Originally posted on Goonersphere.
Twenty years. A fifth of a century. Seven thousand, three hundred days. All of this time, our malformed neighbours have dwelled in the vast darkness caused by our shadow. This would normally be enough to snuff out what twisted day to day existence they have. but instead, the lack of vitamin D caused by insufficient light has led them to become increasingly obsessed with our actions rather than their own problems. Thus, they still toil away in the gloaming, driven by the hatred they have for us.
For twenty years, we have commemorated the day that marks the moment the shadow-dwellers are once more cast back into the darkness. It is a day of much merriment – dancing, drinking and singing – which all Gooners call St Totteringham’s Day.
Where does the name come from? Well, historians have placed the first mention of this important day at 2002. The Saint that the occasion has honoured through its name though, harks back farther, to Medieval times.
St Totteringham was plain old Dave Totteringham before he found fame as Londinium’s finest effluent-bagger. In theses times, London’s current sewage network didn’t exist, so when a chamber pot was full, the method for evacuation was to tip the brimming container out of an open window into the street. This inevitably caused problems with the hoi-palloi and their choice of attire, which normally involved trailing garments through the waste.
Thus, the rich and powerful hired men and women desperate for sustenance to scoop the odious material into a bag and then dispose of it in large containers conveniently located throughout the city which were then towed by equine-methods to the River Thames – where the containers were unceremoniously dumped. These ‘Baggers’ were grateful for the opportunity to feed themselves and any dependents they may have had and the discerning privileged benefitted from cleaner streets.
Dave Totteringham was the best though. His streets that were under his jurisdiction were the cleanest in Londinium. A disaster occurred however, when one of the large containers that housed the cumulative chamber pot contents managed to burst, spewing tonnes of effluence hither and thither. All Baggers were sent out and vainly attempted to stem the brown tide. None proved effective, aside from Dave Totteringham – who not only was solely responsible for slaying the liquid brown tsunami – but thanks to his efforts, saved the food sources from contamination, thus starvation was evaded.
Dave Totteringham was lauded as a hero and rightfully so. He saved countless lives in North Londinium and he stemmed the flow of excrement from contaminating everything in its path. He was posthumously Canonized for his feats of wonder and his name is now synonymous with stemming the flow of the unsavoury.
Gooners therefore used his moniker to mark the exact point in the season when the team hailing from Middlesex cannot mathematically catch Arsenal in the League. Some seasons the date has been extremely late, forcing Gooners to wait until the last few games of the season to unleash St Totteringham festivities. Other seasons have seen the party started at a ridiculously early point in the season. The most important point is that whenever St Totteringham’s Day occurs, it has happened for TWENTY CONSECUTIVE YEARS.
Surely, with every season that slaps the humiliation thicker upon the faces of spurs fans – like an ignorant pensioner who continually puts layers of make-up on their withered faces in order to stave off the damning reality that they are horrifyingly ugly – the respective manager at the time along with the clubs hierarchy surely should have put together a prospective long-term plan that would see their hapless club eventually usurp their more successful neighbours? They inexorably clubbed together their collective genius and would have formulated a plot to topple Arsenal and allow their fans a respite from the abject pain they suffer every season? If they did, why have they slipped backwards? Why did it take so long for the club to finalise their stadium plans? Because they failed to capitalise on the windows of opportunity when they presented themselves.
During those seasons – the peak of which came in 2005-06 – Tottenham had the matching of their rivals in the League and more often than not, the last one or two games of the season saw a nerve-jangling game which would decide the final league placing and more importantly – whether St Totteringham’s Day would be celebrated. They should have seen this period of time as the golden opportunity to kick a team whilst they were down and fully grasp the chance they had been given. They didn’t kick on from a great position however and slowly watched as their hated opposition recovered from their protracted malaise and reassert their dominance.
Tottenham now seem less of a threat than they have done in recent memory. Reliant on two players to provide the spark they need to navigate away from mid-table mediocrity, the fans of this pitiful organisation instead choose to embroil themselves in the goings-on of their most loathed enemy. These fans proclaim that the “Top 4 is their everything” and that the next season will see the inexorable rise of the chicken atop a basketball.
Every season delivers utter failure on their lap. Yet, their heads remain in the clouds, confidently bragging that they will indubitably wreck the Gunners chances of glory. No matter how wet the fish and no matter how hard you slap them around the chops with it – they never fail to wake up from the self-induced coma they are in.
So St Totteringham’s Day is a celebration of yet another season where the inferior has stayed in its rightful place and the evil that languishes in the shadows has been reigned in for another year. It also represents another chance for us to wake up our addled neighbours with a healthy dose of truth and humiliation.
It hasn’t worked yet – but trying is so much fun.
Happy St Totteringham’s Day everyone!
Up The Arsenal 