🔍 The Real Crown Prince of Harrogate

Well, hypothetical Yorkshire, anyway: I’m actually writing this on the way back from Rome, where I’ve spent the past few days. The main purpose of my trip was a reporting trip to watch the latest installment of Operazione Nostalgia, a rolling series of legends games that is now a full-blown phenomenon: Italy, it would appear, can’t get enough of the 1990s. There’ll be a full account of it in The Observer in due course.

It was educational in other ways, too. We managed to build a family holiday around the working trip – that bit won’t be on expenses, just to be clear – so that we could show the kids the Colosseum, St. Peter’s, and as much of Trastevere as we could manage. My son was somewhat unimpressed to learn its capacity was less than that of the Camp Nou. 

Most importantly, we managed to squeeze in a daily ice cream stop. For the kids, obviously. Not for me. Still, a couple of the places were very much worth passing on, as were a few of the places we ate slightly (only slightly) more nutritious food. We’ve updated your public service map of recommendations to include them, so you have them at hand if you’re passing through. 

It’s not just the accent, though that certainly helps. Explaining exactly what is distinctive about the Harrogate lilt would be hard enough when talking to someone else from the north of England. It’s like Leeds, only posh; that’s as precise as I could be. Trying to unpack it for a more international audience is borderline impossible.

It is, after all, linguistically pretty unremarkable. Even to someone who can tell the difference between, say, a Yorkshire inflection and a Lancashire one, the Harrogate sub-genre would contain the same flat vowels and the same slightly nasal tone that you would find in a voice from Sheffield or Hull or Wakefield. It is only special to me because it sounds like home.

More important, I think, are the circumstances in which I’ve heard it. You don’t often get Yorkshire accents on British television. There are exceptions – for shows set in or characters drawn from Liverpool or Newcastle – but the generic northern accent, as far as the people who cast TV shows are concerned, is and has always been Mancunian. (Culturally, I find this legitimately offensive. It is why Micah Richards is such an important Yorkist ambassador.)

Over the last six months or so, though, as Tottenham Hotspur has lurched from one crisis to another – right up to the point where the club finds itself now, staring at the very real risk of relegation – the same player has been wheeled out, again and again, to face the microphones and the television cameras and the endless questions. And, to a trained ear, that player has a very particular accent.

Institutionally, I do not have any real emotional stake in whether Spurs are relegated or not. As a journalist, I can see that it would be an extraordinary story: football’s equivalent, I think, of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, another institution that really should have been too big to fail. Still, I have come to the conclusion that I do not want them to go down. And I do not want them to go down because I do not want bad things to happen to Archie Gray.

Gray is – with all due respect to Dominik Szoboszlai – my favorite player in the Premier League. Most of the reasons for this are horribly self-indulgent. That familiar, comforting accent, as discussed. The pride you take in seeing someone from your hometown – give or take – do well.

And deeper still, what one of us (at most) thinks of as being our shared background: he went to the same school as my brother, although not at the same time. Archie has not just the same voice but the same mannerisms as the friends he brought home. His name, too, carries weight. I was at Elland Road when his dad, Andy, made his debut for Leeds United, something that somehow happened more than 30 years ago. The Grays are part of the fabric of Leeds.

There are, thankfully, more objective considerations, too. The fact that it is Gray who faces the media so frequently, even after yet another defeat, strikes me as being testament to both his maturity and his courage. Those public haranguings should really be a responsibility for older players. That Gray does them, and does them so well, speaks volumes for how he is regarded by his club.

And then there is the sort of player he is. There are two ways of illustrating this. The first is by pointing out that Leeds always believed he would be a midfielder, a dynamic and inventive number eight, and yet has most often been deployed at right-back, left-back and centre-back in his time at Tottenham. He has not complained. There have been no whispers of his dissatisfaction, no public agitating for a transfer. 

The second – probably more convincing – is that he has a far more significant seal of approval. A few weeks ago, I found myself discussing Spurs’ travails with Steven Gerrard. It’s no small risk to offer a judgment on a player to a former professional; their views, after all, tend to be considerably more expert than mine. It can be a sure-fire way to make a fool of yourself. To my relief, Gerrard was just as much of a fan. If he’s impressed, we all should be.

Despite all of that, I have spent most of this season worrying about him. For Gray – as for any player – to fulfill his potential, he does not need just talent and application. He needs luck. He needs others around him to make good decisions. He does not need to find himself tarnished by being part of the most seismic relegation English football has seen for half a century.

Gray’s choice to sign for Spurs was a source of double personal disappointment. Ideally, he would have stayed at Leeds for a little longer. And if he did leave, I would rather have seen him in red. Still, it made sense. Spurs were rebuilding around a core of talented young players. He would have opportunities to play, ideally in his preferred position. The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was a smart place to establish himself as a player of Premier League class; he might, even, earn international recognition.

Instead, he has spent most of the last two years ago doing all he can to keep his head above water. That is not his fault; like most of Spurs’ other ills, it can be traced to a lack of direction much further up the club’s hierarchy. His performances have not been flawless, by any means, but he has been as good a soldier as anyone could hope: subjugating himself to the needs of the team, doing as he has been asked, playing where he has been told.

That will likely prove to be a formative experience for him, of course, but not all formative experiences have positive consequences. The risk that he is seen as what used to be called a utility player is already real: his selflessness, his diligence might yet see him typecast as a jack of all trades, rather than a master of one. 

More urgent still is the matter of perception. Gray is no less talented now than he was two years ago. That he has spent that time in a team bereft of confidence and identity, though, may mean that he does not shine quite so bright in the collective imagination. That is what exposing something pristine to sunlight can do: it tarnishes it. Football does not wait. There is always some bright young thing, pure and unsullied by the intrusion of reality, waiting in the wings. 

Gray is only 20. He has plenty of time on his side. He is closing in on 50 Premier League appearances for Tottenham. He has established himself as an elite player. In that sense, his choice has been entirely vindicated. He deserves more, though, much more, than to spend the rest of his career standing glum-faced in front of a camera, explaining why Spurs have lost again.

There might still be 70 or so days to go until the World Cup officially begins – I really can’t keep count, but it’s around that – yet this week has felt a little like the informal start of the greatest sporting event on the planet. It still seems very late to me that the line-up is not complete until the end of March, but credit where it’s due: the final qualifying tournaments have worked very well indeed.

The World Cup, as we said last week, is two competitions in one. It is, in part, about being there: validating a national identity on the world stage. Those sorts of stories were plentiful over the last few days: it is hard not to be inspired by Iraq and DR Congo returning after decades away, and by Bosnia making it for just the second time.

But it also exists as a mechanism to provide meaningful meetings between the game’s true heavyweights, and it is for that reason that we have to mourn the fact that Italy will not be there. Again. The last time Italy played at the World Cup finals, Luis Suárez bit Giorgio Chiellini. That is how long ago it was. 

The reaction to that elimination in Italy has, of course, been furious. (To be honest, it feels a little excessive to me: the Azzurri were unlucky to be drawn in the same group as Norway, and then missed a host of chances in Bosnia before being shown a… borderline red card.) There have been calls to reduce the size of Serie A, to end the season early so the national team can train together, to fire basically everyone involved and start again.

The real problem, though, is the obvious one. Italy no longer produces young players. It certainly does not churn out young players in the volume of the other major nations in Europe. Those who are good enough to make it are rarely given chances. That is the first, and to be honest only, thing Italy should be thinking about: forcing Serie A’s clubs to put teenagers in their teams. Create a pathway. The talent will follow.

Rog and Rory discuss Italy missing out again after a stunning collapse, while England stumble at a crucial moment, raising big questions about their ceiling. They dive into what went wrong, what it means moving forward, and which teams are peaking at just the right time. Plus, what to expect from Türkiye, the latest on the final qualification battles, a surprise move involving Roberto De Zerbi, and one bold prediction you’ll want on record.

Watch on YouTube or listen here.

As promised, here’s our map of places where I’ve eaten ice cream – and some of the lesser food groups – and would like to share the joy with you. Now updated to include the conclusions of five moderately gluttonous days in Rome.

My weekend, unfortunately, is going to involve watching Liverpool lose at Manchester City to go out of the FA Cup. This is not, I should stress, superstition, reverse manifestation, or an attempt to inure myself to imminent hurt. It is simply an assessment of the facts at hand. These next two weeks are significant for Arne Slot, for Liverpool, and for Fenway Sports Group. Elimination from both the FA Cup and the Champions League may lead to the mood at Anfield… curdling. This may be a euphemism.

The weekend’s headline act, though, is probably in Spain, where Atlético Madrid takes on Barcelona: the first of three games between the two teams in the space of 10 days, bringing their tally of encounters this season to six. The other two that remain are in the Champions League quarterfinals, but this one matters, too: Barcelona has just a four-point lead at the top of La Liga, and really can’t afford to give second-placed Real Madrid more encouragement.

We start with John Shea, a self-identified ‘Angry Gooner’ – there is, at this stage, not really any other sort – who has a bone to pick with me. “How could you talk about Italy’s young players without mentioning [Riccardo] Calafiori,” he asks, sounding suitably exasperated. “Did you not watch the Euros two years ago? Your Scouser is showing.” 

I did watch them, John, although I’ll admit that Italy’s glorious run to the… last 16, where they were eliminated by Switzerland, is not necessarily my abiding memory of the tournament. The only Italian player who really made an impression on me was Mattia Zaccagni, who scored the 98th-minute goal that at least meant the Italians made the knockout rounds.

You are right, though, that Calafiori deserves to be mentioned as one of the very few promising players of the current Italian generation. That I overlooked him is less to do with his club team and more to do with the fact that I decided 23 is not, really, that young for football. This was wrong, 23 is very young for Italian football. That is, in many ways, the problem.

And a slightly less disgruntled question from Robert Hay. “Around this time of year, I get the same feeling of indifference watching my team play. Everton will stay up this year, but they have no chance of winning the league. There isn’t anything to hope for, except where they might finish in the table. Has the Premier League ever considered playoffs? What are your thoughts on the subject?”

There are a couple of things here. As I keep telling Rog: Everton fans should be enjoying not having anything to worry about, for this season at least. Besides, Europe is a distinct possibility: perhaps not the Champions League, but certainly the Europa League. And that would, this time next year, mean a genuine shot at a trophy.

On playoffs, I think they would be surplus to requirements in the Premier League: the chance to qualify for Europe sort of provides the same level of intrigue. Elsewhere, though, I think they could be valuable – in the Bundesliga, say, where teams generally cannot compete with Bayern Munich over the course of the season but might have a chance in a one-off game, they have much more merit.

That’s all for this week – thanks so much for all your emails, and please do keep sending your ideas, questions and complaints about my rabid anti-Arsenal bias coming right here. Everything is welcome, I promise!

Take care,
Rory

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