The objective? To get the entire Spurs squad to Dublin for a wild
Christmas party and back again while maintaining the fiction that
it was just a golf trip.
Skipper Robbie Keane - the mastermind behind the plan - had been on
reconnaissance many times to Ireland's capital city.
It was, after all, his birthplace and he was familiar with the lie
of the land. He discreetly collected £2,000 in cash from each
player to pay for the celebrations and on Tuesday last week, when
training finished at Spurs' Chigwell headquarters, Operation
Christmas Knees-up swung into action.
Jonathan Woodgate and five team-mates hired a Citation 2 luxury
private jet costing £5,200 from AD Aviation and flew out of
Stansted executive terminal. And they paid out again for
another one from London Aviation to get them back.
Meanwhile, the rest of the squad clambered aboard scheduled
flights. Sixteen senior players made the trip while four did
not, those being Wilson Palacios, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Gareth Bale
and Giovani Dos Santos.
The 16 met up late on Tuesday afternoon and some started drinking
in Gibneys in Malahide which is about 10 miles out of Dublin and
one of Keane's favourite haunts.
They then moved on into the city to the Jackson Court
Hotel. Attached to the hotel is Copper Face Jacks nightclub,
which is open seven nights a week so all entertainment is on tap if
required.
Reviews of the hotel on the internet observe that it is not the
place to stay if you want a good night's sleep because the rooms
are over the nightclub which doesn't close until 4am.
One described the club as "pretty sleazy" while another
said the noise from the music was "incredible". Even the hotel
describes itself as "lively" and Tottenham's squad were clearly not
going to let them down.
They may, however, have let their manager down. Because less
than 48 hours after their return to England, Redknapp was publicly
explaining just why Spurs players would NOTbe
having any Christmas parties this year.
Redknapp declared that footballers' parties were "too much aggro"
and pointedly added: "I don't think my players would take the
liberty of having one without asking me first."
Well, they did have one and they didn't ask. The more you
examine Redknapp's views on the subject the easier it is to
understand how angry the manager will be at having been
deceived.
He continued: "The only advice I have about a Christmas party is
don't have one. "I don't see the point because they're nothing
but aggravation for everybody. "Everyone's waiting for you to
trip up, go out and get drunk or act silly. You don't need
that.
"It's a long season and at the end of that, if we are successful
and achieve something at Tottenham, they can go and have a party.
They can go and enjoy their break in the summer.
"This is a busy period, a working period. Why should we have
Christmas parties? Every year there's aggro at every football club
that has one. "If they tell me they're having a Christmas
party, I'll tell them they're not having one. "I want to see
them enjoy themselves but not at this time of year. They've got
nothing to celebrate. "They have to maintain their fitness and
be prepared for a tough programme coming up.
"One thing they don't need is to get a load of booze down their
neck." Now the squad is living in fear of Redknapp's retribution
once he finds out all the details of the Dublin trip.
He warned his players earlier in the season that he did not expect
to hear any reports of them going out partying. Redknapp was
furious when he saw pictures of Peter Crouch and Woodgate in a
nightclub after a game at Portsmouth.
Even so, as a Spurs insider told SunSport: "The players were
determined to have a Christmas party and, being Irish, Robbie
thought Dublin would be a great place to have it. "It's
amazing they thought they could get away with it."
By coincidence Bolton players were staying in Malahide the same
week and a Reebok source said: "One or two of our lads bumped into
some of the Tottenham players over in Dublin.
"We heard the Spurs lads were heading for a nightclub called Copper
Face Jacks. "But they said they were going back to London
early the next day.
"It caused a fair amount of amusement when we heard that Harry
Redknapp had banned them from having a Christmas party - as we
thought that they'd already had it."
