Football Daily | Ange Postecoglou, curses and a patchwork Spurs high line

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Strewth, mate! Having been presented with the first three Premier League manager of the month gongs available since taking over at Spurs, Ange Postecoglou could have been forgiven for worrying that the curse associated with the award was about to strike with the power of 10,000 suns. While the straight-talking, no-nonsense Aussie doesn’t strike Football Daily as the kind of superstitious type who salutes magpies and worries about breaking mirrors or spilling salt in the training-ground canteen, during his time at Celtic he did once greet news of a knack crisis by saying he “must have walked under a ladder”.

All I can say is well done and thank you for not leading yesterday’s Football Daily with more inane ‘VAR strikes again’ rubbish. Instead, you’ve bravely gone for a more retro look at technology ruining football, with a good old-fashioned floodlight failure story. Bravo!” – Simon Hawkins.

Almost 30 years ago, in the San Francisco Over-35 PAPY League, I signed up with an otherwise all-Peruvian team (they were desperate and I was tall). We wore Universitario shirts. We won absolutely nothing and dropped out of the first division, but I kept the shirt. When I read your great story about Alianza turning off the lights on victorious Universitario, I resurrected the shirt from the back of a drawer and put it on. Either I’ve expanded or the shirt has shrunk, but it looked terrible. I definitely wanted to do an Alianza and turn off the lights” – Mike Gaynes.

In March 2020, just as the pandemic struck, I experienced an Alianza Lima game. As a long-time Hull City supporter, who now lives in Melbourne, I am used to a lot of stress, excitement, etc. Nothing could live with this, though. I have never seen so many police units: armed, riot, horseback, motorbike, helicopters, and ordinary uniformed. Had to show my passport and I was spared the truncheons moving people along. I was in the popular end, the singing never stopped, only at half-time when everyone sat down. There were three tunnels for the teams: one for the away team, one for the home team, but at the other end of the ground another tunnel for the home team if they lost as the more sedate supporters were there. It was a 1-1 draw, a good experience that made the Den look like a walk in the park” – Steve Cochrane.

With regard to Stephen Pearson’s letter, which referenced my letter, which referenced Andrew Kluth’s letter, which referenced your own Memory Lane feature about Glenn Hoddle’s house (Football Daily letters passim), he/they are wrong, and you and I are right. Your original text was ‘in front of their fancy detached house and back-garden pool’. I’ve already dealt in an earlier paper with the concept of ‘in front of’ as meaning nearer to the camera. An example of perspective is clearly illustrated by the top of Glenn’s head being on a level with a first floor windowsill. The adjectives ‘fancy detached’ simply describe the nature of the house, just as ‘back-garden’ and the adjectival phrase ‘needs a good clean’ describe the pool. The order of object placement, working forward from the horizon, is: (i) house (fancy detached); (ii) swimming pool (back-garden filthy); (iii) Glenn and his wife (fancy conjoined); (iv) camera. Glenn and his wife are indubitably ‘in front of’ objects (i) and (ii). Thank you” – Ken Muir.

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