REDKNAPP : GO OR STAY - DECIDE NOW !

As a Tottenham supporter, I could hardly have missed the current furore about the future of club manager Harry Redknapp. It seems that Redknapp has pretty well painted himself into a corner and it will take a lot of humble-pie eating by either him or Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy if Harry is to still be in charge of the club come August.

Redknapp undoubtedly wanted the job of England manager and the players knew it. Consequently, the team's performances dipped dramatically and a side which had been serious challengers for the Premier League title eventually finished only fourth and even failed to qualify for the Champions' League, something that had been unthinkable at Christmas.

Unsurprisingly, the Tottenham chairman is not happy. Redknapp has a year left on his current contract and says, quite vociferously, that he has not resigned and has no intention of resigning. Clearly, given the nature of such things, he actually wants to go but is holding out for a year's compensation.

The result will be that he will, almost certainly, go. Tottenham will continue their appalling habit of replacing their manager every 2 or 3 years and the club will subside to their usual mid-table position, while arch-rivals Arsenal continue to outdo them at every turn under long-term manager Arsene Wenger.

For a brief period, Redknapp had Spurs performing at a level not seen at White Hart Lane for 50 years. The failure of the Tottenham board to resolve the question of his possible translation to the England job within a matter of hours of its raising says more about their competence than it does about Redknapp's. At the same time, the question as to how good Redknapp actually is remains unanswered.

There are two choices. either get rid of him now or give him a new 5 year contract with no get out clauses and pay 75% related to performance. Let's see how confident he is in his own ability or let's get someone who is confident and committed in his place. Whichever, let's stop pissing about.

FOOTBALL, THUGS AND LOUTS

Shock ! Horror !

I never realised it before but apparently many football crowds have elements that shout abuse at the players and officials on the pitch. This disgraceful behaviour is now causing real concern at the 'Euro' football competition being played in Poland and Ukraine.

As a longstanding follower of Tottenham Hotspur, universally known in some circles and for many years as 'The Yids' on account of their history of jewish ownership, I find this all a bit boring and repetitive. Frankly, I couldn't give a damn what people say, shout or chant. Much of the chanting at football matches has been highly obscene for years and yet no one has said much about; others forms of offensive chanting have existed for a similar period of time. Football is a highly tribal sport - is it any surprise that some supporters act tribally ?

Suddenly, offensive behaviour is no longer acceptable. Why ? When I was a child I was always told that 'Sticks and stones could break my bones but words could never hurt me'. Why is this no longer the dictum ? The more attention that is paid to the ill-mannered behaviour of the louts and thugs who attend football matches, the more they will be inspired to be thugs and louts.

Our grotesquely overpaid and pampered footballers should grow thicker skins, shut up and get on with kicking that round thing around the pitch; they should also stop their own loutish and thuggish behaviour which no doubt helps to stir up their supporters.

Notwithstanding my support for Tottenham, I still prefer watching properly grown men using an oval ball rather than these overgrown, spoilt and whining schoolboys.

MURRAY SHOWS UP UNSPORTING FRENCH .

Watching Andy Murray play, and eventually destroy, Richard Gasquet in the French Open Tennis Championship, one can only be disgusted by the total lack of sportsmanship shown by the audience.

Obviously, a French crowd will always support its own players exactly as an English crowd does at Wimbledon, but the English crowd also appreciates the fine play of the opponent. Today's match saw a crowd that applauded madly whenever their man won a point and yet became increasingly silent when his opponent won one. There were even times when fine shots by Murray were met by an entirely silent stadium and, at the end, there were even boos and catcalls when Murray won points; no Wimbledon crowd has ever been so shockingly partizan nor so unsporting. The truly frightening thing is that the crowd's treatment of Murray is anything but unusual; his eventual reception when victory was achieved was, to say the least, muted and the crowd booed as much as they cheered.

One has to assume that this is a representation of the French culture and it is, perhaps, something that we should all take note of. The French are for the French, sod everyone else.

RONNIE BACK TO HIS BEST.

When Ronnie O'Sullivan potted his final ball to win this year's world snooker championship, it all seemed to have an air of inevitability about it.

O'Sullivan is, without doubt, a genius with the cue and possibly the best, or at least one of the best 2 or 3, who have ever played the game. This year he played throughout with a level of control and determination that he has rarely shown before and there really was never much doubt about who would win the coveted title once he'd disposed of Neil Robertson in the quarter final.

His opponent in the final, Ali Carter, had also reached that stage by showing enormous strength of character and well deserved his place there. Sadly, he was unable to reproduce his best form of the earlier rounds and he almost collapsed entirely in the first part of the third seesion when O'Sullivan stretched a decent lead of 10-7 to a virtually uncatchable one of 14-7. Although he subsequently tried to fight back, it was all in vain and O'Sullivan was a comfortable winner by 18 frames to 11.

For the future, O'Sullivan, as several times before, has already made veiled threats of imminent retirement and the game has already lost Steven Hendry who announced his own retirement after his thrashing at the hands of Stephen Maguire; Carter may still be considering his own future in the game given his on-going health problems, although perhaps his showing this year may tempt him to play on. Maguire and Selby don't seem to have quite what it takes and Higgins is probably now past his best; next year's title may well be between Robertson and Trump, if the latter can gain more maturity of approach, though this year's 'new boy' Jamie Jones, may play a part. And there's always Ronnie, if he turns up.

SURELY WE SHOULD NOW BAN THE MARATHON.

Every time a horse has to be put down following a fall in racing, particularly in the high-profile Grand National, there is an outcry from the animal lobby. "Stop this cruelty" and "Ban racing" they shout, as if horses don't naturally run and jump.

Yesterday, the London Marathon claimed its tenth victim, a young woman who collapsed close to the finish of the gruelling 26 mile race. No one can claim it is natural for humans to run 26 miles at  a stretch and yet no one demands an end to this life-threatening activity.

It is true that people make a positive decision to risk life and limb by entering for marathon races and it's probably true that horses don't make such a positive choice when it comes to national hunt racing. However, running and jumping is second nature to horses and they would no doubt be doing the same thing in some field if they weren't on a race course. They are, also, rarely if ever asked to run 26 miles non-stop.

The young woman who died yesterday clearly tried to push her body beyond its breaking point and suffered the sad consequences. When a horse falls in a race, it is rarely a consequence of the animal being asked to do something which it cannot; the animal, or the jockey, or both, make a mistake or become caught up in the mistake of another. To suggest that horse racing should be banned or the fences made even easier as a result of such mishaps is ridiculous. We might just as well ban marathon running because some runners may push themselves too far and die.

WHO'D BE A TOTTENHAM FAN ?

A little over 3 months ago, I was looking forward to my football team, Tottenham, making a genuine challenge for the Premier League title. They had, despite a fairly awful start, accumulated enough points to make them real challengers to the two Manchester clubs which seemed to be several levels above everyone else.

Sadly, since that time Tottenham's form has deserted them. For whatever reason, a team packed with talented players has found it largely impossible to score goals and has leaked them through its woeful defence. Instead of being a side with a chance of winning the Premier Laegue, they are now a side that is likely to finish in 6th place and not even qualify for a European competition next year. Had they exhibited such form for the whole season, they might now be fighting to avoid relegation.

No doubt this loss of form will be explained away with a lot of nonsense about the future of the team's manager, Harry Redknapp. In truth, this is just nonsense.

If Redknapp is the great manager he is supposed to be, he would have managed this situation and his team would not have imploded in such spectacular style. The players have not changed, leaving only 2 possibilities. Either the team has been unbelievably unsettled by the likelihood of its manager's departure at an unspecified future date, or the manager has failed to manage his team.

If the first is true, one has to wonder about the mental fragility of these superstar sportsmen; frankly, if they are so fragile, I wouldn't want them in my team, though I simply don't believe that such players are, in fact, so weak. If the second is the case, why on earth would England want to employ this man as their national manager ?

What is the truth ? Are the players trying to demonstrate that Redknapp is not good enough for the England job ? Is Redknapp trying to do the same by managing poorly ? Was Tottenham's early season form an illusion ?

Wouldn't it be nice if Spurs' supporters, for once, had a bit of real consistency from their side, such as has been exhibited by Arsenal over the last 20 years or so ? A succession of managers, none given proper support or the time to develop a side with their own ethos, and the regular exodus of top quality players rendered such a result impossible for years. Most recently, it seemed that the corner had been turned and top players were being recruited, rather than sold, but the turnover of managers continues. If Redknapp goes, after only 3½ years, it will be Tottenham's 11th change of manager since Terry Venables took the job in 1987; the Tottenham hierarchy have, in fact, shown thenselves to be so inept that they have also found it necessary to appoint 7 caretaker managers along the way, including David Pleat 3 times. The last time a Tottenham manager lasted more than 4 years was the mediocre reign of Keith Burkinshaw betweem 1976 and 1984; before that, Bill Nicholson manged the side for 16 years during the most successful period in its history.

Whatever is currently going on at 'The Lane', if Redknapp leaves, so will half of the present side - Modric, Bale, van der Vart and Saha plus the on loan Adebayor will lead the exodus and they will quite probably be joined by the likes of Parker, Kaboul, Walker, Defoe and Lennon. Next season will see the Spurs struggling to avoid relegation and, quite possibly, failing.

Why didn't my dad support Arsenal ?

WHERE IS 'GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY' ?

For reasons unknown to any sane person, the referee in the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Tottenham awarded a goal to Chelsea when the ball cannot possibly have crossed the line. The massed ranks of the interested parties who run football have consistently refused to allow the use of so-called 'goal-line technology', similar to that already employed in top-level Rugby Union, Cricket and Tennis; why, is anyone's guess.

This blatant error must surely be the final nail in the coffin of these antediluvian 'nay-sayers'. Given the shocking wrongness of the referee's decision, it would have been more than understandable had Tottenham been so distracted that they conceded a further goal within moments, effectively ending the contest with more than half an hour to go. Fortunately they did not and, in fact, came back to score themselves within a couple of minutes and the game retained it's life.

Regardless of this, and before the result is known, I write these lines in the feint hope that there will never again be such a travesty in any game of football in this country.