Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou has joked he would be ‘happy to disappoint’ King Charles III after discovering he was a Burnley fan.
Postecoglou was among several Australians invited to Buckingham Palace this week and he is now preparing for his Spurs side to face the Clarets on Saturday. Though a guest of honour at the Palace, Postecoglou did not get a chance to meet the monarch face-to-face.
At a pre-match press conference, Postecoglou was told of the irony that the King is in fact a Burnley fan.
“Probably why they kept him away from me! I would be happy to disappoint him on that front. No problem,” he replied.
“I didn’t get within ten feet of the King and if I had have got closer I probably would have asked him about the Parthenon Marbles and I would probably have got thrown out.
“It was nice for me and my wife. These are experiences you are just fortunate because of the position I hold, not necessarily who I am.
“What we try to do, my wife and I, is really immerse ourselves in it and just seeing the people in there and hearing their stories, the joy they have of being there, it’s significant for me and my wife seeing how significant it is for them. When you’re in that space, it’s special. So yeah, it was a good day.
“We got an invite from the Australian government. Me and the other Aussies in the group, Mile [Jedinak, first-team coach], Scott [Munn, chief football officer], Charli Grant from the women’s team.
“It was nice, a different experience. Just really inspiring because the people we met there work for charities, great causes, military people, people who are real heroes for society.
“They know who I am and come up and say hello, but just asking them about who they are and their life, you see so many fantastic people who do so much in communities, often without a lot of heralding from the wider public acknowledgement.
“I could see how happy they were to be there because finally there was some acknowledgement for them. Bizarrely enough, the sun was shining in London so we had a really nice afternoon.”
Tottenham will relegate Burnley with a win in north London on Saturday. The Clarets need three points and Nottingham Forest to lose to Chelsea later in the day to stand any realistic chance of Premier League survival given their hugely inferior goal difference.