Arsenal News » Arsenal’s Cathedral: we build for the future, not just this season

Arsenal’s Cathedral: we build for the future, not just this season

By Walter Broeckx

Sometimes when we have defeats people come out and ask for immediate success.

I think that those people don’t see the whole picture but who am I to tell them otherwise? Well just going to try it anyway.

You can look at football game per game and demand a win every time. It would be great to achieve this but I think this is not possible for the moment. No team can win all their games…or could their be a time when this happens?

For me football is more than today’s game or the last game or the next game. Football and supporting The Arsenal is about supporting a team from it’s origins and to care where it will be long after I have gone.

I think that if you work with other people’s money you have to act like a good father would act. If a father spends all his money on drinking and his own pleasures and leaves the kids with no food then we can hardly call it a good father. I’m not saying that a father should keep all his money tight in the bank and not give his children a nice treat now and then.   But to spend all his money for one moment of pleasure and be broke and suffer for years is not wise.

So yes we have a manager who in my opinion acts like a good father should act for his children. He doesn’t spend money on players that afterwards don’t perform. It did happen in the past so I think he is extra careful about it. But he buys his children every now and then a nice toy to play with but he won’t buy you a car for your 18^th birthday.

That won’t be enough for the spoiled brats but for the kids that look further than today, they will understand that he does it to prevent his children pain in the long term.

I sometimes compare what Arsène Wenger is doing with the building of cathedrals in the Middle Ages.

In those days important city’s wanted to build churches and cathedrals to let the world see their wealth.

The building of such cathedrals was an enormous work and very costly. Most of the times the architect who designed the cathedral never lived long enough to see the cathedral finished. To build a cathedral took more than 100 years sometimes – and occasionally much, much longer.

You then had two options to build. You did it the right way with good materials and good workers who knew their job and did it like it should be. Those are the cathedrals you now can visit in Europe and who are still standing.

But you could also do it to show off to another city and build a cathedral faster than they could and with builders who didn’t take on the job like it should be done and with inferior materials. Those cathedrals have gone now and are replaced by new buildings.

So the thing Wenger is doing at the moment is not building a football club. No he is building an Arsenal Cathedral. The hardest work has been done with The Emirates. It is a building like a cathedral that will hold the grandchildren of my children if they become Gooners one day, and they had better become Gooners or I will haunt them.

Now he is placing the furniture in the cathedral, the players on the field. During the building of the shell Wenger has been busy building that furniture. He had to replace some old things  that couldn’t be used anymore like old an retiring players. Some things got broken in transport like players that decided to leave for whatever reason.

And because of the cost of the stadium/cathedral he had not much money available and had to be very careful like a good father would be during the time he is building a house for his wife and children.

But he was manufacturing some nice furniture’s from fresh delivered wood. And as it is all handwork it takes time to get this right. Not everything worked out straight away but he kept on building and working on it. Like in cathedrals they hang the best paintings of the best painters from that time to give them some kind of eternal life. Those paintings are not one day jobs but took weeks and months to paint.

So now we are close to moving in to the next step. The cathedral has been built with solid materials and is the finest stadium in the world where you have an excellent view all around the stadium. The players are almost ready to do what they have been thought.

We begin to put the two things together and look at the final result. And we see a building that will last for years to come, we have an organisation that will last for years to come, we will have youth coming through our ranks for years to come. And we will have players that can become real legends for years to come.

It’s all right in front of us and we are at the beginning of a new era. Just sit back and enjoy it as in some 10 years time you will be the one who can say to a new generation of Gooners : I was there when they were building and supported it all the way. It was hard for a while but it was the greatest thing that has happened to us and gave us all that we could dream of.

Don’t be like the short sighted Middle Age civilians who were telling others: what’s the use of building this cathedral, I want a church now and I don’t care if it falls my head in a few years.  I want it now.

And if you really want something now, why you just don’t start right NOW supporting your team. Your team needs your support right now and if you don’t want to give it now…than you might reconsider if you really are a fan in the tradition of our club who does it their own way and not just try’s to imitate others and could end up like some others might and have.

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