In the beginning, I pleaded down the imaginary phone line into his head: "Please, Berba, please don't go! Don't be lured by the communal glory of Champion's League football and double-your-money wage deals. Stay at The Lane, play your way into our hearts and become a legend!" This was a player for which I had a genuine affection, the desire (for probably the first time) to buy a replica shirt and emblazon his name across the top of my back.
Then, the attitude started. And although I wasn't around for a great chunk of last season, I was aware that, yes, he was still our player and, yes, he was still banging them in but all the while Fergie had a wee gleam in his eye, counting and re-counting big piles of crisp twenty-pound notes and eyeing up our prize asset. As soon as the season had closed (the dreary, wearying and ultimately anti-climactic 'Ronaldo-to-Madrid, will-he-wont-he' business notwithstanding), Dimitar Berbatov's long-heralded move to the Red side of Manchester was the main story for many fans, and had begun to look as much of a eventuality as ever. And, guess what, the player was already making disgruntled noises, and what was hinted at in that almost-overlooked "I'm happy...for now", uttered in a press conference what seems like an age ago, became a clear and distinct possibility. The revelation that he was a smoker, made by a fellow supporter and friend, seemed to confirm the start of his rapid decline in my affections.
The head dropped, the eyes narrowed and the sulk came into full-effect. Clearly he was a man somewhere he didn't want to be, and after a number of soundbites confirming what his body language clearly suggested, as far as I (and, I wouldn't mind betting, a majority of other Spurs fans) was concerned, if he didn't want to play for Tottenham Hotspur then he was no longer welcome and was, in effect, no longer fit to wear the shirt. "You want out", I said to anyone who would listen to my little make-believe conversation time and time again, "off you go. Up the M6. Go on, piss off" and so on, and so forth. I had resigned myself to the inevitable, and would be very glad to see him go (in return for a huge sum of money, of course).
And now, with cheque for 30+ million quid and a bright young striking prospect called Fraizer Campbell making their way down South mere minutes before the cut-off, Berbs is no longer a Spurs player. And do you know what? I find myself feeling a little sad.
Maybe it's the transfer deadline television coverage and the somewhat intangible nature of the news on this most idiosyncratic of days. Without anything to actually beam live into our living rooms news channels have to make do with 'best ofs', voice-over'ed montages, played on a loop, reminding us fans exactly why our players are so desired and lauded after. Sitting there, watching our lanky, elegant, Bulgarian ex-employee dance through and around defences (and make no mistake, when on-song he does just that: dance) and put the ball in the net with insouciant ease, I felt wrenched at having my club let such an individual talent like that go, albeit in accordance with the man himself's wishes and a lot of dough. Still though, such a player... Seeing him play in the red strip of Manchester United will be difficult indeed.
Even now, some months after I had accepted the inevitable, seeing the picture below actually makes me grit my teeth and want to to utter a four-letter obscenity out loud. Odd, given that seeing fan's favourite Robbie Keane for Liverpool was far harder but seeing him play for another team has actually been relatively pain-free so far. Perhaps this is because, after 3 Premier League games, he's so far failed to score a single goal and has been, to be perfectly frank, a bit poo.
But I remain very upbeat. Our creditable draw away Chelsea this weekend and our new signings all add to my increasing sense of optimism (which had threatened to fully nose-dive after the opening two fixtures). It is with the events of these last few days, not least the removal of a potentially divisive dressing-room influence in the shape of the unsettled Bulgarian, that I feel Spurs' season may have really begun.
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