“Why do you do it to yourself?” That’s what she said. My wonderful wife looked bemused as I sat in my arm chair desperately trying to fight through the pixelated buffering of a truly shocking stream, simultaneously refreshing my Twitter #THFC topic search to get the quickest updates I could. In addition I was refreshing The Fighting Cock match chat thread and swearing profusely. In that single 90-minute burst I created more derogatory phrases for Jack Wilshere than I thought possible. Never let anyone say that men can’t multitask. Let’s be clear; I was on one.

As the final whistle tweets came pouring in I felt a huge amount of relief but as my heart rate started to relax I considered the words my wife had said and wondered.

“Why do we do it to ourselves?”

I’ve been a Spurs fan for as long as I remember and the club is an enormous part of my family’s history. Nan and Granddad married across the road – you can see the Lane in their pictures – and various others family members being either season ticket holders or avid fans, my cousin even an employee helping out in the kitchens on match day for a time.

Unfortunately my primary school was very Arsenal fan heavy and let’s be honest we were Pony both in kit at performance for much of the late 90’s. It was a rough time only punctuated for me by the glorious image of Allan Nielsen gliding through the air to win us the Worthington Cup. An act that caused my whole family – about 10 of us watching – to nearly demolish our living room with a flood of flying crisps, soft drinks and beer as we all jumped up.

Spurs for me and I’m sure most of us, has never just been about football. It’s about belonging and fellowship, a point of conversation with strangers and a source of unexpected bonding, for example with some random fans on our honeymoon as we all watched the QPR demolition a few months back on the beach in Mexico. Despite only having been to a handful of games in my 26 years due to the damn expense of it – though I’m finally in a place to start going more – I’ve felt the trials and tribulations of being a Lilywhite so acutely it in some ways has defined my life. Being able to deal with defeat and still remain optimistic is nothing if not an essential life skill.

We don’t choose our family and most of us didn’t choose Spurs, it is simply a part of us, and our heritage going back generations

So many memories I have are inextricably linked with Spurs that it’s become part of the story of my life. From Mum and Dad buying me that first shirt in Enfield town and remembering how cold the Nylon felt as they made me put it on outside bloody shop to my last conversation with my dad before he passed away, telling him that we’d just signed Nacer Chadli and listening to him tell me he thought AVB wouldn’t last the season but that the “Southampton bloke” might be a good shout in the future.

Spurs are frustrating; Spurs are confusing and provide me with a sense of crippling sense of disappointment that sometimes I suppose it would be easy to ask why I haven’t upped sticks and left the Lilywhite fold. After all if I was in such a toxic relationship with a person I certainly couldn’t have taken it for so long. Except that it’s not a toxic relationship.

That’s why we do it.

We don’t choose our family and most of us didn’t choose Spurs, it is simply a part of us, and our heritage going back generations. Isn’t that just the most incredibly awe inspiring thing to think about. When I’m in the Paxton I’m in the same place my dad was at my age and my granddad and even older generations I never got to meet. Just like a family we don’t get to just keep the best bits, we have to have the hard times to appreciate even more so the brilliant times – and there will be brilliant times.

Spurs aren’t a club, its family. It’s as simple as that.

That’s why we do it. That ought to keep the wife quiet!