Arsenal News » 2009 » October » 03

Black, blackest blackness, Blackburn Rovers, your worst nightmare, the antithesis of football.

Black Blackburn, the embodiment of all darkness and evil, the beelzebub of football, the yawning heights of the oblivion into which we fall at the end of time, when time itself winds down, to leave an eternity of rotational fouling and an infinity of time wasting.

The keeper takes the ball, changes sides, changes back, takes a swig of gin, changes sides, waits, points, complains, shrugs, shouts.

And we call to our team, shouting, “Do not go gentle into this dark night” as we rage, rage, rage against the dying of the game.

But look, lo! Behold, as we fight against this dark day.  This is not the keeper of expectation, for this is a giant, but of width not height, a Giant Jumbo, with a frame enough to occupy the entire goal.  A goalmouth and a mouth of man, as one.

The team bus is left behind, no longer needed.  The Devil Incarnate himself occupies the position twixt the sticks.

For it is Sam, the Eater of Souls, the Destroyer of Reason, the Death of Football, playing in the world of Camus.  From god to drip, he swigs his gin as we scream against the corruption of our art.

Wenger rotates the squad upon a carousel.  Eboue leans off too far, falls out, and has to wait for it to come around again.  Theo runs the line of touch.  Vermaelen heads the ball off his own bar, back to himself, beats the entire back, deep black, sea black, all-black, coal black, evil black-black Blackburn defence and scores.  7-0 to the Arsenal and we haven’t kicked off.

“I am the Darkness,” says Allerdyce, “beyond me there is no future, behind there is no behind because I am the all encompassing, all-growing, all-destroying, all-chewing, Allerdyce.  Life without life, bathtime without the bath, the end of all passivisation and culture and the most stupid son in the history of football.

“Beyond me there nothing,” says Allerdyce the Fat, and the world shakes with dismay and alarm.  “Speak not to me of the police, for if you do I will not speak to you.”

And so, for years, the deep, dark philosophy of the Allerdyce and the Black Blackburn rule.  There is darkness, nothing, darkness, an eternity of goalless draws and rotational time wasting.  Football is gone.  Light breaks where no sun shines.

We rotate the squad. William Blake comes in as centre forward (the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom) with Stevie Smith a surprise choice on the wing (not waving but streaming through the defence).  Albert Camus is of course in goal, the laureate of cool.

In the attacking midfield we have Benjamin Franklin.  “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety,” he tells us, “deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Oh Fat Sam, the end for you is nigh.

Controlling it all is Dylan Thomas, of course.  “I see the boys of summer in their ruin,” quoth he, the cricketers have gone and we know we have the measure of the beast.

The words ring true.  We can beat the evil monster from the darkest north, where crowds are so low you get arrested if two or more are seen together at any one time.

For the occasion the Ems, that bastion of lightness and goodness, is changed.  In the bars are mirrors, fifty feet long, suitable for spotting the vampires used to bite our doughty players and force them into submission.  Arsenalisation is all.  We are the future.  We are the spirit of all that is good.

We kick off, we score, the Fat Toad scowls, apoplectic in his chew.  He demands an apology.  “An apology!” we roar.  “It is you who must apologise for all that you have created.  Rotational fouling.  Time-wasting.  Anti-football!

“Out foul fiend, back to the depths of Hades from which you came.”

Free flowing football lifts itself to a new horizon.  We win 14-0, and EPL record.   On Match of the Day, Liverpool’s goalless draw makes top billing.  “I really don’t understand what they’ve got against Sam Allerdyce,” says the host, and saying, says it all.

It is over.  We have won.  On a breakneck of rocks we have won.

For Arsenal vs Blackburn in the 1909/10 season please take a peek at www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk

“All Tomorrow’s Parties” (of which this is but one example) aims to deliver previews of matches in a manner that has not been seen before, and is published prior to each first team game.  If you fancy having a go at creating a new form of journalism, or indeed writing anything else for UNTOLD ARSENAL, do drop a line to Tony(at)Hamilton-house.com

© Tony Attwood 2009, with fullest acknowledgment to Dylan Thomas.