The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, November 4

Hello, all!

I’m waiting for it to truly be hot chocolate season.

Ramble of the Day

I stumbled upon this on Friday:

[Translation: French-American actor Timothée Chalamet was on a U.S. talk show Thursday, wearing an AS Saint-Étienne jersey.]

To me, this was very relevant information. I’m a big fan of Chalamet; he’s a terrific actor, but I am also slightly more inclined to like someone who also likes football. (Slightly being the operative word. It doesn’t come anywhere close to changing my opinion on people.) It’s always a bit of a surprise when famous Americans are football fans, but information I appreciate and tend to keep in mind.

I don’t go out of my way to find out if famous American people even like football teams — it would be a pointless thing to do, for the most part. If I find out incidentally, that works for me. Chalamet’s a bit of a different case, possibly, since he has a French father and spent some time growing up in France. (He’s also expressed a love for the sport.) If, though, a British famous person comes to mind, you better believe I’ll be looking up which football team they like.

Take, for example, when Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer won the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. I haven’t seen the show (yet! — I’m terrible at watching tv), but I heard the accent when she won the award — it’s very clearly Scouse, even if she’s (probably) had to tone it down for certain audiences. Almost instantly, my older sister went to see if she liked a football team, and we hoped it wasn’t Liverpool. The news was good (if you were asking us):

As a result, I know so many random famous British football fans (and people from other countries, of course). I could tell you that Jamie Bell is an Arsenal fan. I know that Ed Sheeran supports Ipswich. I’m aware that Keira Knightley is a West Ham fan (and lost a bet to her Tottenham supporting husband, meaning their kid’s being raised a Spurs fan).

I also know that Sylvester Stallone likes Everton, and that Tom Hanks is an Aston Villa supporter. I may go out of my way to find out if British folk like football, but if you’re from anywhere in the world and you like the sport, I’m probably bound to find out.

It’s obviously not hard information to find out, since this kind of thing makes news in the football world, but I do tend to be very vigilant about it.

tl;dr: I have quite a knowledge of famous people that like football.

Links of the Day

Jamaican international Tarania Clarke has died aged 20 after she was stabbed to death in Kingston.

Bayern has fired Niko Kovač after more than a year in the job.

Brescia’s Mario Balotelli threatened to walk off the field after he was racially abused by Hellas Verona fans.

Today’s longer read: Sid Lowe on Athletic Bilbao’s film and literature festivals and a possible model of success of the clubs that aren’t super clubs for The Guardian