Woodgate remaining in some capacity

Woody to me is the sort of person that would be a good sergeant in WW1 in the trenches. He would have half-bullied you in training, but when the whistle goes to go over the top or when the other side whistles goes and they come over your trench he's stood there like a rock protecting your back and fighting with you. He would be a decent match for any stormtrooper. Less suited to strategy thinking officer types in the bunker with the maps.
 
atypical_boro said:
We were UEFA Cup finalists 18 months earlier.

But more importantly, we were “his” team and he had signed a 4 year contract only a few months before.
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Really it was not difficult to understand why a player chose Spurs over ourselves even at that time. Spurs had finished 5th the previous season and as mentioned in Europe and we were lower half with a rookie manager. In any case I am not sure if you are using it as a stick to hit Woodgate with or it’s just a general musing you are going through. Whatever, he chose to move on and it didn’t turn out too bad for him and at the time I wasn’t in the least bit surprised at the move.
 
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atypical_boro said:
Leave the club you supported as a boy, town you lived in whole life, owned a season ticket and whole family supported, to win a League Cup with a fellow mid-table side, and miss the chance to win the FA Cup with your own club? Well, I guess football means different things to different people.

I suppose what makes it worse is that Woody “seemed” to be a fan like the rest of us, the Spurs move was what made me think he’s just another mercenary professional footballer (which to be fair the vast majority of them are). I’d like him to clarify it if I’m honest, though I suspect he never will.

I never had faith in him to make it as a manager but I did say he could be a good number 2 somewhere. Didn’t think it would be here, so the fact he’s shown the humility to do that should be applauded.
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To be fair I think he is more the number 3 than the number 2 in the management hierarchy - below Danks (judging from the number of pitch line conversations has with both) - but that’s not to say he isn’t still having a good impact.
 
Cardiffdaffs said:
Really it was not difficult to understand why a player chose Spurs over ourselves even at that time. Spurs had finished 5th the previous season and as mentioned in Europe and we were lower half with a rookie manager. In any case I am not sure if you are using it as a stick to hit Woodgate with or it’s just a general musing you are going through. Whatever, he chose to move on and it didn’t turn out too bad for him and at the time I wasn’t in the least bit surprised at the move.
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Well I’m happy to agree to disagree, but I thought it was very difficult to understand at the time. Spurs weren’t an attractive proposition at the time at all, won nowt, consistent mid-table underachievers, had finished below us a few times, no success in Europe. He’d just signed a four year deal with the club he “loved” and yet couldn’t wait to get away during a good FA Cup run.

If winning a single League Cup vindicates that decision for some people then that’s fine, but I view it differently, just my opinion. It’s not about beating him with a stick. I don’t have a personal opinion on his off-field character as I’ve never met him and the Bowyer thing was when he was like 20.
 
atypical_boro said:
Well I’m happy to agree to disagree, but I thought it was very difficult to understand at the time. Spurs weren’t an attractive proposition at the time at all, won nowt, consistent mid-table underachievers,
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except of course for the two seasons prior to him joining them qualifying for Europe both times. Happy to disagree.
 
Zoophonic said:
except of course for the two seasons prior to him joining them qualifying for Europe both times. Happy to disagree.
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They qualified in 2006-2007, so it was once. And, what I actually said was they’d had no European success (recently), which they hadn’t (and had performed worse than us).

He joined them in Jan 2008.

Easy to forget we qualified in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 of course, getting to a final. In the 3 seasons prior, we’d actually qualified for Europe more than them. Not that that really matters if you do actually “love” a club. It’s not like silverware was out of our reach, the year he left was our best chance of winning the FA Cup for a few seasons.

They weren’t a bigger proposition than us in my opinion, so can we just respectfully disagree? Defend his decision if you like, but this is all subjective.
 
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atypical_boro said:
They qualified in 2006-2007, so it was once. And, what I actually said was they’d had no European success (recently), which they hadn’t (and had performed worse than us).

He joined them in Jan 2008.

Easy to forget we qualified in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 of course, getting to a final. In the 3 seasons prior, we’d actually qualified for Europe more than them. Not that that really matters if you do actually “love” a club. It’s not like silverware was out of our reach, the year he left was our best chance of winning the FA Cup for a few seasons.

They weren’t a bigger proposition than us in my opinion, so can we just respectfully disagree? Defend his decision if you like, but this is all subjective.
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I am not wrong. Look again. They qualified in 2005-6 as well in 5th. As I say the 2 seasons before he joined them. Spurs finished outside the top 6 in the season he joined them but his goal secured the league cup and a third successive qualification for the UEFA Cup. .
 
Zoophonic said:
I am not wrong. Look again. They qualified in 2005-6 as well in 5th. As I say the 2 seasons before he joined them. Spurs finished outside the top 6 in the season he joined them but his goal secured the league cup and a third successive qualification for the UEFA Cup. .
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Ah yes I forgot they had two 5th places under Jol. So it was 2-2 in the previous 3 seasons. They had had years of mid-table mediocrity before that with no more cups than us, and they returned to that when Woodgate went there.

He did win a League Cup, and as I say, he could have bettered that here. Therefore I still don’t think it was an easy decision to understand, but if others do that’s fine.
 
Now, a really childish thing to do (much like the Op) would be to make a comment about Woodgate as a defensive coach after today.

That’s why this kind of dragging up shoite really gets my goat.

He has come back, brave decision by all concerned and its working out.
 
We sold him for good money. Spurs got the equivalent of a decent season out for him before he was injured for the next 2 years; so, in retrospect, it was a decent business decision as we’d have been paying out his expensive contract while he was inevitably frequenting the treatment table.
 
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