Let’s have that (yasss) football?

I’m still not sure how I feel about football coming back, players risking their lives just so I can kill two hours someplace other than Xbox Live, YouTube, and the kitchen. But, nevertheless, I tuned in to watch Tottenham Hotspur host Manchester United on Friday. Coco-Pop and I exchanged a few texts. It felt weird to no longer curse and scream at my favourite club as though my actual existence was on the line.

Tottenham Hotspur V Manchester United, 19th June.

Coco-Pop: COYFS!!!

(COYS: Come On You Spurs.)

Coco-Pop: With your defeatist sounding manager.

Jarvis II: Issawild 😊

Coco-Pop: You have the same outlook when it comes to relationships.

Jarvis II: Proper Tottenham 😅

Coco-Pop: 😂😂

Coco-Pop: What was that sh*te from Lamela?

Jarvis II: Waste. But there are promising flashes, despite United’s higher press.

Jarvis II: Lamela is Mourinho’s dream player, though.

Steven Bergwijn, Spurs’ electric Dutch Winger, zooms past pretty much the entire United defense to put Tottenham 1-up.

Jarvis II: (Language too coarse to share in a public forum.)

Coco-Pop: 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

Coco-Pop: Wunderbar.

Jarvis II: Effin’ player.

Coco-Pop: (Harry) Maguire 😂😂😂

Jarvis II: Lols 😀

Coco-Pop: Berg Berg Wiiiiiijn!!

Jarvis II: Issalate 😄

Tottenham, growing in confidence, counter-attack United with a move that begins on the right flank. Heung-Min Son meets a cross with a clean header, which David De Gea, United’s keeper, pushes over the bar.

Jarvis II: Hoo!

Coco-Pop: Bola!!

Jarvis II: What attacking talent this Mou bastard barely uses.

Jarvis II: But eish, they were all injured, I guess, so we’ll see.

Coco-Pop: This is exactly how he would love to set up all the time.

Coco-Pop: But with Dele in the mix.

Jarvis II: What’s wrong with Dele, BTW? Oh, suspension ...

Jarvis II: And Mou was right, that ban does slap kinda racial ...

Jarvis II: Versus no action on Grealish, etc.

Coco-Pop: Grealish did something similar?

Jarvis II: He effed off to his girlfriend’s at the height of the lockdown and crashed a whip a bit.

Coco-Pop: Oho, I see how it might lean that way.

Coco-Pop: Where's Japhet (Tanganga) though?

Jarvis II: Serious effing injury in training just last week, because God is a Gooner.

Jarvis II: All due 🙏🏾

Coco-Pop: Use a lowercase ‘g’, iwe.

Jarvis II: For Gooner 😁?

*

Jarvis II: Prolly shouldn’t say this 2 mins before half time but a nice body of work. Problem is we wait too much and a lot of our positives are borne of individual brilliance.

Jarvis II: I just don’t see how you sustain this over 8/9 more games.

Jarvis II: Let alone a second half.

Coco-Pop: Lol, this is United you're playing, not Bayern.

Jarvis II: We’re saying the same things.

Coco-Pop: They do their best work in transition and the fact that you oans are sitting back is a bit of a wrench in their tuma plans.

Jarvis II: I donno, bawss.

Jarvis II: Luck keeps the other side off the scoresheet when your defense is less than A+.

Coco-Pop: Relax, iwe.

Jarvis II: I’m quite relaxed 😊 I’m like Mou, in all respects - I don’t really expect/demand anything 😅 Just a biased observer.

Roy Keane says some mean things about De Gea at the interval, and suggests he and Harry Maguire should go home by cab. Despite respecting the man’s career, both Coco-Pop and I call him an unsavoury thing, but just for laughs.

Jarvis II: Love how everyone’s just discounting that Bird Wine absolutely leathered it there.

Coco-Pop: They're talking like physics isn't a thing.

Jarvis II: Bawss.

Coco-Pop: That sh*t came at him fast and not from particularly far away to boot.

Coco-Pop: Keane should stop talking like he was the Messi of his time.

Jarvis II: I mean mans broke a leg or two 😄.

Coco-Pop: So what? I am not picking him over Vieira in any scenario.

Jarvis II: N*gga you reachin’ a bit but fair 🐷.

Coco-Pop: Nah son that disrespectful Irishman can gerrout.

Jarvis II: I can’t not call him one of the hardest working players I’ve ever seen in my life. The man ran on batteries 😊 Dumb comments aside, the career was summ’n.

Jarvis II: If not <the>.

Coco-Pop: I agree and dat but Patrick Vieira is the superior player for me.

Jarvis II: Skill, yes. Player, ... no.

Coco-Pop: 🙄

Manchester United come out on the offensive for the second half, and win a penalty after Paul Pogba turns Eric Dier’s defense into custard.

Coco-Pop: Soft call.

Jarvis II: (Sarcastic) Lovely.

Jarvis II: Dier was left for dead, though, my God.

Coco-Pop: Yep 😂

Jarvis II: Literally no attacking shape now.

Jarvis II: At a certain fatigue level, playing Mou ball, you don’t have an identity;

Jarvis II: *an attacking identity.

Jarvis II: If you’ve been relying on individual cunning to drive the thing forward.

United equalize.

Jarvis II: Wowww.

Jarvis II: Champions League delivered in an envelope.

Coco-Pop: Nah fam.

Jarvis II: Honestly wouldn’t mind if football just buggered off for a bit.

*

Tottenham now have jelly rolls for legs. Even the prospect of a draw hangs in the balance.

Coco-Pop: 🤦🏾‍♂️

Coco-Pop: How do you cope with Serge Aurier on your team?

Coco-Pop: The way my blood would boil if he was on my squad😂😂😂

Jarvis II: How do you cope with **** your team?

Jarvis II: Fixed it, mate.

Coco-Pop: 😂😂😂

Jarvis II: Everyone gets a (David) Luiz. Nature is healing.

David Luiz got sent off for the Arsenal against Manchester City the other day. Us Tottenham people rather enjoyed the whole spectacle.

Coco-Pop: I take back every mean thing I said about (Marcos) Alonso.

Jarvis II: Yup.

Coco-Pop: He looks like class in comparison.

Jarvis II: You stanning too hard.

Jarvis II: Relax 😊

Coco-Pop: We hate Tottenham! Chelsea!!!

Jarvis II: Luiz = Serge = 🐐

Jarvis II: MBUDZI.

(Internet parlance has made the term ‘goat’, and goat imagery, synonymous with (usually) athletic prowess. In Zambia, ironically, calling someone a ‘goat’ is still pretty insulting.)

Coco-Pop: 😂

Coco-Pop: Luiz + Bramble centre backs, Serge and Alonso as full backs.

Jarvis II: The Virgin Suicides.

Coco-Pop: 😂😂

Coco-Pop: I think I'll make a frustration/ hypertension 11 one of these days.

Jarvis II: Oh, you mean Tottenham?

Jarvis II: Eff football 😅

Coco-Pop: You do realise you don't have to support Tottenham Hotspur, right?

Coco-Pop: You were on to something when you were singing ‘Blue Moon’ that time …

Jarvis II: A man as football as you surely understands the implications of such a statement 😊

Coco-Pop: 😂😂

Coco-Pop: I've been spoiled for the better part of 2 decades though so staying loyal is easy for me.

Jarvis II: You don’t have to support Verona; Betis; F*** Boys? Young Boys? But you bleed what you bleed, me old son.

Coco-Pop: You choose what you bleed though.

Jarvis II: In your youth, yeah. Too late now.

Jarvis II: If the (Shaun) Goater years had moved me, City, maybe.

Back in the day and that, a stocky poacher called Shaun Goater sometimes got the crowd moving at what was then (I believe) the City of Manchester Stadium. City were always, at least spiritually, the superior Manchester club to me.

Coco-Pop: It’s never too late.

Jarvis II: Corona’s effed it all up now.

Jarvis II: Don’t make sense.

Coco-Pop: But most of us don't have any real connections to the places these teams are from. In fact, if I lived in London mans would probably hail from Tottenham innit.

Coco-Pop: All the tuma things that moved us then can be duplicated or even improved upon now.

Jarvis II: My fandom’s different. Grew up with grime around me, which is largely Tottenham music, and the club’s solidarity with Jewish refugees strikes/struck a minority chord. Then there’s watching them with my old man and all dat.

Jarvis II: And then there’s what London means culturally, as a former capital of publishing and a diverse city.

Coco-Pop: We can create new narratives and shit.

Jarvis II: You can, but I’ve lost interest in doing so. It’s all gone towards surviving, or being a better a**hole.

Coco-Pop: Watch a new team with your nephew or with your son, fly there and experience the atmosphere, you're a writer FFS write yourself a love story.

Jarvis II: Would also rather not do it alone. So, yes, this.

Jarvis II: My **** nephew’s a Chelsea fan.

Jarvis II: And fly where 😅 When 😅😅 God knows, mate 😊

Coco-Pop: Send this to your nephew.

Coco-Pop: Dream ya bish!!

***