The most frequent question I've been asked this week by gleeful looking non-Spurs fans is just how embarrassed I was by Gareth Bale's dive against Aston Villa.
Cheek-scorchingly ashamed is how I would describe it. Not that I or any other Spurs fan has any control over what the players do on the pitch, but over the years their antics and my ego have become inexplicably entwined.
I guess the reason that Bale's dive pained me so is that I identify Tottenham as the good guys. This is a flawed logic when so many people hate us with every fibre of their soul, but then even the Nazis believed that God was on their side.
Yet when it comes to the subject of diving, I've always thought that we've had some cause to consider ourselves whiter than Lilywhite. Chelsea had Didier Drogba falling over whenever anyone breathed on him and Arsenal had Robert Pires collapsing in the penalty area with a roguish Gallic flair, but Tottenham never had a diving expert who could guarantee a 10.0 from the judges.
I remember when Didier Zokora marked an early appearance for Spurs with a blatant dive to win a penalty. From the reaction of the crowd around me you would have thought that he'd slaughtered a puppy on the pitch. There was just no appetite for his cheating, even though it did profit the team.
Zokora never overcame the incident and was thereafter about as popular in my section of the Park Lane as Ian Wright wearing a Chelsea shirt singing 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'. I was always proud of that reaction. Yes, we want to win, but not at all costs.
Now Bale, of course, is a different case. Zokora was always destined to be unpopular for the fact that he couldn't score, tackle or pass. In contrast, Bale is a hero at the Lane. Disliking him is not an option.
Nevertheless, diving has become a bigger and bigger part of his game. Bale has denied it in the past, claiming that he often goes to ground because, were he not to, he'd find himself amputated from the knees down.
There's a certain truth to this. Players who can run at defenders as fast as Bale very often find their careers curtailed by injuries caused by desperate 'tackles'.
However, there are circumstances when there can be no possible excuse that rings true. Bale's dive as Brad Guzan approached him was one such instance. He was looking for a foul and, unlike Luis Suarez, he didn't even have the good grace to make his attempt at deception so bad that it was laughable.
Had the referee bought it, then Guzan could have found himself sent off and Villa would have been down to ten men (technically nine given Darren Bent's performance). Our win would have been brought into question and Bale would be facing even more headlines than he already has.
Ever heard of 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf', Gareth? Maybe you're more familiar with its modern update, 'The Ashley Young Story', in which naughty Ashley tricked everyone so many times that they stopped believing him when he really was fouled in the box.
That's what Bale has to look forward to if he doesn't mend his ways and it will be to his and Tottenham's detriment. Considering that Bale will be facing his old nemesis Charlie Adam in the Wales v Scotland fixture on Friday, this might also not be the best time for referees to think that he's a diver who goes to ground too easily.
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