Gone are the days of mid-table finishes for Spurs fans and @TalkingTHFC on Twitter is loving it.
The transformation of Tottenham Hotspur from mid-table nothingness to Premier League high-flyers is one of English football’s greatest modern stories, and there is little you can say to convince me otherwise.
The north London side finished 14th in the Premier League table 15 years ago.
Ending this campaign in their current position of third would become the sixth time they’ve managed a top four finish in that time.
Their rise is not only unrivalled, but an insight into how quietly plodding along in this age of social media scrutiny is nothing to be scoffed at.
Cast your mind back 15 years to the 2003/04 Premier League season.
Following a dismal 3-1 home defeat to Southampton, club legend Glenn Hoddle was relieved of his duties as manager, with director of football David Pleat taking the reigns until the end of the season.
Under Pleat’s leadership, Tottenham secured just 10 wins throughout the remainder of the campaign, suffering 15 defeats in the process to the likes of League One Charlton and Portsmouth.
The squad, which included the likes of Goran Bunjevčević, Mbulelo Mabizela and Rohan Ricketts, is a polar opposite to the current outfit.
Fast forward to 2010.
Spurs, now under the leadership of I’m A Celebrity winner Harry Redknapp, secure their first ever top-four finish above the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.
To put into perspective the incredible ascent of Spurs in those six years, the Merseyside outfit finished ten places higher than the Lilywhites in that season under Pleat’s care.
A mystery that continues to baffle me as of late is the hatred from rivals fans towards Mauricio Pochettino’s squad.
Tottenham are the perfect example of how to navigate modern football, with the players a group that most teams would dream of. Harry Kane, the club’s fourth all-time top scorer, seems to receive the bulk of the hate for reasons I cannot fathom.
A model professional, England captain and two-time Premier League Golden Boot winner, should be a player that the country emphatically gets behind. Instead, the striker is under constant scrutiny.
This select group of haters appears to be stuck back in 2004, living under the impression that the club’s recent success is just a phase, and that they will inevitably fall back down to the dark days of mid-table.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Spurs’ rise has coincided with the emergence of social media, with those that once taunted them for finishing mid-table growing up alongside these new tools.
The fact that a sixth top-four finish is on the horizon should signal those days are far from close to returning. In fact, they’re dead and buried.
We’re now approaching 11 years to the day since the club last tasted the sweet taste of silverware, and fans continue to live in hope that this year will indeed be our year.
It’s perhaps easy to say that in order to shake this hatred from rivals, the club just needs to get their hands on a trophy. With the quadruple very much still on this season, who knows what the future may hold. Yes, I know we all know the answer to that one.
RIP mid-table Spurs (1992-2005)
