The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, April 20

Hi, everyone!

At the top today is former Tottenham defender Stuart Nethercott.

Ramble of the Day

I’ve mentioned this previously, but I have spending a lot more time than usual watching Food Network lately — it’s extremely inoffensive content, and the average quality of each program is much higher than HGTV (and probably a number of other channels). As a result, I’ve come to a very unexpected place: I am officially a Guy Fieri fan, and I think he’s a great guy to anchor the entire channel.

If you turn on the Food Network, chances are you’ll run into a Fieri program — Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy’s Grocery Games are staples of the network and reruns are on frequently. That was obviously true when I started regularly tuning in a few weeks ago, but what really hooked me was a special program, Tournament of Champions. Fieri and Food Network gathered 16 pretty famous and talented chefs — Food Network experts and Top Chef winners included — for a bracket-style tournament. (Side note: I’ve also developed a real interest in brackets recently.)

I’m easily tempted by a cooking competition, so tuning in was an easy choice for me. I wasn’t disappointed — the matchups were great, the judges were well chosen, and I was impressed with the overall structure outside of the bracket. Roles were allocated to two sideline reporters, with Simon Majumdar and Justin Warner doing well in their roles. Fieri was a really great host — a perfect balance of funny and unsympathetic, serious and lighthearted. He never took too much attention, either — the show was about the chefs competing (and the randomizer, a grouping of five wheels that determined what exactly the chefs would cook).

It built my respect for Fieri to a point where I actually tuned into Diners and Grocery Games instead of just leaving them on in the background while I write the Hoddle. Both are pretty interesting in their own right — Grocery Games is probably the most enjoyable casual cooking show I’ve watched recently, and Diners is pretty educational in the way that I like. It does take on certain habits of a travel show because it has to — it’s literally Fieri traveling around the United States introducing his audience to the best diners, drive-ins, and dives.

All three shows require different skill sets from Fieri as a host, but he masters each role by allowing the others to shine. As a creator of content, he’s also created different options and put a lot of thought into structure and entertainment value. In the end, it’s easy to determine he’s good at his work and he’s definitely a great candidate to bring back a rotation of strong content for Food Network. It’s no wonder Al Pacino wanted to meet him.

tl;dr: I’ve accidentally become a Guy Fieri fan.

Links of the Day

Coronavirus:

• England World Cup winner Norman Hunter died aged 76 from COVID-19.
• Brescia owner Massimo Cellino tested positive for COVID-19.
• Brighton’s Amex Stadium is now a COVID-19 testing facility.
• Roma players and coaches will give up their wages for the remainder of the season.
• Danish side Midtjylland installed a large screen outside its MCH Arena so supporters can watch matches from their cars. The

The FA has 60 geese killed from 2018 to 2019 to protect pitches at St George’s Park.

Today’s longer read: Nick Dorrington analyses Diego Maradona’s playing career for StatsBomb