The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Thursday, November 18

Hi, all!

At the top today is forward Rosella Ayane, wearing something I don’t think we’ve seen in a minute: a Tottenham gilet!

Ramble of the Day

We all love collecting lists of famous people’s football allegiances, so here’s one for us all to enjoy: Tom Holland is a Tottenham fan (and his uncle, who I think isn’t famous, is a Brentford fan)!

It’s part of a fun video that I could go into, but I’m just going to focus on the football-related items for once. I wonder when this video was recorded because, despite wanting a Tottenham-Brentford Champions League final, Holland remarked, “Probably, right now, we wouldn’t beat Brentford.” I will theorize that this video was recorded before Spurs hired Antonio Conte — I think it’s totally fine to say a match against Brentford isn’t an automatic win today, but I think the comment is more a reflection of the doom and gloom from before the hire.

It’s a cool reveal, but one I was surprised by. Back in 2019, Holland refused to name his allegiance in a different video for GQ. He adamantly corrected a sentence on his Wikipedia page calling him an Arsenal fan. “This is not true — at all,” he said:

I played for the Arsenal Vets once, and that’s not because I’m good at football. It’s because they were short that many players. I am a fan of a football club, but I will not tell anyone what it is because I don’t want to make people angry. You can probably guess who it is, if you are a football fan, but I’ve kept that pretty secret. I don’t know why but no one really knows.

It begs the question: Why would people get angry to any significant degree that Holland is a Spurs fan? I actually saw the quote when the 2019 video was originally published, so I thought he might be a Chelsea fan — Chelsea seems to inspire a bit more negativity from people than Spurs, I think. (It could be different for the people around him, or I could just be wrong. I just think it’s worth asking.)

I’d love to hear Holland’s answer one day, but in the meantime, I’m happy he’s okay sharing that information. He’s probably going to shoot straight to the top in the unofficial ranking of famous Spurs fans.

tl;dr: Tom Holland is a Spurs fan, and weirdly made it a secret for a while.

Stay informed, read this: Jerry Bembry on retired track and field athlete John Carlos, who encouraged athletes to realize their power and use their voices for The Undefeated

Links of the Day

Premier League chairman Gary Hoffman will step down at the end of January following criticism of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund taking over Newcastle.

Reading received a six point deduction for breaking the EFL’s financial regulations.

CONMEBOL suspended two referees after they failed to give Argentina’s Nicolás Otamendi a red card during Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier against Brazil.

Ten people were arrested in relation to the events that led to the postponement of Manchester United-Liverpool in May.

A longer read: Jamie Jackson interviews goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard on his time at Manchester United and the regrets he has about his time in England for the Guardian