Graham took over the reigns at Tottenham at the end of October 1998 after weeks of speculation. The team that had nearly been relegated the previous season had recovered from a bad start under the watchful eye of David Pleat.

Graham had always been a favourite hate figure while at Arsenal, and it was with great delight that we watched as the club he loved (financially as he still has shares in them) sacked him and shopped him to the authorities.

But the moment Sugar, in what it turns out was his last throw of the dice, appointed Graham all that was history and we sold part of our dignity in return for a more successful future

N         N         No more would we sing "we're shite and we're sick of it"

N         N         No more humiliating, spineless defeats like Bolton or Newcastle

N         N         A decent league position

N         N         And possibly the odd trophy as Graham averaged nearly one a year in his 8 year tenure at Scumbury

Well, whatever, he had to be better than Gross, who despite putting together an unbeaten run in the league at home to keep us up, never had the backing or trust of the players and supporters. He had to be better than what Francis turned out to be. He had to have a better record than Ossie, or Shreevesy – so we could look forward to a time after 18 months or so of rebuilding a squad he could deal with where we gradually re-established ourselves back amongst the semi-elite of the top six. We’d reached the low point and it was going to be a generally upward curve from now on.

Despite what was to be come an all to familiar away defeat in his first game away at Leicester, a resounding home win against Newcastle, played in part during a torrential storm (God crying?) was followed by excellent wins home and away (in the league cup, our biggest ever win up there) against Liverpool, a win in the League cup against ManUre followed by a rousing comeback and a 93^rd minute Sol Campbell equaliser in a 2-2 against them in the league, as well as a point in a 0-0 at Scumbury.

After the ManUre league match I reflected on what looked a promising appointment and dreamed of a period near the top, cup runs and good players. There was even the added bonus of Arsenal fans upset at their former hero doing well at the Lane and Graham seemed to be worthy of the second best manager behind Ferguson image the press loved to give him.

The new year delivered match after match against Wimbledon – of which we were unbeaten and won 2 of the 5 sending us to a cup final for the first time since 1991 and ending our depressing run of being beaten in semi finals (92,93,95). It also propelled us into the 5^th round of the cup and a clash against his former employers Leeds.

The league form had levelled out a little after a Christmas stuffing of Everton but our league defeat at Elland Road in middle March was our first for three months and 17 matches in all competitions. Spurs had added the services of Tarrico, Freund and Sherwood to the squad – all better than the players we already had and we looked a much stronger team with these players. The start was reminiscent of Francis adding stability to Ossie’s stars in 1995. It was just what we wanted.

A battling draw at Elland Road earned a replay and saw one of the best Spurs performances for years when Anderton & Ginola goals saw us into the easiest looking 6^th round tie against Barnsley, which was settled by a piece of magic from soon to be double footballer of the year David Ginola. So much for all that nonsense about Graham’s first act to be selling Ginola.  

The League cup final was the biggest game in the club’s recent history, and truth be told a dull affair, but the new resilient Spurs battled back from the injustice of Edinburgh’s sending off, and the ten men stole the game in injury time with a great goal from Nielsen.

A trophy, a win at Wembley and back in Europe at last!! The “bloke in the raincoat’s blue and white army” were certainly happier than for many a year.

The cup semi final against Newcastle was a disaster for Campbell as his mad handball gave Newcastle their passport to the final (although as we all know that fuckin blind munchkin Durkin should have spotted Dabizas’s handball in normal time and the dream cup final with the only team to win the cup more than Tottenham would have been finally on)

The cup semi final was the first of a double downer, when he announced that QPR failure Stewart Houston – the man done by Nayim’s lob – would replace Hughton as his number two. Chris Hughton is a talented bloke (the majority of the good players this season have been young ones developed by him in the reserves) and with Hughton by his side, you never felt that any remaining Goon-ness could be let loose.

The season effectively ended when we lost in the semi, although Anti Eustonist will blame his arrival for the dip in form that coincided with his arrival.

This was the most important summer for years – we were in Europe – so no more excuses about any players being available as we were not in Europe. The prospect of Graham being in charge also raised the profile and expectancy of the club.

We waited………………………… Perry arrived – fair enough – we needed a solid partner for Sol and Perry was a good deal

We waited……………………… Korsten arrived boasting 2 goals in 7 games at Leeds and his best recommendation seemed to be that Leeds we’re pissed off that he did n’t sign for them. One to make up for nicking Scales from them then!! But why would we need another left-winger when we had Ginola?

We waited…………………………………… - where was the big name striker to replace our clapped out and injury prone strikers? Where was the all round midfielder in the Keane, Viera & Bowyer style? Come on, we’re in Europe now, we have to go for it

We waited in vain – Leonhardsen, another ex Wimbledon player arrived after a few matches, but by then we realised that we’d widened the squad rather than taking it to a new level.

Some of the anxiety of the lack of big signings was replaced when, Perry and Leo both made promising starts in good Spurs performances which took Spurs to the top of the league on a hot summer’s evening in Sheffield, despite the long term loss of Campbell in the first game of the season.

What a Geezer, brings us our first trophy for years, we start playing well on a regular basis and even top the league (albeit briefly). Late summer 1999 and the message is we’re on our way back.

Further good wins followed, including beating treble holders Manchester United and the Arse at home - and we also progressed well in Europe comfortably accounting for Zimbru before beating Kaiserslautern by a single goal at the Lane. We probably deserved more, and if Ginola’s curling effort had have gone inside rather than smacking against the post in the second half, who knows? But as goal scorer Iversen said in a post match interview – a clean sheet is important and all we have to do out there is keep it tight and hope to sneak a goal.

Unfortunately this is was the start of the decline. Graham inexcusably left Ginola from the starting line up replacing him with Clemence. A mad decision. A truly mad decision. So stupid that Kaiserslautern players thought it was a trick, but eventually had enough nous to replace the player they had delegated for marking Ginola for a more attacking role. Graham nearly got away with it, but his second tactical error in replacing Edinburgh with Young saw us exposed twice on our left as the 6^th from bottom of the Bundeslegia (and beaten 4-1 at home in the next round) Kaiserslautern scored twice in injury time to knock us out. I cannot remember feeling so sick after a match ever – I’m not exaggerating – this was the worst.

To be strictly chronological, the Arsenal home win came after this, but the defeat and the bad tactics fell heavy over the club and we slumped to desperate defeats – first in the defence of our League Cup at Fulham and then another collapse at St James’s Park, where the team showed no pride whatsoever. A disgusting display. They said it could n’t happen under Graham, but it was. The Christmas before we were dreaming of Wembley, this year we were out of all cup and what little cheer we had watching Ginola destroy Watford on Boxing day was taken from us with his withdrawal 20 minutes from the end with Spurs coasting 3-0.

Graham took Ginola off regularly last season and on only one of the 19 times did this over the whole season, we only improved our position in the match twice, going backwards around seven times. This was spitefulness without recourse to reason. One of the most notable cockup in removing Ginola was at Goodison Park where we were playing well holding a 2-1 lead when he removed Ginola, and we spent the last 20 minutes trying to defend the goal line as we had no attacking outlets, and eventually conceded and injury time equaliser.

The point at Everton was our only reward for five matches after the initial Millennium victory against an Owen and Fowler-less Liverpool, which included a defeat against hapless Sheffield Wednesday side. Oh how that Sunny evening in Sheffield toasting our position at the top of the league seemed so far away.

We finally won a game at Coventry, probably the least enjoyable away win ever in terms of quality, and somehow managed to capitalise on Laurel and Hardy defending to batter Southampton 7-2, but the season drifted off in a series of drab performances. Graham also chose to play Scales at Watford instead of one of the newly acquired young players, and paid for it when the useless git missed his tackle for Watford’s equaliser.

Graham then announced that he was suffering with Arthritis and we had the prospect of failed QPR manager Euston at the helm. Successive defeats were halted by a 93^rd minute Ginola winner at Leicester when he forgot to substitute him. Euston disgraced himself by subbing Ginola when we were losing against Derby and leaving him out against ManUre. The removal of Ginola, despite grabbing a last minute equaliser against Derby infuriated me and I could n’t sleep that night. How could he keep Young at left back, playing bravely with broken ribs, and remove Ginola when we were losing.

We thought the Sunderland game would be Campbell’s swansong, but turned out to be Ginola’s last match, and the good performance also gave hope for the summer.

The excellent signing of Rebrov was slightly undermined by the signing of an uncapped English left back for £5m, weeks after Phil Neville had revealed how lacking the Country was in that position. To make matters worse, Christian Ziege also went for £5m at the same time. We also signed Sully, who has turned out to be an excellent signing.

The start of the new season was spoiled by the news on 31^st July that they’d sold Ginola to Villa. Villa did n’t want him and we, including Sugar apparently, did n’t want him to go. Talk of Zenden was issued to quell the unrest although Graham said “He’d be interested in him, if we play wingers this season”. The lack of width and general attacking guile displayed against Southampton and others pays testament to Graham’s lack of modern awareness.

A good win against Ipswich, followed by a draw and a defeat to return Spurs fans to the pattern they’d become accustomed to over the last decade. As the season progressed, it seemed increasingly evident that Graham had never seen Rebrov play before – or saw him in a game where he regularly beat tall defenders in the air. Rebrov became frustrated with this and despite a number of good wins at home, ruined it all with a shocking away record that has seen us pick up three points from a possible thirty-six.

Many of the supporters, who will conveniently forget they toasted Graham when we won the League cup and were top of the league, will claim they always wanted him out. I am not one of these and its not just because he's a former Goon (although that does not help - look at one of the few managers to be worse than him!!).

I appreciate what he has done at the Lane, but we have spent 15 months regressing and are in a worse position now. Graham seems to have lost some of his enthusiasm for proving his critics wrong, maybe it’s the illness, maybe his heart is not 100% behind it anymore, whatever, he is not doing the required job and has the cheek to suggest that he is doing no worse for Tottenham than other managers. The following table shows that his record is down there with the least successful  - Ossie, Terry Neill and then Graham – even his predecessor Gross had a better record than him.

When the so called useless Gross has a better record than Graham after two and a half years and over £30m spent, something is wrong, badly wrong, and needs fixing, sooner rather than later. I appreciate the calls for stability and would gladly get behind Graham if he managed to turn it around or win us the cup, but I cannot see it, and the longer he stays in the job, its just wasted time, and if he spends any money it is likely to be wasted money.

Why not give the new man, whoever it is – Hoddle, Perryman, Hughton, Capello, a test run before the end of this season when we are in no danger so they can get it right next season. Or its more of the same and a nearly a generation would have missed out on a Tottenham side they could have been proud of.