Are you still a proper football fan when you actively want your team to lose?

I am probably the last person to be lecturing anyone on turning away from their club, even just momentarily, having spent an entire season following the dreaded rivals and what’s more - for reasons of self-preservation - singing their nutty songs.

But those so-called Tottenham Hotspur fans hoping their team would lose. Doing the Poznan when Manchester City scored. Squabbling with Ange Postecoglou during the course of a game which completely mystified him. What the heck was that about?

My excuse was I was writing a book. Yes, for money. Some Hibs supporters still hate me for doing it and label me a turncoat and worse. Most Hearts supporters still hate me for the jokes I made at their expense. But for the Spurs lot it was different.

Last Tuesday night they didn’t want Arsenal to win the league. If they’d beaten Man City then come this afternoon that would have been a distinct possibility. Ah, but here’s where it gets complicated: Tuesday was not a nothing game for Spurs. Victory would have kept them in the race for the Champions League. What was the greater prize? Likely failure for the north London foes. It trumped anything else.

Ange Postecoglou gestures to the Spurs fans after the recent match against Liverpool.

Not every Spurs supporter turned round and bounced in celebration. And it may only have been one of them who got into an argument with Postecoglou down by the technical areas. But that was enough for the head coach. It was way too much.

Techy for a while as his team have stuttered, he seemed to challenge the whole club - certainly the fans and probably the hierarchy, the staff and the players as well - to take a long, hard look at themselves and ask: what’s the ambition here?

After being quizzed often, pre-match, about panic at the prospect of Arsenal becoming champions, he said after the defeat: “The last 48 hours have revealed a fair bit to me. The foundations [at Spurs] are fairly fragile, mate.” Then, in a direct address: “I probably misread the situation as to what I think is important in your endeavour to become a winning team.”

This is fascinating but it is also as old as football. It is complex and yet perfectly simple: bloody hell, anything but that lot winning. It demonstrates supporters’ passion. It exposes supporters’ pettiness.

Scarves for sale on a merchandise stall ahead of the Premier League match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London. Picture date: Tuesday May 14, 2024.

Call yourself a fan? A proper fan? A proper fan doesn’t just go home and away. No, a proper fan loves his team but must also be obsessed with the mob from across town and have a deep loathing for them. They will be abused on social media. A proper fan of the rivals will pipe up: “You’re obsessed with us, it’s so sad.” But the baiting will continue to rage, from both sides.

There’s an old joke which is no longer relevant. The ignored wife says to her husband: “You love Rangers more than me, don’t you?” He replies: “Darlin’, I love Celtic more than you.” It doesn’t appliy now because supporters won’t give the other lot an inch. Mention to a younger generation that once upon a time fans in a two-team city would go weekabout to games - one week their favourites, the next while theirs played away the rivals they always wanted to beat but didn’t need to see trampled into the dirt - and you’ll be greeted by looks of amazement, even horror.

Back when this was a thing in Edinburgh, David Ronder was a friend who lived round the corner, our fathers both being playwrights. David, a teacher, has lived in London for a long time now, but while Hibs will always be the second result he checks, he’s a Spurs fan, so I messaged him about what happened on Tuesday. He messaged back: “I tried to be principled, telling myself that I loved us more than I hated Arsenal, but it was an unaccustomed pleasure to watch a game and not really mind if we lost. “Both my sons wanted us to lose. They have loads of Arsenal mates and the prospect of their gloating faces and Gooner bantz was just too much to bear. I think a lot of Spurs fans felt the same.

“Does it mean that as a club and fanbase Spurs lack the elite mentality?

I think Ange was alluding to this in his cryptic fury. Well, maybe. But many football fans I reckon would have been able to relate to our dilemma. This is human nature. As Gore Vidal said: ‘It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’”

I have sympathy for Postecoglou who perhaps in his ire was allowing recent grumbles from the support to get to him, the dissatisfaction at the faltering finish to the campaign after such a thrilling start. He might have been saying to himself: I’ve brought the excitement back, fifth is good after what had gone before - jeez, stop being so bloody entitled! (And speaking of entitled, what more did West Ham United realistically expect David Moyes to deliver?).

But Postecoglou can’t pretend he doesn’t know about the dementedness of football rivalry or, having come from Glasgow, hasn’t experienced it. In 1986, final league game of the season, Dundee United’s David Narey took a throw-in at Easter Road and the place exploded. “That was a good throw-in,” remarked my father, “but a throw-in is just a throw-in.” I don’t think that was another of Vidal’s famous quotes, but in any case we both realised what was happening, 50 miles up country: Hearts were blowing the title.

At the time I was ecstatic. Now? I’ve since met many of those nearly men, heard their stories, and there’s respect for what was a fantastic effort. Sympathy, too - lots of it. Call myself a proper fan?