The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, March 26

Hi, Hoddlers!

I’m coming in fresh after baking a marble cake. By the way, today at the top is a grainy picture is of former Spurs midfielder Allan Nielsen.

Ramble of the Day

We all have stories about watching films when we were too young, and I’m sure some of those incidents were traumatic. I could tell you one about myself watching a movie when I was too young that scared me, but what if I told you about someone else’s story that slightly scared me? Wouldn’t that be more fun?

I went to go see Gone Girl with my sisters and mom when it came out back in 2014; most of us read the book and all were pretty excited about the film. I believe we saw it pretty early during its theatrical run, which would explain the mostly packed house. If you have any familiarity with either the book or the film, you’ll know that the second part is where things really take a turn and the story dives into its full range of emotions as it explores the main characters, Amy and Nick. Perfectly timed, then, was the voice of a young child saying quietly in an even quieter theater saying an elongated “Amy.”

I can’t speak for whether or not the child was traumatized, or why he was there in the first place — I’d guess a parent with a last minute scheduling conflict. All I know is the impact that incident has had on the rest of us. I told my older sister that I was writing this up for the Hoddle and her eyes widened and exclaimed, “Oh my God!” in a panicked manner. Says it all, really.

tl;dr: I went to see Gone Girl and there was A CHILD THERE.

Links of the Day

Coronavirus:

• Officials are tying spread of coronavirus to the Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia in February.
• Watford is offering Vicarage Road to the National Health Service, and Brighton is offering 1,000 free tickets to healthcare workers when play resumes.
• Union Berlin players will go without their salaries as the play stoppage continues.
• Newcastle supporters are accusing the club of refusing to halt payments for season tickets despite financial difficulties brought on by the pandemic.
• Wellington Phoenix’s Tim Payne and Oliver Sail broke quarantine by drunkenly taking a golf buggy out of the facility where the team was in isolation.

Former Mexico manager Ignacio Trelles died aged 103.

Today’s longer read: Rory Smith on Belarus, the lone European nation still playing football as usual as the coronavirus pandemic continues for The New York Times