Tottenham fans are getting it all wrong

What football - and the Premier League - can teach us about life.

I used to be a Junior Spurs.

To the uninitiated, that means: I had a children’s season ticket for Tottenham Hotspur football games.

My dad is a football fanatic and Tottenham is his team.

So he had this clever idea to get me and my siblings season tickets so that he could go to every game, if he took us.

(My mum is not into football.)

I remember my first game. It was Tottenham vs Arsenal, an evening match, and the pitch was floodlit.

It was so exciting.

(We lost, 2-1).

I’m grateful that my dad took me to those matches, because although I never really watch football now, it means I have an understanding of the game.

And so I can have a kick around - or a chat about football - with my three kids who all, for some reason, seem to love playing football.

I’m pleased they’re into it. I expect my dad is too.

This football period of my childhood also coincided with Premier League sticker books. My dad bought me one and each week, he’d get me a packet of six stickers.

I’d pull out Steve McManaman, Ryan Giggs, Ian Wright, Teddy Sheringham and turn to the page of their team to see if I’d already got that sticker.

It meant I was au fait with all the Premier League players. Though, if I’m honest, I was more interested in how fit they were than how well they played football.

It also meant I had an understanding of how the Premier League works.

So last week, when my dad said he was going to a Tottenham/Man City game, and that Spurs fans wanted Man City to win to stop Arsenal from taking top spot…

I was interested.

They wanted their own team to lose just so that Arsenal wouldn’t win the Premier League.

(This wasn’t what my dad wanted, but it was what he was hearing from other fans.)

It reminded me of tactical voting in elections. When rather than voting for, say, the Women’s Equality Party - who you’d like to see in power - you vote Labour or Lib Dem.

It’s about keeping the Tories out.

And it’s not how I play ball.

If I want the Women’s Equality Party to run the country - and I do - I vote for them.

Even though they are unlikely, at this stage, to win a general election.

Similarly, wherever a football team is sitting, points-wise, in the Premier League, I’d hope my team wins the game.

It’s about focusing your energy and attention on the people you want to support and see rise; not shifting it to some other team/party, to stop another one winning.

In business, this might look like choosing between:

• Delighting in the demise of a business peer, even though their fall won’t mean that you take top spot.

VS

• Appreciating the success of those around you and playing collaboratively, maybe competitively, but never with the intention of seeing someone else lose.

Takeaways

• Someone else losing is not your success.

• Someone else succeeding is not your loss.

• Play - work/life - fairly.

• Keep your focus on your own game, not someone else’s.

• Learn how to ‘lose’ graciously.

• Learn how to ‘win’ graciously, too.

Annie x