Why I will miss Ryan Mason

A number of years ago I became disillusioned with my beloved Tottenham.  Not because I did not love the club anymore but I felt I complete disconnect from the players.  None of them seemed to care and attending games was often toxic where our players look petrified of their own fans.  I sat and looked around once as kids shouted abuse at our players and booed them off at half time and full time almost every game.

I stopped going to the games and soon from attending the Lane regularly or hunting down online streams I simply checked Twitter for the full time scores, I had lost all interest.  While the players didn’t seem to care why should I?

I was invited to head along to a legends evening and while there I remembered why I used to love the club so much.  When I watched in the 80’s yes we had some fantastic players from all over but we also had local guys in every squad who would run through walls for the club and you could tell they were proud to wear the shirt.

While listening to one of the legends talk, a certain Micky Hazard, all about some of our academy players it suddenly hit me; I could still follow my beloved Spurs AND watch players who care about the shirt!

I started following the academy sides, going to watch as many as possible and that is when I first watched Ryan Mason.  He was a player who had everything I had been looking for.

Mason was an attacking midfielder at academy level, a number 10 as they call it now and boy he would score some fantastic goals, smashing in efforts from all around the box.

I watched him go out on a number of loans and had resigned myself to the fact I would never see him make our first team when suddenly our new manager Pochettino started to look beyond the big money mercenaries in our first team and promote from within.

I attended a league cup game where our fans were letting our first team have it as usual, we were at home and under-performing against lower league opposition when young Mason came on from the bench.  Right away there was a lift.  Energy.  Enthusiasm and then he drilled one from all over 30 yards to the top corner!  It was Roy of the Rovers stuff (well Ryan of the Spurs) and I was sucked back in.

Last season; 2015/16 was the best season of my life supporting Spurs.  Yes we didn’t end it well but for the first time in a long time I watched a team of players I could care about both on and off the pitch they all seemed great.  I felt like we were in it together at last!

Ryan Mason was the catalyst for that and although as the season went on he was used less and I had to suffer people around me berating him on a regular basis I still have nothing but love and admiration for Ryan as it was he who brought me back to my Spurs.

As he leaves for Hull ‘Hotspur’ to join up with Livermore, Huddlestone and Dawson I wish him only the best and hope that Pochettino does not steer away from promoting our young players as I can tell you all (although you won’t believe it as we didn’t sign any of them for £30m) we have some serious talent coming through.

Good luck Ryan, I will miss you AND of course Come On You Spurs!

Share the Post:

Related Posts

Categories