Arsenal
Worse since 2004 Blown title race Day Trips Better to walk?
Day Trippers
By Celine Dion
April 3 2011
I am 36 years old, I have been married for 8 years and I am the father of two young children aged three and five. I started going to the Arsenal in 1986 when I was about 12 and it became part of my life from there. When I was younger football was something I took for granted. I used to say that if I had only 20 pounds to my name, I would spend it following the Arsenal.
Because that was all it cost, 20 pounds, to travel by train from my home in Kent to Highbury and stand in the north bank with money for beer and food on the way home, or to take the tube to Watford and do the same, or even travel to Norwich, give or take 10 pound more.
So it was easy to become part of the family of Arsenal, you soon got to
recognise the faces that went to the away games, or formed the hard core
support in the back of the North Bank or Clock end, you got to know the songs
and the camaraderie, the people and the names. It was like opening the door to
a wonderful new world. Players like Merson and Wright were like fans on the
pitch, and the team had grit and heroes like Tony Adams.
Life changed for me after that. I went to University in Liverpool. I did the
odd away game in the North, but in the main and for many years I was only
interested in nightclubs. I met Mrs Celine Dion, and lived with her in Camden.
During the wonder years of 1998-2005 I was rarely at the ground, and if it was,
I was paying over the odds for a seat.
When the Emirates was built, I saw this as an opportunity to get back to how
things were, and get regular football back into my life. The bug took hold
again very quickly - moving to the present day, I HAVE to go to every home
league game, other match going fans will understand this, something would be
wrong if I sat at home when I could actually go to the game.
Opium of the masses the heart of a heartless world
Life can be pretty crap, outside football; big business has taken a grip of our country and our lives. Saturday is something I look forward to, too much so, in fact, as the antidote to the rubbish dysfunctional life I lead. It’s not just the game itself, it the ritual, it’s the beers before the game, it’s going to the Gunners, it’s talking to the away fans on the way back to the station.
But there’s a distinct difference
to it all nowadays. The Emirates has a lower tier of cheap seats, or so-called
cheap seats, £35 a throw when Wigan or Wolves are in town. But these sell out
quickly; most Arsenal fans need to pay £50-60 to watch the team. Plus travel.
Plus £3.70 a pint and £5 for a small cardboard box full of chicken strips. With
train fares, programmes, and all the rest of it, a day at the football doesn’t
cost £20 anymore, it costs £100 at least. And that’s just for me. Heaven forbid
if I wanted to take one of my kids.
But what about the team nowadays - well,
the Arsenal team has got progressively worse since 2004 and there’s no way
anyone at this point in time can disagree with me. There’s no two ways about
it, each time a top quality player leaves, for whatever reason, they are
replaced with a cost-cutting alternative. Eduardo for Henry, Almunia for
Lehmann, Denilson for Flamini and Flamini for Gilberto, Squillaci for Gallas.
The spreadsheet-shuffling marketers at the top of the club know exactly what they are doing, they have been peddling the brand of Arsene Wenger and his cut-price youth driven title winning potential for years and years now. They have successfully drawn Arsenal fans into the economic argument, you hear people saying ‘We don’t want to run the risk of going BANKRUPT like United or Chelsea COULD.’
Like there’s something terribly WICKED about spending 15 million on a player, even though everybody else does it and we used to as well. As if Arsenal are some kind of hippy co-operative movement that charges everyone £2 a seat to watch their team of plucky underdogs ply their trade against the unseemly monoliths of Chelsea and United. It’s all bollocks, frankly. Twenty five million pound a couple of times a year isn’t going to send a club our size bankrupt, loan or no loan. And even if it was, sell some of the underachieving injury prone sh*te that’s in the squad already.
Take a walk around the middle tier of Arsenal as I have done. Half the
investment bankers in Europe can be found there, drinking Chateau-Lafitte and
eating big fe*king cream cakes. The whole place STINKS of money. Increasingly,
I find that the people who are most protective (and they are, condescendingly
and vehemently so) of Arsenals’ magical team of accountants and their
representative on the pitch Mr Arsene Wenger, are people who don’t actually go.
Throwing it away
As for the people who do go to the Arsenal. Well, there’s something wrong
frankly. Yesterday we played Blackburn Rovers. This is our best opportunity in
the last five years to win the league. A bit injury hit - but not half as injury
hit as usual. Out of the Champions League nice and early. The league has become
a bit of a holy grail for me personally. It hurt me when we got so close with
the Hleb/Flamini/Adebayor team, then just broke it up and started again. It
hurt me last year when we threw a great position away last year when we failed
to predict our yearly injury crisis in the second half of the season and ended
up getting twatted by the likes of Wigan.
This year was our window of
opportunity, Chelsea got caught short with an aging team and a run of poor form
in a way that is unlikely to happen again for a long time, Man City are a year
or two off total dominance, and United whilst a better team than us, are
catchable. Our first team is ridiculously dependent on Fabregas, and I would
suggest that this season was rather an important one to nail down a trophy to
show him it might be worth staying.
So I turn up to the Blackburn game, after the disappointment of the lunchtime
United comeback, and I’m pretty psyched up for a victory that will at least
keep us on their tails until the big Liverpool Spurs and United games. But the
whole place stank. You would think that with a couple of hours extra drinking
time people might be in a singing mood, but apparently not.
The team were prancing round in their usual directionless fashion of late, for their third draw against much less powerful opposition. The great failing of Arsene Wenger is that if at first he doesn’t succeed, he just tries the same f*ck*ng thing again and again. Doesn’t vary his tactics, still hasn’t sharpened up the physical side. Why change when you’re already a genius?
The crowd is busy eating their little tubes of Pringles with their bulging bag of Arsenal Merchandise tucked neatly under their seat. Fabregas is on the bench, having a little rest. Shows you how much Wenger wants the league doesn’t it. He plays the bloke with an injury in Barcelona, when the Cup with Big Ears is flashing her knickers at him. But not against Blackburn in the title race with eight games to go.
Blown Title Race
So that’s it really, we blow the title race, and everybody goes home again. Chattering happily. Off for a drink, or perhaps a nice meal. The man on the tube next to me was having a read of ‘The Spectator’. I’ve done about a grand and a half on football this season, the wife’s not talking to me, but the club doesn’t give a f8ck about that, it’s got three more just like me, even if they’re from Stockholm and wouldn’t know the words to any Arsenal songs even if I gave them a little card with them all written down.
Day Trippers
It might be a small detail, but take a look at the toilet queue outside the gents by block 22. Stretches back to the turnstiles with people patiently waiting ten minutes for a p*ss. Oblivious to the other toilet two blocks down five times the size with no queue. The people who were at the last game will not be at the next game. And the people at the next game will not be at the game after that. And that’s just what the club wants. Just a big revolving door of tourists sampling the Arsene Wenger experience once or twice a year and taking home a big shopping bag of Arsenal tracksuits.
Its money not trophies
They don’t care if there isn’t a big party in May in The Gunners because they’ll be back in Kuala Lumpar. It’s dawned on me. I’m just watching a big spreadsheet, that doesn’t give a toss whether it wins anything or not. How much more money do you get for winning the league than coming second? About a million pounds. So what’s the point of spending the twenty million on cover for Song or a striker better than Bendtner or the invisible man?
That’s right, there isn’t one. Just make sure you don’t drop out of the
top four. Do you think Tesco’s’ main objective is to win Supermarket of the
year? Nope, it’s the bottom line mate. We are all having the urine taken out of
us by a load of accountants and a load of mercenary players who think they are
better than they are. Why do you think they don’t come and clap the away fans?
Because they couldn’t give a f*ck, half of them, that’s why. They just play
their athletic ballet dancing routine football and if it doesn’t win back they
get into their big jeep and go home again. Same again next week, and next year.
The money comes rolling in, lovely.
Better to walk?
Well it’s all bollocks and I’ve had enough of it. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life, you won’t beat corporate power, especially when most people can’t see what’s happening. It’s better to walk away.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:04:10:20:57:49 by Padre Pio.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Agree 100%.
Lots of talk about plenty not renewing next season. It'd make me happy seeing empty seats.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:04:03:18:30:17 by Bergmars.
Quote:We are far from negative. Why are we constantly in the top 4 without spending money? What could we do if we spent some? What 'Us Whingers" want is a bit of ambition to match the hard earned money we keep coughing up. Judging by the fact that you believe we are whingers and moaners, I presume that you are more than happy with what is happening and where the club will be heading again next season.Bergmars
Bunch of negative moaners and groaners,we are always top four in the CL,we spend no money and still compete what do you whingers really want.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:salisbury69Quote:We are far from negative. Why are we constantly in the top 4 without spending money? What could we do if we spent some? What 'Us Whingers" want is a bit of ambition to match the hard earned money we keep coughing up. Judging by the fact that you believe we are whingers and moaners, I presume that you are more than happy with what is happening and where the club will be heading again next season.Bergmars
Bunch of negative moaners and groaners,we are always top four in the CL,we spend no money and still compete what do you whingers really want.
Its called sarcasm mate Ive been called a moaner and a groaner for putting forward similar views,the Wengerdrones will be out in force by mid week,they will give us the same spiel,exactly why AFC get away with their spin because fans are actually spinning for them.Lack of real investment is the root cause and Wenger knows it,he is nothing if not stupid.Move to the Emirates and all will be paved with gold,we do not want to hinder the young players coming through,which ones would that be then Arsene.No its time the club was honest, Hill Wood is a throwback and modern football is nothing like when his family ruled,if there is no money its the boards responsibility and no one elses,when does the bright future become the prsesent,my guess is never under this regime.
We have many average players on big money again poor managment,we signed front loaded sponsorship again poor managment,far from seeing the future this lot cant find their backsides with both hands.In Jan we were down to two GKs one of which is Almunia who even Wenger does not rate,we needed cover for the CBs and Song,nothing done but then the club dribbles out we tried to sign so and so we tried to sign Reina,laughable just like Wengers we tried to sign,Cech,Ronaldo,Ronaldhino,Drogba,typical of the last six years always NEARLY.
Nick Hornby wrote in fever pitch of a Gunner fan shouting "Thousand pound a week? You should pay us that to watch this rubbish".
moaning is a good old Arsenal tradition.
But of course Bergmars was only joking, he actually agrees with the article, and so do I
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
I don't want us to fork out fortunes on new players but I'd like to see 50 million spent this summer on some proven quality. I wouldn't want that if we'd occasionally spent big in the last five years but we haven't and our squad is inferior to City, Utd and Chelsea no matter what the league position tells you, and come the end of the season will we be second? Because if we can't beat Blackburn at home, probably our easiest remaining game, I hold little hope for us securing more than 10 points from our remaining fixtures.
wenger has been good but never built a dynasty. Why? Because as Hippo argues the cash was never there to strengthen the squad.
Therefore the board since the 1950s has to take most of the blame
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Thank you for your email. I appreciate you taking the time to write.
Everyone at the club understands and shares your disappointment and frustration at recent results. Nevertheless, despite the recent setbacks we remain in second place in the league and have a chance of the title. It is important that we turn our recent performances around and finish the season well.
I want you to know that everything we do on and off the pitch is designed to make loyal supporters like you proud to be part of your great Club. That involves balancing many competing factors and we make all decisions carefully and thoughtfully with the Club's long term interests at the heart.
We understand the magnitude of our responsibility on your behalf and we will work hard to restore your faith as we move forward.
Thank you for your support of the club.
Best wishes
Ivan
Ivan Gazidis
Chief Executive Officer
Arsenal Football Club plc
Highbury House
75 Drayton Park
London N5 1BU
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