A supporter seen from behind gives a rousing speech to an armband-wearing bollard on the pitch of an empty floodlit stadium while two dejected players sit behind.

Match ReportThe High Road Herald

Sherwood Podcast Says Spurs Lack Leaders And Supporter Goes To Stadium To Galvanise A Bollard

Desmond Parry · Chief Football Correspondent8 October · Reading time: one pint

Tim Sherwood told a Sky Sports Spurs podcast that the winless Premier League side lack leaders and characters, and a supporter heard it on a Thursday and was outside the stadium by eleven.

A Tottenham supporter has taken the view that someone must take the initiative, and by late morning on Thursday he had concluded that the someone was him.

The decision followed a special Sky Sports podcast in which Tim Sherwood, the former Tottenham head coach, and Michael Bridge assessed a side that sits bottom of the Premier League without a win. Sherwood said the squad were short of characters and leaders. Bridge wondered how many of the players would grab each other by the scruff of the neck.

The supporter, who listened on the 9:14 and again in the queue at the bakery, took the second point as an instruction.

Somebody has to grab something. I'm not asking anyone to like it.

By eleven he was on the forecourt outside the stadium, which was closed, empty and being swept by one man. The Herald understands he considered the ground's seven bollards before selecting the one nearest the megastore, on the grounds that it "looked like it had a bit of presence".

The podcast also noted that Spurs have not won after conceding the first goal in 47 games, a run of eleven draws and thirty-six defeats. The supporter has addressed the bollard on this subject for twenty minutes, mostly in the second person, and has so far received no reply.

A steward confirmed the man had asked politely whether the bollard was captain material and had been told it was fixed in concrete. He took this as a good sign.

At the time of going to press he had moved on to the next bollard, which he is calling the vice-captain.

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An oversized megaphone and four copies aimed at three tiny footballers, with a faceless pundit in a cardigan at a desk.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Tim Sherwood Questions Spurs Signings In Four Outlets Before Eight, Adding Not One Fact

Philippa Crane · Media Editor8 October · Reading time: one pint

Sky Sports reports that Tim Sherwood has questioned Tottenham Hotspur's new signings, and the Herald has since found the same sentence on four further pages, each one slightly firmer than the last.

A Tottenham man seated at his kitchen table at 7.40am has confirmed that Tim Sherwood's questioning of the club's new signings reached him from five separate outlets before the toast was ready, and that the fifth contained exactly the information of the first.

The original report, published by Sky Sports, states that Sherwood questions Tottenham Hotspur's new signings. The Herald has read it twice and can confirm that it says so.

The second website, reached at 7.52am, reported that Sherwood had doubts. The third, at 8.05am, reported concerns. By the fourth, which arrived on the man's phone while he was buttering, the questions had become a warning, though to whom was not stated.

Four sites now, and not one of them says what he actually questioned. I've read them all. Twice. Some of them three times.

The Herald compared the four versions line by line. Each opens with the headline, restates the headline in its second paragraph, and closes by inviting the reader to say whether they agree. The running total of new facts added since the original stands at nil.

A second person at the table, who had read none of them, was given a short summary and described it as accurate, adding that it was also what she had assumed.

Press historians note that the story has now been understood, monitored and reflected upon without anyone having established what is being understood, monitored or reflected upon.

The man has opened a fifth tab.

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