theparkerfamily.org

Tag: Sports | Tottenham Hotspur

  • 2017

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  • bale

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRZMjHzWXQc

  • i’m pretty sure …

    … that i’m the only prog in D.C. who’s jumping for joy on his couch right now.

    and that’s because instead of watching the Democratic Party getting swept from the U.S. House of Representatives, i’m watching Tottenham Hotspur beat the crap out of reigning european champions Inter Milan in the champions league.

    nancy pelosi? tottenham hotspur? i’ll take the younger one, with the fewer surgeries — zing!

  • “we’ve got 800 channels — there’s got to be something on besides this.”

    []
    sparklet and i just watced the UEFA Champions League qualifier between Tottenham Hotspur (COYS!) and BSC Young Boys of switzerland, a match Tottenham won to put them through to the group stages of potentially the most prestigious competition on the planet.

    if sparklet ever figured out how to actually use that remote, i’m screwed.

  • champions league

    dear lord baby jesus.

    tottenham hotspur (click here if you don’t know what that means) just beat somebody. and that somebody (manchester city) spent over $190m on players this season BEFORE THEY EVEN PLAYED THEIR FIRST GAME.

    and now they’ve won the right to compete next year against the top teams in europe, to decide who is the best club of the continent.

    considering that, less than a year ago, i thought they were going to be dropped to the minor leagues — that’s pretty @#%@ing awesome.

    (i’m really sorry if you don’t know what any of that meant.)

  • firsts

    []

    photo of the week // week six
    another string of small celebrations over the weekend:

    • first “take your daughter to work day” — we stopped by the Conservancy on Friday afternoon (i had the day off) and made a quick round. i love the fact that i am the only boy in a department of 29 women for just this type of occasion.
    • first television — i caught little miss kate actually *watching* television this weekend. sunday night, i put her down in front of the tv to get her a new bottle, and when i came back here eyes were transfixed on the screen. of course, it was the tottenham match, and they went on to win 9-1 (which is kind of a lot for a soccer match) so she’s now allowed to watch tottenham whenever she wants.
    • first dress — baby momma has been just itching to get sparklet into a little dress she had picked out, and we had a couple good reasons (guests, work) to break out the nice stuff. monumental, because it’s the first time she’s broken out of the usual onesies/pants routine.

    in other news, we had out latest pediatrician’s appointment on Friday. sparklet clocked in a a whopping 9 pounds, 1 1/2 ounces, which brings her up to about the 25th percentile for weight. if you couple that with 22 inches long (75th percentile) and 14 inches around (25th) she’s either going to be a bean pole, or a supermodel, or both.

    and lastly … i’ve got to find a new time to blog. way back when, i used to blog on my two hour round-trip, public-transit commute, but with the baby i have started driving (i know, i know) which not only takes less time (18 minutes each way) but isn’t a very good environment for multitasking.

    more recently, i’ve been blogging during the downtime between the 6:00 pm feeding and the 10:00 pm feeding. the lady sparkler is asleep, and sparklet *used* to be either (a) asleep or (b) blessedly docile. however, since the onset of the six hour rolling dinner feedings last week, there has been precious little time (or free hands) to write anything down.

    maybe they make thought-to-screen, telepathy-based dictation software for the mac …

    Explore the Photo Set:
    sparklet’s first dress

  • tottenham hotspur, the most recent sign that the apocolypse is upon us

    tottenhamIn a most bizarre stroke of luck, the English football team that I follow (Tottenham Houtspur) has won their first three matches and is sitting in first place.

    this is the same team that took nine attempts to win their first match last season, and that we saw in London earlier this year.

    I honestly don’t know if I should run out and buy a lottery ticket, or bend over and wait for Armageddon … though currently my money is on the latter.

    I should point out that the lady sparkler’s team (Everton) have lost their first two matches by a total of six goals, so it looks like my bad karma hasn’t gone away … it’s just been redistributed.     

    but don’t worry, this is never going to last. 

    in fact, the only reason I mention is so that when this streak turns out to be yet another false dawn of Spurs supremacy, I can look back on these few weeks as the glory days of my Tottenham romance.

    until then, i am going to keep rooting like … um, the happy, well-adjusted fans of any of the normal, not-incredibly-inconsistent clubs in the league.

  • bambi on skates

    ever since I started really following English football (neé soccer) four years ago, I’ve been infatuated with a striker fans affectionately refer to as “Bambi on Skates” (or “Bambi on Ice”, for much the same reasoning).

    Peter Crouch (as I am assuming his parents call him, tho them calling him Bambi or Skates would be fantastic…) is 6 feet 8 inches tall, and his nickname is a spot on description of how he looks when he plays the game … there are legs flying every where.

    and now, Skates has landed with my team, Tottenham Hotspur … and I am completely cheesed.

    I wish I could say more about his recent playing days … but we just sprung him from a couple of years in purgatory (otherwise known as Porstmouth) so I really have little clue what sort of form he’s in.

    that being said, he does a fab “robot” dance after scoring (see 0:31 above for a sample). let’s hope he’s got plenty of celebratory dances opportunities left for the coming seasons.

  • white hart lane

    [Tottenham Hotspur vs. West Bromwich Albion, White Hart Lane, Tottenham, London, England, UK.]
    [Tottenham Hotspur vs. West Bromwich Albion, White Hart Lane, Tottenham, London, England, UK.]
    [White Hart Lane, Tottenham, London, England, UK.]
    i love my wife.

    she’s barely 14 weeks pregnant, just spent seven days gallivanting around scotland with my family, and wraps it all up by going with me (split seats mind you) to see tottenham hotspur at white hart lane.

    i’ve been following tottenham since i’ve been following the premier league — and the thought of seeing them in their 110 year old stadium has been clattering around my head ever since we bought the ridiculously overpriced tickets six weeks ago.

    it’s crescendo-ed to the point that this morning i was certifiably out of my mind — giddy enough that i managed to lose my wallet touring st. paul’s cathedral, but barely even noticing the rather large problem as my tickets to the lane were locked away elsewhere.

    we had planned on taking the tube to Seven Sisters, and making a twenty minute hike up hill to the stadium — but there was some variation on london’s perennial track work, so we detoured to another line and cabbed over.

    (speaking of, when the lady sparkler and i were buying tube tickets, our cashier was an aresnal fan — tottenham’s arch nemesis — and she was utterly unable to say either “tottenham” or “white hart lane” outloud without cringing.)

    (seriously, she kept starting to say something … catching herself … stopping … and saying “your destination” instead.)

    when we got to the lane, we walked a couple of laps — soaking it all in. by the time we actually entered the stadium it was already time for player introductions.

    i walked through the tunnel to the orchestral magesty of John Williams “Dual of the Fates.” it was glorious.

    it’s been a day, and i honestly don’t remember much about the match itself.

    i remember being in the front row, with a bunch of 20-something men. i remember screaming my head off. i remember being told to sit down by the extraordinarily polite stewards, a dozen times or more.

    and, i remember tottenham winning off of a curling 25-yard effort from Jermain Jenas.

    but, most of all i remember the chants, and the whole stadium — 35,000 strong — singing “oh when the spurs go marching in” in unision. i can still hear the glory glory ringing around in my ears.

    glorious.

    See a Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    tottenham vs. west brom, white hart lane, london

  • tottenham v. west brom

    my thoughts on the match are on another thread, but here are some professional photos from the match (so i don’t lose them) and the complete match report from eurosport (so i remember what the heck happened).

    tottenham won off of a curling 25-yard effort from midfielder Jermain Jenas, with just 2 minutes remaining in the first half.

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    6_gomes

    7_king

    2_assou_ekotto

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    3_corluka

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    1_lennon

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    TOTTENHAM: Gomes; Corluka, Woodgate, King, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Palacios, Jenas, Modric; Pavlyuchenko (Dafoe 64), Keane; Unused Subs: Hutton, Bentley, Bale, Zokora, Cudicini, Huddlestone.

    WEST BROM: Carson; Zuiverloon, Martis, Olsson, Robinson (Simpson 58); Koren, Valero (Teixeira 77), Greening, Brunt; Mulumbu, Fortune; Unused Subs: Donk, Kiely, Bednar, Menseguez, Kim.