For others it means standing knee-deep in mud, watching a band you’ve never heard of but paid £120 for a ticket anyway because you want to be part of the spirit of the music festival, Nah, you don’t mind paying £4.70 for a bottle of Bulmers because you can say you were there watching...erm...Beyonce.
For us, though, those unfortunate enough to be struck down with the affliction of following, supporting and yes, even loving Tottenham Hotspur, summer has become all about one thing. The Transfer Window.
Since the summer of 2008 when we saw the heart and soul ripped out of our then Carling Cup winning team when Keane and Berbatov were sold to Liverpool and Manchester United respectively, the transfer window has always filled me with dread.
Who’s it going to be this time? Who’s next to throw a lilywhite shirt back at us, and thank us for the memories while galloping off to the land that promises trophies and over £100,000 a week wages?
Luka Modric has already been bid on, albeit laughably, by Chelsea. This has opened up the floodgates of hell for us Spurs fans, for no sooner had the bid been rejected then The Croatian Cruyff was bleating down the phone to a hack about how he wanted to go to Chelsea, He wanted out, to leave Spurs on good terms, The old ‘its-not-you-it’s-me’ routine.
Hell hath no fury like a chairman scorned and Daniel Levy very quickly issued a statement to say no key player would be sold during this window.
Sounding a bit familiar to the Berbatov situation, isn’t it?
Nothing has happened on the Modric front since, which I’d like to think means Daniel Levy is sticking to his word. He won’t be sold. He’ll stay, for now, as we try and get back into those coveted Champions League places.
This is why this promises to be a summer of high anxiety for us Spurs supporters. We no longer have the carrot of the Champions League to dangle in front of the hungry eyes of some of Europe’s thoroughbreds. Sure we have the Europa League but that’s like a Casting Director going to a Hollywood producer and saying “Sorry, I couldn’t get Al Pacino...here’s Steve Guttenberg”.
The time to strengthen was LAST summer, when we had something to offer, when it looked like we were a team that was going somewhere. Or we could have strengthened in January, when after impressing in the Champions League Group Stage, our stock had never been higher on the continent.
Sure we apparently had deadline day bids rejected for Rossi, Aguero and Llorente, but why did we leave it so late? Why weren’t these deals being worked on over the entire month of January to ensure we ended up with at least one top quality striker? It was obvious that we weren’t firing on all cylinders up front even mid way through the season, and it’s our failure to bring someone in that has led to another long, anxious summer for us Spurs fans. If we’d have just scored a few more goals, put away a few more teams, there would be nothing to worry about, and once again, we’d be looking forward to Champions League football at The Lane.
I hope we do keep hold of Luka Modric, he was our best player by a long way last season and we’re going to struggle without him. His presence should be enough to entice some top quality players to Tottenham. Levy says he is staying and that’s good enough for me, so why does everything feel so up in the air?
Hang in there, guys. It’s going to be a long summer.