Big Ange
How, from a sports bar in Tokyo, I watched Big Ange fix football
Humour me for a moment. Because everything I’m about to write, it’s about football. And football, well, it’s only football.
But in my mind football exists in a strange half space in the lives of those who follow it. It matters little enough that should your team lose you can grumble and moan, but fundamentally food will still be on your table that night, your family will still love you, the sun will rise the next morning.
But it also matters just enough that giving yourself over to it entirely is a unique and beautiful thing. Something that I’m about to write on with almost hyperbolic levels of romance.
It’s the most important of the least important things. A perfect, freeing, frustrating storm — less a hobby or interest, more a love story, a religion, a passion.
This is my bit about Ange Postecoglou and what he meant to me as a Spurs fan.
I was in Tokyo on the night Tottenham Hotspur won their first trophy in 17 years and their first European trophy in over 40. I’d spent the last few months watching our league form tank, clinging onto the Ange project regardless, as Spurs fans around me reluctantly got off the train at varying stops — London derby defeats, a loss to Ipswich, a loss to Leicester. 17th place in the league. Our worst domestic league season ever.
But admist the rubble — a European campaign.
Al Sonas is Tokyo’s only Spurs bar. A humble Irish pub nestled between stores and late-night Izikayas in the shadow of the bustling shopping district of Shibuya. Down the road, Shibuya’s famous scramble crossing — the busiest crosswalk in the world — was almost deserted on account of the late (or early, depending on your perspective) hour. But Al Sonas was full to bursting with an eclectic mix of Westerners and locals, all sporting the lilywhite of Tottenham, the air thick with chants and songs. I met Japanese fans who didn’t speak a word of English, but could recite (a slightly altered version of) Robbie William’s ‘Angels’ like they were raised in Seven Sisters.
I can only speak for those I rubbed shoulders with that night, but you didn’t feel an ounce of that half-a-season long pain as Brennan Johnson toe poked an awful goal past Manchester United’s flailing keeper, Onana. We cheered and hugged and sung as, unbeknown to us, the sun rose out the windows.
There were no sunken heads or tired eyes either, as the full time whistle blew at 6AM Japanese time and the place erupted into rapture. We partied until about half 7 then left the cosy, dark wooden interior of the bar for a day that had started without us and trains loaded with commuters. Ange had said he’d win a trophy in his second year, a bold claim managing Spurs. But the laughter of the press and rival fans was drowned out by the roar of the Tottenham high road as Sonny raised the Europa League trophy above his head. Rattling back to our hostel in Jimbocho I was certain my optimism for Ange had paid off. That this moment was beautiful and there would be more beauty on the horizon.
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But just two weeks later we were bought crashing back down to earth by the news that Ange had been sacked. Two weeks of uncertainty allowed whispers of that league form to creep back into our insecure club. Somehow the magnitude of the achievement was downplayed enough that the man who made history, where the likes of Pochettino, Mourinho and Conte could not, was shown the door.
Thomas Frank is the rumoured replacement at time of writing. I’m not gonna beat him down in the way others have. Frank is a strong tactician but more than that, he’s a good man. He seems kind and to value character in his squads as much as skill. He seems a worthy ambassador for the club, which is often all you can ask for. I’m happy to have him.
That won’t be what’s appealed to our owners though. What’s appealed will be his record. Stability with little resources. Overachievement. Consistent league form and a well-drilled team on the pitch.
No hard feelings to Frank, but this seems like a symptom of an illness that’s plaguing football. Too much focus with what’s on the pitch. That, to me, is only a fleeting part of the love story. 90 minutes, once or twice a week, in a relationship that’s, for better or worse, 24/7.
What Ange achieved was beyond the pitch. It’s not something appealing to owners or pundits, because it’s immaterial and unquantifiable. But it’s a culture. An identity. The feeling that, whether you’re winning or losing, you’re a part of something real. That’s why us football fans so often refer to results as things ‘we’ve’ accomplished, despite not standing on the pitch or doing any of the work. It’s why, before that Europa League final, I could barely speak from nerves. It’s why when the players lifted that trophy, I felt like I was right there with them.
People may say it isn’t real, but I point to Potter at Chelsea, Manchester United since Fergie, Spurs under Mourinho and Conte. Identity matters. A club in an identity crisis is a lost cause.
Ange was razor sharp in press conferences, dismantling so many of the lazy myths that have plagued Spurs fans for years. He understood, perhaps even redefined, what it meant to ‘play the Tottenham way.’ And the latin words inscribed across our stadium and once our crest — Audere est Facere, to dare is to do — couldn’t have described his tenure better. Lose the league to win a cup. Why not? He understood that managing Tottenham means taking part in a unique story. A sleeping giant, a club competing with the best but without the investment, wages or star power. You have to go about it in a unique way.
It’s not just about the love.
There was context to the league form. The worst injury crisis in our history. The most minutes awarded to teenagers of any team in the league. Poor recruitment meaning we didn’t have a team capable of fighting on multiple fronts. This was a league sacrificed more than let slip, in my mind.
At the same time though, why can’t it just be about love? Why can’t it be about that irrational, immeasurable, unquantifiable something.
You can tell from the reactions of fans and players that this one hurts, not only because of what he achieved but because of how he achieved it. Beyond the silverware he found a club in depression and disarray with our greatest ever player on a plane to Germany. He waded through the sludge and delivered us, at the very least, a beautiful night in Bilbao, or Tokyo or the Tottenham high road or wherever we may have been watching.
But at most I think he bought us something to believe in. The sense that with this guy at your helm, maybe you do come 17th. But also maybe, just maybe, you win the lot. An identity. Winning cemented this legacy, but I don’t believe he was a mere Mickey Van De Ven goalline clearence away from a lasting impact.
I believe that Frank is more likely to succeed now because of the foundations that he’s inherited, on and, more importantly, off the pitch.
My lasting memory of Big Ange, after the dust has settled, isn’t necessarily him lifting the Europa League trophy. It isn’t fans singing his name after a stellar first 10 game unbeaten run. It’s one of his early Q&As with fans, in which he insisted the conference didn’t end until a young fan with down syndrome who’d had his hand raised all night got the opportunity to pose his question. This was a man who understood football as the most important of the least important things. Why it mattered and what must matter more — kindness, community, identity — for you to get the most out of it.
