Sick as a Parrot (North London Rivalry)

Found this, quite long but well worth the read (if you know your history)

http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/main/s150/st117897.htm

Spurs - Sick as a Parrot (North London Rivalry)
By Dave P July 3 2007
We continue our look at the History of Tottenham Hotspur in this, the clubs 125th Year, by examining the events prior to and just after the First World War. Most of what is told here relates to events that occurred not on the playing field but rather in boardrooms and behind the scenes as the rivalry between us and the interlopers from South London was established. We go back to the end of the 1908/09 season to start the next chapter of our look at the History of Tottenham Hotspur. Why 1909? Well that was the year the Spurs undertook their first overseas tour when Tottenham boarded ships for a tour of Argentina and Uruguay. After a series of games against representative teams from the Argentinian and Uruguayan Leagues and including two games against Everton who were also on that tour, Spurs made the long journey home by sea. On one evening the ships crew organised a fancy dress party for the amusement of their passengers. Two of the Tottenham party entered as Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday but got their stories mixed up a bit and as part of an impersonation of Long John Silver they borrowed the captains pet parrot. The two Spurs lads won the competition and must of impressed the captain as he then presented the Spurs team with the parrot by way of a prize. The bird was brought back to White Hart Lane where it lived for a good few years being paraded around the pitch before games. (More of the Parrot later).


As I have previously mentioned the next few years were pretty non-descript in terms of our history but events elsewhere were conspiring to make this chapter one of the most defining for all Tottenham Hotspur supporters. There was a property developer who happened to be the Chairman of Fulham that went by the name of Henry Norris. Under his Chairmanship Fulham had won the Southern League twice in successive years and then entered the Football League Second Division. However they found the demands of League football difficult and were struggling to make ends meet and attract substantial enough crowds to make them profitable. Henry Norris looked south of the river to another club. His ambition was to build a large club to rival the teams of the North. He saw the opportunity with Woolwich Arsenal and left Fulham to take control of Woolwich in 1909.


Things did not improve for the next few years. They were in liquidation when he took them over and in 1912/13 they finished bottom of the League with a record low of 18 points. Plumstead, Norris realised, was too far from the Capital to have any chance of sustaining a championship side and so he decided to uproot the club and found them a site vacated by the London School of Divinity in Avenell Road. More importantly from his point of view was the nearby tube station Gillespie Road on the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. Norris realised that this gave a huge working class population easy access to his newly sited club and thus the potential for large crowds. Tottenham and Clapton Orient were vociferous opponents of this move claiming it would be detrimental to their own support but it would seem that the man running Woolwich had friends in high places and the move went ahead very quickly. They started the 1913/14 season in their new unfinished ground and Norris was already starting to dream of the riches his new club would earn him. However the First World War was to delay any profits he might make.


Now the start of the First World War did not spell an end to league football initially. Football continued as normal to start with – after all it would all be over by Christmas was the sentiment of the time, but the clubs were all affected by losing a number of their playing staff to the war effort. Some were worse affected than others. Spurs for example played with a seriously depleted squad and this resulted in them finishing bottom of the First Division at the end of the 1914/15 season with Chelsea in 19th Place and Manchester United just above them. Woolwich finished 5th in the Second Division behind Derby, Preston, Barnsley and Wolves. Then war intervened and the Football League was suspended for the remainder of the conflict. When the war ended the Football League decided to enlarge the divisions to 22 teams each. So you would have thought that Spurs and Chelsea would get a reprieve and be joined by Derby and Preston. What made this seem a foregone decision was the doubt cast on some of the results at the end of the 1914/15 season. As the cessation of the league became inevitable a number of matches were suspected to have been fixed to a certain extent for various reasons. One game between Manchester United and Liverpool was the subject of a libel case which found players guilty of match fixing. United should have been docked points but this did not happen so everyone thought the bottom clubs would be re-elected and be joined by the top two from Division 2.


This was not what happened though. A member of the Arsenal Board (The Chairman – that man Norris) had friends in high places on the League management committee (Liverpools John McKenna – The Leagues President) and the case was put for the slots made vacant by Chelsea and Spurs to be replaced by teams applying for them. The proposal was that not even Derby and Preston would be guaranteed promotion which should have been their right. The President of the board also put forward the motion that Chelseas’ case was different and that they should not have to apply either. Instead they were elected unopposed as they would have finished above Manchester United had United had points deducted. The President also decreed that Derby and Preston would be promoted but the real surprise came when he announced that the board should vote for Arsenal as they had been in the League longer than Tottenham and should be rewarded for their loyalty. Ok, this was true but what was also true was that the two teams that had finished immediately above Arsenal were Wolves (one of the Leagues founder members) and Birmingham who as Small Heath had entered the League a year before Arsenal. What other canvassing went on is purely down to conjecture but the President of the Football League (And Henry Norris) were no doubt pleased to see the result of the vote which was as follows; Arsenal 18 votes, Spurs 8, Barnsley 5, Wolves 4, Nottingham Forest 3, Birmingham 2 and Hull 1 vote. On that night in 1919, Arsenal were elected to the top flight of English Football and have remained there ever since. They have never earned the right to play at the top level.


Now what of the parrot (remember him)? Well according to G. Wagstaff Simmons’ 1946 History of Tottenham Hotspur, the night of the vote when Spurs were unfairly dismissed from Division 1, was the night the parrot died and that allegedly is the origin of the footballing expression ‘Sick as a Parrot’.


Spurs meanwhile, and as if to prove a point put in a determined season when Football resumed in 1919 and went on to win the Second Division Title by six clear points regaining their place, at the first attempt, in the top flight on merit. Something that other lot can never say they have done.

Jammy fucking bastards !!!

I wonder how the story about the parrot is going to end up ?

Thats a good bit of knowledge that Ian. Didn't know all that. Not sure about the origin of the 'sick as a parrot' bit though. Mind you, might be appropriate seeing as us Yids have been sick as parrots for the last 15 odd years or so