Keeping the faith with Tottenham Hotspur a lifelong labour of love

SPORTING PASSIONS ANTHONY DALY:  Mark Roddentalks to former Clare captain and manager Anthony Day about his days playing soccer and his abiding passion for Spurs

WHEN I was seven or eight everyone at school had a team and nearly everybody was a Liverpool or Manchester United fan. I don't know did I want to be alternative at that age but Tottenham had a nice team coming on.

After the 1978 World Cup you had the likes of Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa coming on board and Glenn Hoddle was a great player. I thought they had a reasonable chance of being the third or fourth most successful team. I suppose I just picked them and it's been a lifetime of torture since.

We would have had the Match of the Day highlights programme on a Saturday night so you thought it was great stuff to watch. I remember the let-down of finally seeing a live 90-minute game and it was boring enough but the highlights were super.

That was a treat on a Saturday night. I remember being allowed to stay up for Match of the Day and the mother might treat you to a bottle of orange and a bar of chocolate.

As young fellas, we played nearly as much soccer as hurling. We played together in unorganised games and I used to play for a team in Ennis, Turnpike Rovers, from under-10 up until I was nearly into my 30s.

I always enjoyed the soccer and in fairness the likes of Ger Loughnane knew I'd be susceptible to putting on a few pounds in the winter so he always encouraged me to play until he'd draw a deadline on it, maybe the first or the middle of February.

You'd have to quit it then but it was great to be able to play away up to Christmas. You might train one night a week and play a match every Sunday morning so it was keeping you in some bit of trim.

Following Tottenham was a passion up until I was into my 20s and I got a chance to go over to White Harte Lane, which was great. The FA Cup finals of 1981 and '82 were mighty days.

That team was a very attractive team to watch with Garth Crooks, Steve Archibald, Steve Perryman, Graham Roberts, Hoddle, Ardiles and Villa. They were a very attack-minded team and it was a bit like when Ardiles took over as manager - it was regularly 5-3 against us. But to me they were like a version of the total football the Dutch had brought in during the mid-'70s.

I've stuck with them and last February I went over when they got to the Carling Cup final. Three of us were lucky enough to get tickets and it was a great day, beating Chelsea - you live for those days.

I remember working in the pub last year and the Manchester United fans were hardly celebrating after the Champions League final. For a minute or two they were, but then it was like old hat to them. I think of dancing around Wembley when we beat Chelsea and I often think that what's rare is wonderful - at times you can get too much success and you take it for granted.

It's a bit like the Clare hurling story I guess - anything that comes along rarely like that is very enjoyable.

I've been very disappointed this year. I really thought Juande Ramos was the answer, especially when he came in and had the immediate impact of winning the League Cup. But what disappointed me was how he let them drop off after winning it.

Obviously the summer has been a bit of disaster, losing Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov, albeit you couldn't do much about it. I'd be a big fan of Keane because I always liked his work-rate but I think €26 million was hard to turn down.

It's important that you stick with your team through thick and thin. I saw it with Clare this year - it was easy to get tickets for the Waterford match in the Munster championship but for the Munster final there were fellas fighting each other to try and pack the Gaelic Grounds.

There are a good few fellas I know who growing up were Liverpool fans and they seem to have forgotten. They came out of the woodwork the night of the Champions League final that they won on penalties against AC Milan but up to that I hadn't had a text off them for years. "Are you back supporting them again?" I'd say.

It gets a bit like that with Clare. We've only been in three All-Ireland finals since 1932 so you've got to accept if you're a Clare supporter that there's going to be more bad days than good days. But as Fergie Tuohy famously said in '95 - keep the faith. It's a bit like that following Tottenham - if you're in it, you're in it for life and that's it.