ticket. I was really lucky. When I think about the seasons that I actually managed to go to Spurs, I never stood a chance of getting a season ticket in the queue. As I know, a lot of people didn't around about that time. Whitehall Lane just didn't have the capacity. So I ended up renting a season ticket doing halveses with a mate of mine. and at the time he was well he still is, he's a gigging comedian and he was he just wasn't around for a lot of Saturdays, so my first season that I had a shared ticket was 09-10, so the season that we qualified for Champions League, and I basically went to every game, including a few away games just because he wasn't available, so paid halfses on a season ticket and basically went to every single game, and it was pretty much the same the second season as well and he was really good about it.

19:51Tom Foins:He said to me, like, do you want to split the Champions League games, like split the London derbies, stuff like that. But it just so happened that he wasn't around for the intergame. So I had the ticket sort of by default. But, yeah, I was going pretty much every single week then. It was, I think, for three or four seasons, maybe even longer than that, maybe starting to bleed into the Pochettino years. I was there, yeah, pretty much every single week. And that's it. It was where I used to sit in the stadium was just sort of the right of the goal on Park Lane. So I used to see Bale pretty much starting his rangey runs from pretty much outside our own box and pegging it towards the opposite byline.

20:37Tom Foins:I used to see that in first hand. He was one of those players that you really had to see to believe. The stuff that he used to do was so simple. and he was a traditional winger in the way that Aaron Lennon was and then just evolved into this sort of Cristiano Ronaldo type monster right in front of us. And to see that over two or three seasons, sitting in the park lane was a real privilege. I feel very, very lucky that at that point in my life, I was able to go and see this player just become this absolute monster. yeah so most of if not all of my money at the time of my very limited money at the time in 2010 was pretty much pumped into Tottenham is it safe to say that Spurs was pretty much like the center

21:25Jack:of your universe was it that that it's that real time is it when it consumes basically everything

21:29Tom Foins:about your your life and almost yeah I guess so I think the only difference is like if you think about think about like the whatsapp reason and I wasn't on twitter at that point either and the different sort of community that i built from on the back of twitter you know we met through twitter and and you know then you've got your sort of established whatsapp groups with various different mates that changes how you interact with football like it's very much every day there's always news there's always something being shared in a group whereas i think it was easier to switch off around around that sort of time 20 yeah late 2000s early 2010s you didn't have to be on Twitter to get the latest news and whatever else it just it was sort of filtered to you in other ways but it was definitely a linchpin for me it was it's what I would plan around at the weekend if I was going to be at Spurs on a Saturday I'd need to know am I going straight out from the stadium do I need to take you know do I need to take smart shoes dress up in a shirt you know what I mean like do I am I going straight out from this do I need to drive somewhere like yeah I guess in many ways, like practically, it did revolve around Spurs.

22:39Tom Foins:It did take up an awful lot of time and in a good way. It was a brilliant way for me. I really missed that. I really missed the matchday experience of the old White Hart Lane, being able to turn up, get the train from Liverpool Street, turn up at 1-ish, go to the Bell and Hare, go to that little shed out the back. When I've just got tins of Red Stripe in a fridge, do that for a couple of hours, was go and watch us smash Norwich or West Brom or something and then have a drink on the train home or something like that. It was easier to do. Well, it felt easier to do back then because I was 23.

23:15Jack:The tins at the Bell and Hair, they genuinely were like 250, weren't they, for a time? Yeah, yeah, it was brilliant. They had the pub.

23:21Tom Foins:I don't know what it's like now. I don't even know if it's still going, to be honest.

23:25Jack:It's number eight or something it's called, I think.

23:28Tom Foins:Okay, so it's there but under a different name. Yeah, it had a thing out the back, which was all part of the same pub, but you had to go through a different entrance for some reason. And yeah, there was just a shed out the back with four or five big sort of six-foot fridges that was just stacked full of like Castle Main, Red Stripe, really not obscure beer, but stuff that you wouldn't get on tap anywhere. and for me it didn't really matter what the weather was unless it was absolutely tipping it down that's where I preferred to be didn't want to be stuck inside a pub you know far too crowded not built in any way for the crowds that 2009 White Hart Lane was drawing I loved being outside there and I think that's where I probably would have started this night for this game would have ended up at the Bell and Hare meeting up with a few people that I used to knock about with at the time and just having a few drinks there and that's where the excitement built in those places you used to feel quite fevered in there and obviously it's literally right next to the ground you walk out, you turn right and you're on Park Lane well you used to be anyway that was perfect for me, that was brilliant walking past the away fans as well I loved that bit of routine

24:49Jack:The thing that's funny is because that out the back of the Bell and Hare was literally just a strip of concrete. On one side of it, there was maybe one thin little strip of corrugated plastic that was a shelter of sorts, but for the most part, was just a big open plan. It was obviously an old car park, which they were just like, well, let's turn this into a pub garden. And I say garden in the loosest possible sense of word. because it was just a big strip of concrete. And like you say, on the other side, there was a sort of a temporary structure where there were some fridges and a load of beers.

25:26Jack:And it's funny, isn't it? Because I guess you don't really realise it at the time so much. But in some respects, like with what you're saying, football wasn't as all-consuming at that point. Like podcasts didn't even exist then. Social media was in a very sort of proto form of itself. and you know I dare say in 2010 genuinely a lot of people probably still got their football news off of teletext yeah that in some ways you think like god in this sort of in the last 15 years or so probably from that point things have evolved in such a way that you could almost look at 2010 and 10 and say that was really that was closer to like the yadar football of like the 70s 80s than maybe maybe even now in some respects yeah it happens to all of us i'm sure that's our era

26:22Tom Foins:and you go oh shit that's the that's the yesteryear isn't it no absolutely i remember in particular the bell and hair was terrible for this actually but if the person who got signal first an hour before the game to get the team he was king of the pub yeah he was because it you it would sort of go like a ripple. I think that night was an example of it. And I'll tell you what night it was, the Arsenal game, the 2-1 in the Danny Rose goal. That was, I mean, there should be scientific studies on this. I'd love to see CCTV of that night because one person in the corner of the pub got signal just enough 2G or whatever it was at the time to draw the first 11 from BBC Sport or whatever, or the Spurs site.

27:06Tom Foins:And obviously Danny Rose was starting and no one really knew who he was and that. And just to see it sort of spread like wildfire, because this one fella in the pub was the only guy that had enough internet to access it. And nobody believed him and stuff. That was quite a battle in the Bell and Hair. I think probably everywhere, actually, before any game, just trying to get some crumb of data so that you could look the team up ahead of time. Unthinkable now. it just wouldn't happen the pub's probably got wifi built in as standard it's just not something that I think people ever really needed to think about but 20 years before that you would have had to have gone to the ground to know who was starting so yeah maybe it's just one of those sands of time things isn't it

27:54Jack:it was always the old is Ledley fit, is Ledley starting every single week like you say you would hear that Ledley starting from across to the other end of the car park. Everyone would start the old Led Lee, Led Lee song.

28:09Tom Foins:You knew he was starting because somebody would start the chant up. That was great. I loved that. That's exactly what you wanted. But I think that the Inter Milan game, just to go back to that, I think the injury doubt just before that was Rafa. I think it was Van der Vaart, who we weren't sure was going to start. He'd sprinkled some magic on Spurs, not just in the league, but in particular in the Champions League. I think he got sent off against 20. thinking about it and he he was suspended for the inter Milan away game so but he was he was obviously world class he he was an elite footballer he was above the level of footballer that we had at the time that we we were a good team with good individuals but van der Waal was the sort of gnarled really you know never played lower than the very very top tier for at least like the five six years before us for some reason joined us and you know started a bit of a love affair that lasted two seasons, but he was the guy that you looked at and thought, if we're going to beat someone like Inter Milan, we need him fit.

29:11Tom Foins:And yeah, when the news, when we were just about able to bring up the team and saw that he was starting, the guy never finished more than 60 minutes anyway. So I don't think we thought he wasn't going to last the whole game, but just to know that he was probably going to be there for, yeah, he was there from the start, that was a massive confidence boost. And yeah, so yeah, that was a great memory, remembering the news coming through that he was actually going to play. He was brilliant.

29:37Jack:He was such a ludicrous player, wasn't he? He was almost like a sort of like, he sort of paved the way for Dele Alli in a way. I think there's a sort of similar sort of magic in their feet, the pair of them, the sort of the way they could just kind of flick a ball around people and tend to sort of evade challenges in a way that you wouldn't expect from your ordinary player. but just as well he sort of he came to us and like you say you know he was so massive and he had such a big reputation and obviously the way in which we signed him last day the transfer windows probably honestly I mean I guess we had the Gareth Bale loan which was pretty massive but maybe like the last genuinely like big exciting transfer Spurs have made kind of fell in our lap but at the same time when he started playing for us he just felt so Tottenham as well you know what I mean?

30:27Jack:I know he seems a bit trite, but he really did just seem so Tottenham. The way in which, like you say, sublime for 60 minutes, and then after that, he would probably want to nip off the pitch for some chips and mayo. Yeah, what a player. What a player. Let's talk about the match itself. I mean, what were you? You sort of spoke about the anticipation and everything like that before kickoff. but what would you have said truly were your expectations before that game?

31:04Tom Foins:Yeah, I kind of expected I knew we'd give them a game. I think what was really key was that 4-3 at the San Siro what, two weeks before this? That could have been really damaging to Spurs. I think we'd held our own. I think our first game was against Werder Bremen and obviously we'd scraped through a little bit against young boys in the qualifying round. We really nearly fucked that up. But we got a draw away at Werder Bremen after being 2-0 up, and then we beat 20 at home. And so we were in a pretty decent position going into these two, these back-to-back games against Inter Milan. And then we were 3-0 down in the first 15 minutes in San Siro and down to 10 men, and I think it was 4-0 just before half-time.

31:48And you thought, hmm, like, have we just really sort of learned

31:54Tom Foins:what the Champions League is all about. And in that moment, I think in particular when we were 4-0 down, you thought, they beat us away. Sorry, if they beat us at White Hart Lane in a couple of weeks, which at the time looked pretty inevitable given how they were playing and how we were playing, you just thought, this could be over before we've even really had a proper chance to enjoy it. And then Bale does that in the second half. Again, with 10 men pretty much playing them on his own, it just felt as if it switched everything for them and for us going into that game, it just, the belief that must have gone through, I don't know how you felt but I walked away from that 4-3 loss feeling like we'd won it was mad, I remember I was watching it in the pub and I think I ended up doing some shots with some mates because I was like we've not been embarrassed watching a pub full of people that were, you know, nothing ever changes, everyone wanted Spurs to lose obviously and they were so gleeful at half time when we were 4-0 down it honestly it could have been 8-9-10 it was it we were being drubbed and so to to do what he did in that second half wasn't just sort of really confidence boosting for the team and maybe confidence eroding for inter Milan somewhat it was great for fans and I think it just it meant that when we got them back to White Hart Lane it wasn't a case of well you smashed us away at yours but you're at White Hart Lane now it was a well actually I think we've got the weapons to hurt them really badly and they looked like an old team in that second half of the San Siro and going into this yeah just looking at the lineups you thought well why not again what Redknapp's saying what Redknapp gave to us why not why couldn't we beat Inter Milan at home so I wouldn't say I was expecting a win but I really thought that we was going to give them a really, really good game.

33:49Tom Foins:Expected loads of goals. We conceded a lot, but we also scored a lot. I think at the time, Crouch and Van der Vaart were linking up really well. And say we had Lennon and Bale on the wings. So yeah, it just felt like we had the weapons to hurt them. I was just really excited for it. I was really, really looking forward to it. Really, really up for it. But I mean, honestly, within the first minute, I think maybe within the first five minutes, I knew we was going to win. We just looked so on it. Every single touch and every pass was crisp. It was exactly where it should have been. It was brilliant.

34:22Tom Foins:And you could tell that Bale was just ready to monster Maicon for the next 90 minutes. He was on it from minute one. If you look at the compilations just of that night and the stuff that he was doing, there are compilation clips of players' entire careers that don't look as good as that. Splice it together, their best bits. You wouldn't get the same number of individual highlights as Bale managed in that night. It was incredible. And you could tell from minute one that that's how he was going to play. That's what we were in store for. And that just breathed confidence into everybody and the crowd.

35:01Tom Foins:It became proper feverish. It was already heightened before kickoff. But seeing what Bale was doing and just in his mind you just thought every single time he got the ball you knew he was he knew he was capable of taking it around Mikeon and doing something with it and I don't know when it was, I think it might have been within the first 10 minutes, Bale skinned him and got a cross in and Crouch had a volley at the far post that he really should have scored he sort of sliced it a little bit and it went quite far wide in the end but we looked I think everyone was looking around at each other at that point and thinking like, you know, Bale's got Michael on toast here.

35:41Tom Foins:That's not going to be the last chance that we see him create here. And obviously, as we know, it wasn't. So, yeah, I felt the confidence just built straight away. And that's what Redknapp was brilliant at. It was capturing lightning in a bottle. And he, yeah, produced as a good example of Harry Redknapp football, as you could ever have hoped for really against Inter Milan that night. It was a perfect sort of summation of what he was able to bring to a team and certainly what he brought to Spurs in the three, four years that he was with us.

36:12Jack:Have you ever seen the film Whiplash, Tom?

36:15Tom Foins:I haven't, mate, which I know is bad for you as a cinephile. So, yeah, I'll take my punishment on this.

36:24Jack:I'm glad you called me that type of file this time.

36:26Tom Foins:Yeah, not the one that you're used to.

36:28Jack:Yeah. but so so whiplash is just just a sort of brief synopsis of it is essentially a very talented young drummer he's playing for like uh he he he he's at a very prestigious music school it's based on juilliard um the big sort of prestigious new york music school um and it's all about this kind of like the obsession to to become better to become better than just exceptional to become truly elite something something out that exists outside of just brilliant you know it's almost like just being brilliant is not enough and it's the pursuit of that and it's the kind of realization of that and there's there's a scene at the very end of this when you've seen this young so this young sort of drummer andrew nyman who is uh he's gone through various different trials and tribulations with this sort of particularly unpleasant um teacher played by jk simmons who is jk simmons isn't it yeah who um is sort of pushing him to his very limit his very very limit and he's he's obviously very good he's great but you know he's still he's not kind of he's not going to be one of the greats he's not going to be like one of those guys that other people aspire to be they're not going to have his picture on their wall kind of thing and that's that's what he's chasing but then essentially the film culminates with a lot of back and forth and a lot of these different things that happen and he ultimately ends up playing um he almost has a trap laid for him whereby he gets thrust into playing this concert that he obviously isn't prepared for and to the unsuspecting eye he isn't on the level of the musicians around him he's not able to play this but little does everybody know he suddenly takes his moment to shine and he busts out this incredible drum solo and pretty much everyone around him is just watching this scene unfold like slack-jawed like agape they can't quite believe what they're witnessing but they also know that they are witnessing something that is truly brilliant truly phenomenal like this person is a superhuman.

38:40Jack:And that was the thing for Bale. And it's not the cleanest comparison, but I would sort of liken it in a way to somebody like Mikey Moore, who we have now. Mikey Moore, a young player who is clearly a phenomenal talent. He's 18 years old now. I think Bale was 18 when we signed him. And as with any sort of 18, 19-year-old, there's going to be issues, there's going to be setbacks. Moore's had his, obviously, injury struggles this season Bale had his fair share of injury struggles and everything and around Bale there was this whole sense of yeah we know he's good yeah we know he scored a few free kicks to Southampton but is does he really have what it takes to kind of do this at the very top level and when he started getting more of a run in the team you could see okay he's he's a he's a good winger like this kid he's kind of he never really I know we talk about his transition from being a left back to a more attacking player.

39:39Jack:But I don't think we ever really played him as a left back at Spurs. I think people figured out fairly quickly that he was more of an advanced player, that he was a left winger. And he kind of looked like, yeah, you know, if he can get to the level of somebody like Aaron Lennon as he gets older, then he's going to have had an incredible career. He's going to be really, do you know what I mean? Like if he can get to the level of somebody, I can remember the player we almost traded him, we almost part-transferred him for was Stuart Downing. We almost signed Stuart Downing and gave, I think, Middlesbrough, I think, at the time we were going to give them bail in a part-exchange deal.

40:20Tom Foins:We also looked at, I think, sending him off to Birmingham before Assela Cotto got injured.

40:24Jack:Yeah, for a couple of million pounds or something like that. so you know it hadn't been a straightforward journey for gareth bale and we were starting to see sort of promise behind him but the main thing i remember is like the the first intergame the hat trick you're suddenly like i'm not going to write this off we're not going to we can't write this off but hang on you know maybe this is just a kind of a moment this is going to be something unbelievable for this kid but it was it was it was this game in particular where and i'm not trying to do the whole kind of sniffy oh you you probably preferred the game in which he scored a hat trick kind of thing but I think it was this game in particular where he didn't score he obviously assisted a couple of the goals but you watch this and you thought oh my god this kid is so much better than I think any of us had expected he was like you say it's not anymore that we're not looking at him thinking like can this kid get as good as Stuart Downing or Aaron Lennon It is like, can this kid get as good as Messi and Ronaldo?

41:27Jack:I don't think, I think it's safe to say, you know, we'd love David Ginola. We'd love the kind of players. We'd love Darren Lennon. We still do. But I don't think, I think we can say in good faith, none of us had ever seen or have since seen a player quite that explosive in that type of position as Gareth Bale at Spurs. It really, because it felt to me like there was, there wasn't a generational divide. It didn't feel to me like there were Yadar types being like, oh, look at all these young 'uns rating this player. He hasn't got... I think everybody was unanimous in like, oh my God, this kid is going to be one of the best players of all time.

42:07Jack:And I don't think anybody... I think he probably is still the best British player of all time. I think we can probably... Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

42:15Tom Foins:If anything, I think he could have been better. I think he got unlucky with injuries I think he got obviously whatever happened at Real Madrid on a personal level in that they just didn't seem to take to him or whatever happened in the background, a bit of politics with Ronaldo and everything else but I think he was unlucky because I can't think of any other individual performance I've seen from a player at Spurs, certainly one who didn't end up scoring a goal at all in the game better than that Bale performance against Inter Milan. And that's the way that he was doing it. Again, if anyone listens to this, go seek out those individual highlights of what he was doing.

43:00Tom Foins:He was dribbling around players, but he wasn't doing it in that kind of, as you say, Ginola style. He wasn't all close control. He was basically sizing someone up, knocking the ball slightly out of his feet, and then by the time he'd taken his second touch, he's already a yard clear of whoever's marking him. And that was all first half, and this was when the game was still pretty tight and they were, you know, Inter Milan, I think they were Benitez at the time, they were quite a deep team, they looked to take teams on the break and stuff. I don't think they were particularly brilliant to watch as much as they had some great attacking talent.

43:40Tom Foins:But so, you know, first half, I think they planned for Bale. They planned to try and keep him quiet, and I think Maicon didn't play the first league. I think Zanetti played right back and he obviously rinsed him because Zanetti, as brilliant as he was, he was about 38 at that point. Maicon was seen as the best right back on the planet and I think they saw it as, well, this guy's just going to tape him up and then that's the game one. The only threat from the week before, the guy that scored a hat trick, keep him quiet and we're fine. And he just couldn't. It wasn't like we found a way around it.

44:11Tom Foins:It wasn't like we switched Bale on his wings or went through a different avenue. it wasn't like Lennon got more he still gave it to Bale every single opportunity we could but he just went through Micon it was incredible it was it was I remember just everyone around me just giggling almost like it was giddy we were just laughing at how easy it was for him to we would have done it with if it was any you know common or garden right back in the Premier League but the fact that this was Micon and everyone would raved about him and he'd I think he'd gone to the 2010 World Cup as seen as the best right back in Europe, maybe in the world.

44:48Tom Foins:And it was just laughable, the way that Bale was going around him. It was the very definition of piss take. He was taking the piss every single time he got the ball. He'd hold it in front of him. Maicon would give him two or three yards. As I say, he'd size him up, he'd knock it one way and by the second touch, he was clear of him. And Maicon just looked ridiculous. He was flailing around in the back. I think if it happened now, he'd be subbed. I don't think he was subbed in the end. Or was he? I think Michael might have been subbed towards the end and it might have been a... Taxi for Michael.

45:22Tom Foins:Of course it was. Yeah, as I said, I remember there was crowd chants for it. Yeah, of course. He got pretty much serenaded off the pitch. Taxi for Michael. As I come up with on the night, that's not a predetermined chant. That is something that several thousand people in a stadium witnessing what they were that night, coming up with that on the spot and managing to get that going, that is really special. You know what? I'd forgotten about that until you just mentioned that. That is brilliant, isn't it? That's everything you want from football. That is why football is amazing. Nothing predetermined about it.

46:03Tom Foins:A spur-of-the-moment chance comes up and the entire stadium is mocking the best right-back in the world.

46:09Jack:it's because it's one fella somewhere in the stand and somebody's thought what's he singing and then they're like oh hang on i like that and then there's two or three people around him and then there's suddenly 10 people and then it's you know i mean it just goes on from there yeah brilliant the thing about it is it's like and i know this sounds a bit soft but it got to the point where you almost felt bad for him yeah he was embarrassed he honestly got his he just got his pants pulled down you know it was like being it was like being in year three and your pants falling down in pe and everyone pointing and laughing at your bare bum like it was just it was it was horrendous for the fella and like you say can you imagine the dent to the pride this is the guy that was spoken about as being the best in his position in the world at that point not

46:57Tom Foins:after that game you know like yeah yeah changed everything yeah i i would be interested to see

47:03Jack:how his career went after that, if it really just knocked his confidence.

47:08Tom Foins:He went to City. I think he was at Inter Milan for a while and then he went to City quite late. I don't think it was anything special. I think it was a bit of a stopgap, but I seem to remember him playing at White Hart Lane and just thinking, yeah, and just think the PTSD, I don't think Bale was there by that point, but if you think of the PTSD involved in that, you know, the same bits of the pitch that seeing the same faces in the crowd that were just openly pointing and laughing at you for 90 minutes. Yeah, brilliant. I'd totally forgotten about that. That's such a happy memory. Again, the whole crowd was giddy with what was happening.

47:47Tom Foins:Obviously, there was a lot of added weight to it in the fact that it was an important game for us. I think it put us top of the table. If I remember rightly, we were on seven points. I think we only needed one more point from the last two games and we had Werder Bremen at home who we sort of blew away and then we had 20 away and by that point we'd qualified. And so there was a bit of, it was quite nice to have that sort of levity in the night because it could have been quite tense, especially as we talked about that goal in the last 10 minutes. But just seeing Bale, I remember that last 10 minutes we were a little bit entrenched in our box and then you just saw Bale floating around, sort of halfway around inside his own half, helping out when he needed to.

48:33Tom Foins:But it was just a trap. It was a spring. It was ready for when he was ready to take the ball 40, 50 yards up the pitch because he still had all the energy. Yeah, he still had this sort of game management to know that he's basically got the beating of anyone in that back line. I think it was Mike on. It was Lucio. It was, was it Christian Kivu? Am I thinking of the right player? with a cap? Walter Samuel. Walter Samuel, yeah, yeah, yeah. And as it turned out, let's say, the Pavlyuchenko goal, Bale picks it up in his own half. And again, he's sizing up Lucio. But all he's done, all he does is knock it 40 yards in front of him.

49:14Tom Foins:He's got freedom of White Hart Lane to knock the ball wherever he wants and run onto it. And he does it again. And so you see Pav sort of arriving in the box ready for a tap-in. and the whole place goes absolutely wild. But it was just like, what are we witnessing here? This is the birth of a monster here, surely. He can do anything, anything he wants, and none of these Champions League winning defenders are able to stop it. And that was a really unique feeling to watch a Spurs player and a Spurs team do that. it was very surreal but it was it was glorious you know really really glorious it's it's my i think it's my favorite memory my favorite whole game from the old white hut lane it's the one that i will still talk about if i was to talk to my kids about it you know in future that's the game that i would pick up as the best atmosphere best result best individual performance just everything about it was it was amazing and yeah i'd love love to bottle that feeling because it doesn't come around all that often

50:27Jack:Spurs bottling stuff does come around quite often though mate doesn't it very good

50:35Jack:any other standout performances to you mate I would say I don't remember it standing out at the time but watching the watching the highlights like the extended highlights back Lennon was on a bit of a mad one as well was terrorising Walter Samuel ended up getting him booked after a lovely driving run at him. And obviously Luka Modric's assist for van der Vaart's goal at the very beginning was absolutely sumptuous, like really beautiful. I don't know if you've seen Lionel Messi's assist against the Netherlands in the World Cup, just got voted as like the best assist in football history. But Modric's is pretty much a mirror image of it.

51:17Tom Foins:Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I can see the likelihood there. I mean, looking at that goal, that if it happened now, I think Van der Vaart's offside, or I think he probably would be offside if the lines were drawn, you know, nowadays. So again, just feeling like...

51:30Jack:That's a miserable thought, isn't it?

51:32Tom Foins:It is, exactly. Why it's nice to think about it as a sort of a throwback if we have to use that term.

51:40Jack:Because at that point, they were actually coming for us in the opening stages, weren't they? And we sort of turned the tide. That goal was kind of against the run of play to a degree, even though it was early, wasn't it?

51:51Tom Foins:Yeah, I think... I don't remember an awful lot about that bit. I remember Crouch's chance from Bale taking it around Maicon for the first time. And then I suppose it was one of those... They're so good, or they were so good. And it was such a prestigious team that we were playing with so many superstars. I don't know about you, but when you're watching Spurs play one of those teams, especially when you're at the stadium, you sort of always feel as if they're on top just because they are who they are. And they don't need to necessarily be carving out chance after chance. but it just felt as if they were on top because they're Inter Milan and they're champions of Europe.

52:25Tom Foins:But of course they're on top. So I don't remember them really battering us necessarily. I remember Carlo Cudicini was in goal and that was a bit of a worry. I mean, it wasn't great to have Gomez in goal, bless him, but Cudicini was quite ancient by that point. Very much second string, barely ever played. It was a bit of a concern every time the ball got near the goal because you just thought it could be a one-shot, one-goal type of deal. But yeah, I mean, I think Modric, it's talking of Bale announcing himself, I also think Modric did that on this European campaign as well. He was really, really good against Milan, Inter Milan.

53:05Tom Foins:I think he was good in the quarterfinal, no, last 16 against AC Milan as well. I think he pretty much announced himself on that stage as a I'm never going back kind of thing or I'll give you one more year and then it's going to be off for me, which is fair enough when you look at his level. But yeah, he was brilliant. Van der Vaart only lasted 45 minutes, I think, in the end. And at that point, we were 2-0 up. So that, again, it sort of felt like a bit of a momentum shift, see how we deal with it. But if I remember rightly, I think Genus came on and he was really good, just tactically very, very astute.

53:38Tom Foins:Just did his job, did everything really well. Huddleston was captain for the night. I don't know if...

53:45Jack:You've ruined one of my quiz questions there, mate. Oh, have I? Sorry. I remember that really distinctly because it's

53:50Tom Foins:such a... I just... You think of our best ever moments and our best ever games. It just doesn't imprint on me that Huddleston was even there, to be fair, but let alone captain. I'm not sure how that came about. I'm not sure who in the pecking order was missing. It must have been King and Dawson, I suppose, but he was really, really good as well. And when you consider that the midfield two was Huddleston and Modric, there wasn't an awful lot of defensive cover going on there. So we managed to keep them really quiet. The player that I thought probably didn't get his flowers from that game was Kabul.

54:24Tom Foins:He was really, really good that night. He'd had a difficult few seasons. Obviously, he went to Portsmouth and then came back. And he'd been stuck out right back. And then I think he was filling in for King quite a lot at centre-back while King was obviously overcoming a lot of his, or struggling to overcome a lot of his injuries at that time. And I remember him really stepping up. He was really, really good that season. And that would have been a couple of weeks after the Arsenal 3-2 as well. So he was having a real purple patch around that time. He was very, very good that night. I thought he was very much an unsung hero of that game.

55:05Do you

55:07Jack:care at all that does it tarnish your memory at all that Spurs didn't go on and win the Champions League this year? Because I kind of feel like we sort of live in a bit of an era now and I don't think it's just like football's changing, I think it's partly that games like this have raised the bar for Tottenham down the years and you think about this has culminated in us going to Ajax and getting to a Champions League final. And you could also say maybe winning the Europa League a few years after that.

55:40Tom Foins:Yeah, quite possibly. I think one exists because of others.

55:45Jack:Yeah, but I guess my point is more like, do you look back on this? I'm trying to get to the point of like, what is it that sort of changed? Do you feel that now, for example, if we had a night like this against Inter Milan, where we beat Inter Milan 3-1 at one? I'm pretty sure we have beaten Inter Milan in the Champions League again since this point. Yeah, we have.

56:05Tom Foins:Yeah, we did at Wembley.

56:07Jack:Yeah, but I mean, I guess that was a pretty pivotal game actually. So it was quite a good feeling, but it just didn't feel quite the same, did it? I guess Inter Milan's stock had fallen a bit. Our stock had risen. Do you think it's going to be harder and harder to have nights like this that are this significant? Just as a natural consequence of Spurs becoming a bigger team now.

56:29Tom Foins:Yeah, it's a good point. I think when you sent over a sort of skeleton running order for this and you asked about the then versus now, it was a perfect balance, that Inter Milan game, of sort of all business on one side, but still really, really good fun on the other. It was a bit of a free hit for us because I think we still could have qualified out of that group if we'd have lost that game. I think we would have done as well. I think we would have played a strong team against 20 and probably would have been fine in that last group game. It's just that we really went for it and we really tried to stamp our mark on the Champions League and it was just everything maybe came together at a perfect time for that result to happen.

57:15And as I say, we didn't have any stakes in it.

57:19Tom Foins:If we'd have gone out in the group stage of that Champions League, maybe we came third, say, I think we could have considered it a relative success for our first go ever in the Champions League. I think we could have walked away from that, probably with some regrets, but I think we would have sucked it up and just accepted it and felt as if it was just not meant to be. But again, Redknapp gave us that feeling of being 10 foot tall going into pretty much any game. And so I think it meant more in some cases, as I say, we announced ourselves. And maybe we can capture it again. I think half the reason it was so good as well is because we had such a kind of young...

58:05Tom Foins:There was a lot of that team that were quite young and in particular Modric, Huddleston and Bayer, I think were all probably between 21 and 24 at that time. Lennon maybe as well. It just felt like we were that emerging team and so, as I say, it was a bit of a mixture of business and fun. whereas now everything seems a bit more business i mean the the champions league group stage now is a bit is a joke like it it doesn't really matter how big the fixture is it just doesn't feel like it has any real weight to it it doesn't really feel like it has that much jeopardy to it whereas you know a few years ago when in a 14 group yeah if you lost one game it could have changed everything it could have you know could have launched you out of the competition altogether um and i think about like that real madrid game at wembley as well that was in the middle of the group stages that that springboarded us to the knockout stages yeah i i don't think it will probably would feel the same with other games but i don't know it depends it depends on what the fixture is i suppose if we were to come up against psg in the in the champions league next season and it was a you know crucial sort of must win or must not lose stage of the ridiculous group stage that they've got now then maybe we'll fill that again but i think if we were to win i think it would just feel as if it was, oh thank God we've got a chance of qualifying or move on to the next round or it means that the next game we don't have to win in all of this, whereas this game against Inter could have just been a one-off game.

59:34Tom Foins:For all it felt like it mattered on the night, it was just glorious and fun and just joyous to see us do it to Inter Milan and Benitez as well, for some reason there was quite a lot of aggro towards Benitez from the crowd that night as well just yeah it it was a nice sort of contained joyous moment i suppose which what was that about

59:57Jack:i remember people i don't know spanish waiter you're just a Spanish waiter wasn't it yeah but

1:00:02Tom Foins:i think it started when he was it started the season before when we played them when we played them on the first game of the season and asuakoto and bassong scored those goals we beat them 2-1 benny's goal was unbelievable yeah great goal um but it started then for some reason i don't know if he'd been a bit disparaging to Spurs. I don't know if he'd... Yeah, I'm not sure. Because the season before in Redknapp, when Redknapp parachuted in and saved us, in these first few weeks, we beat Liverpool at home. I think we were one of only two defeats for them in that whole season. Yeah, Pavlyuchenko.

1:00:38Jack:That was the runaround.

1:00:39Tom Foins:Yeah, that is that game. So I don't know if Benitez maybe had it in for us and sent a few veiled barbs our way for the rest of his time at Liverpool. Not sure. I don't know if it was just one of those things where we, you know, just reveled in his misery because he was an ex-Premier League manager and we were playing Inter. I don't know, but it seems for some reason to add another layer of spice onto it. So, yeah, that obviously contributed in some way.

1:01:05Jack:So talking about adding another layer of spice, Tom, before I let you get off, I do want to end these pods with a little quiz, just a little friendly one. But it's a very straightforward, a very easy one. can you name for me the starting line up and substitutes who were present that night shall I give you let's put a time let's give you a three a five minute timer we'll give you five minutes and we'll see how do I do this hang on how do I do it what the fuck right five five minute timer right grandad programming the VCR is it I know is it is it right I'm going to give you a five four three two one go

1:01:58Tom Foins:is this just for Spurs or both teams

1:02:00Jack:just Spurs right

1:02:03Tom Foins:Kudacini in goal yeah Alan Hutton was right back yeah Unisgobol yeah I King was injured. I don't think Dawson would have played otherwise he'd have been captain. And I think the only centre-back we had was Gallas. Yep. Well done. Asso Okoto. He was really... Actually, another one who didn't get his flowers. He was really, really good that night as well.

1:02:35Tom Foins:Lennon, Huddleston, Modric and Bale. And then it was Van der Vaart and Crouch. Lovely. Subs. well genus came on at half time yep pav because he scored the third

1:02:50Jack:yep this is brilliant mate this is sensational work

1:02:53Tom Foins:I mean this is my wheelhouse mate complete and utter ADHD dream for me this pure data so we're looking for did we use all subs did we use a third sub

1:03:08Jack:let's have a look did we use a third sub no yes we did sorry we did

1:03:13Tom Foins:who would that have been I mean we could have thrown on Defoe as we normally did but then why wouldn't he have been thrown on when Pav was Defoe was not

1:03:24Jack:Defoe was not on the bench I'll tell you that

1:03:26Tom Foins:ok he must have been injured I'm trying to think around about that time Sandro wasn't there yet Palacios

1:03:36Jack:well done yes was it yes so you've got four more players to get oh the new subs but yeah you've got everyone that played an active part so well done for that now you've got three minutes to name the other four players that are on the bench, it's pretty tough okay

1:03:58Tom Foins:Choluka? no alright god who would have been our defensive cover at that point probably didn't have any um Cranchar was here yep he was on the bench um

1:04:20Jack:oh right okay you got just over two and a half minutes to go and how many have I got to get three more three more

1:04:28Tom Foins:2010-11

1:04:32Jack:um there's one that you'll be kicking yourself over if you don't get it okay

1:04:43Christ

1:04:45Tom Foins:this is tough this is tough

1:04:48Jack:I'll give you a hint at this point so you've already called that Kudicini was playing Gomez wasn't available so think about other goalkeeping options we might have had at that time was our third

1:05:01Tom Foins:choice Pleticosa well done yes right okay that's right fucking hell I can't even think of who would have been I'll give you the positions

1:05:12Jack:one was a striker one was a centre back

1:05:18Tom Foins:I thought we I thought we were out of centre backs right centre back and a striker did you say yep so we had Defoe was out, Crouch was in and scored, Pav was in the Southern squad. Who else did we have up front that season? It's not someone like Dos Santos, is it? No. No. I think more obvious.

1:05:49Tom Foins:10-11.

1:05:51Jack:Borderline Tottenham legend, you might say.

1:05:54Tom Foins:Oh, my God. This is really embarrassing.

1:06:01Tom Foins:Oh, Robbie Kane.

1:06:02Jack:well done

1:06:03Tom Foins:yeah of course

1:06:04Jack:he was still there I had no recollection of him being any part of this team whatsoever yeah it was a shock to me when I was looking at this so he played

1:06:12Tom Foins:he he played loads in that 9-10 season just quickly mate you got 40 seconds you got one player left oh fuck centre back centre back centre back is it a young player

1:06:23Jack:or was it a young player ish ish okay we signed him with a decent reputation it never really worked out for him at Tottenham Bongalo Camalo no signed from Newcastle oh was that Bassong well done there you go you got them all got them all with 15 seconds to spare lovely well done mate I'd give Inter a go

1:06:48Tom Foins:I reckon I could get 6 of Inter but won't take it

1:06:51Jack:do you want to do you want to have a quick go Inter

1:06:53Tom Foins:yeah let me give it a go I think we've probably mentioned a few of them Julio Cesar was in goal yeah no he wasn't oh was he not oh fuck okay fine who was it Castellazzi no idea and Orlandoni

1:07:08Jack:on the bench that is proper pro-evo master league isn't it yeah

1:07:14Tom Foins:I had no idea about that okay well I'd say in the back Maicon Lucio Kivu and oh fucking hell you said his name the left back big RG oh Oh.

1:07:32Jack:He's got two first names. I can't remember.

1:07:38Tom Foins:Walter Samuel. Please put me out of my misery. Walter Samuel, of course it is, yeah. Then it was, I think, Snyder played, definitely. He did, yeah. Etto played. Yeah. Was it like Montari? It was. Yeah. What a player he was. linked to Tottenham as well. Yeah, yeah. Or could have been, eh? Did Coutinho play? I know he played in that first game.

1:08:07Jack:He was on the bench, I believe. Yeah, he was on the bench. He came on later on in the game. The only other one I can think of

1:08:16Tom Foins:is someone like Walter Pandiani, but I think he was at Birmingham by that point.

1:08:22Jack:Close, but not, I mean, it was a pan. Pandev yes well done yeah

1:08:30Tom Foins:I don't know the rest I can't oh maybe Kambi

1:08:32Jack:I say no but you'll know one of them mate he's the guy that never aged was the captain well done yeah another player that was often linked to Spurs as well was Bia Biani who I might butcher that pronunciation but yeah he came off Coutinho they also had on their bench they had Cordoba They had Diego Melito, who was a player back in the day. Matarazzi, famous, obviously, for being headbutted by Dindin Zidane. Coutinho, Santon, another player often linked to Tottenham. I always remember hearing that name, Santon. I'm getting excited about it. And a player called... So they've got it listed here as Nguyen Kuo.

1:09:20Jack:I'm wondering if that was Canu. I know he used to play.

1:09:24Tom Foins:So it was a different player, but I know what you mean. Yeah, it wasn't Canu. I think Canu would finish by that point.

1:09:33Jack:Yeah, probably.

1:09:34Tom Foins:Yeah, a lot of that I wouldn't have remembered. I mean, there's still some stars in there. I remember a lot of people saying, ah, well, Mourinho's gone. It's not Mourinho's Inter anymore. Benitez is a step down. He's not got all the stars. That's a very, very good team. They're aging. It's a brilliant team. Very, very experienced. Like they should have been, like I say, they tried to handle us by nullifying Bale and thinking the rest would take care of itself. And they just, they failed pretty, pretty spectacularly, thankfully.

1:10:08Jack:My final question for you then on the team, mate, because, you know, like you say, Inter's team was good. But then you look at Tottenham, Bale, albeit a kind of a young sort of growing talent, Luka Modric already an established enough. brilliant player, Van der Vaart, Crouch, who is a great player, Lennon, fantastic. Does that team, and you've got to think about not just on paper, the spirit of that team, all of it, does that team beat the Europa League winning Tottenham team of 2024, the last year under Andropos Takoglu?

1:10:46Tom Foins:Yeah. God, yeah.

1:10:49Jack:Yeah, it would be. I think it embarrasses the current Tottenham team. I do, yeah. I'm honest. And the thing is, I do want to trick you. I don't want to be like, you're done. It was all better. We could all play outside and nothing would happen to us. I'm simply saying, that team was, they were very good, weren't they?

1:11:08Tom Foins:Do you know what it would do? It would beat the European, the Europa League winners and then it would go and lose 1-0 to Middlesbrough the next week. Because I seem to think, I might be wrong, but I seem to think after almost every good Champions League result that we had that season, we went and follow it up with some sort of stinker. I feel like we lost after this, after this free one, I think we went and lost to Bolton 4-2. I'm quickly looking that up now. I seem to remember. 2010, 2011, wasn't it? 2010, 2011. I'm pretty sure we went to Bolton afterwards and we lost.

1:11:44Jack:This is going to be brilliant. Let's have a look. Why is it just, it's just giving me the bloody, right, I've got to find the, what was the date of this game? I think it was early December late November, early December no, 2nd of November so 2nd of November we bang on mate we lost 4-2 to Bolton

1:12:08Tom Foins:everything that you need to know and I think I might be wrong on this but if you look up the game after we beat AC Milan in the San Siro 1-0 I think we lost to Blackpool 3-1

1:12:22Jack:did we let me have a look I think so 3-1 the Blackpool so that was around February that was the 22nd of February we lost to Blackpool let's see when that AC game was that's the group stages it went bloody shamelessly when it was

1:12:41Tom Foins:last 16 would have been around February I think

1:12:46Jack:AC Milan so yes bang on you're correct February the 15th

1:12:50Tom Foins:It tells you everything about that side at the time. That was always the failing. For that season specifically, that was the failing for Spurs. If you weren't going to win something, I think if you'd have asked any Spurs fan at the time, what would you rather? Go on a bit of a European run or finish top four again? Maybe it would have been a more even split than I think. But the nights that we got against Inter, against AC Milan, even against Real Madrid, I know we were trounced, but it was, home leg was still, so it started with a bit of hope and then it just became a bit of a, just a bit of a fun really.

1:13:26Jack:Some pig results in that season. Yeah, yeah. We won at Anfield. We won at Anfield.

1:13:33Tom Foins:Yeah, last game of the season, yeah.

1:13:34Jack:But then like just silly, silly results, losing to Blackpool, things like that, like losing to Bolton, West Ham, losing at home to Wigan, you know?

1:13:45Tom Foins:Yeah, we had a few stinkers.

1:13:48Jack:We won at the Emirates as well.

1:13:50Tom Foins:Yeah, we had a few stinkers. It was a shame. I don't think we had the balance right. To be honest, what happened the season after, obviously we didn't qualify for the Champions League again. But 11-12 was, I would say, up there. We talk about 16-17 all the time, Pochettino, Spurs. I think 11-12, we were just as good for probably six months of that season. we went on a 12 match unbeaten run I think which at the time was just unthinkable unheard of for Spurs

1:14:18Jack:I thought we were going to win it that year mate

1:14:20Tom Foins:yeah I did that City game when we came back from 2-0 down but that's what it was that's what that season was all about the bail goal

1:14:29Jack:do you remember watching that game if the inter-game sort of was that kind of the childhood dreaming thing that season as well where I can remember watching it thinking blimey Spurs might win the Premier League yeah

1:14:48Tom Foins:and another transfer window that let us down really but I don't think it mattered in the end yeah Nelson and Saha it didn't matter in the end because Redknapp flirted with England it became a bit of a thing where we just didn't seem to be able to get going again we had some stinking results like that last, I think the last 10 games of the season we only won twice which you can't do anything if you're expecting Champions League football. If you return those sort of results, you're not going to get anywhere. So it did tarnish Redknapp's legacy. But I think that's a shame because I think Inter was far more indicative of Redknapp's time with Spurs than anything that happened in that last six months of the 2011-12 season.

1:15:28Tom Foins:Yeah, that's how I remember that period of supporting Spurs and watching Redknapp's Spurs. Probably weren't going to win anything. We came relatively close a couple of times in domestic cups, but we were a moments team and the odd game here and there where we just blew the best teams away and yeah, it was a brilliant time since the sports were us.

1:15:51Jack:Lovely jubbly, mate. Appreciate you coming on. Hope you've enjoyed it.

1:15:55Tom Foins:I very much have. Really, really enjoyed that. There was a few that I could have picked but I'm really glad that I went with that. So yeah, cheers for having me, mate. So am I, mate.

1:16:03Jack:What a way to kick it off.

1:16:04Tom Foins:Come on, Miss Burns.

1:16:13We'll be right back.