Understanding the Anti-Arsenal-Arsenal « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

By Tony Attwood

If you like to keep an occasional eye on the commentary columns of Untold you might have noticed that we have had something of an influx of comments calling the people who write for this site all sorts of names.  Some just sneering, some rather unpleasant.  Additionally there are few that you won’t have seen which were so unpleasant or so off topic that they broke the site rules, and so were not published.

Many of these people have become known, through an abbreviation that has been used on this site for a couple of years, as the AAA – the Anti Arsenal Arsenal.  People who claim to be Arsenal supporters but who are thoroughly against the club in its present form.   These people tend to be critical of players, management, directors and indeed other supporters.  A few of them attend matches, most don’t.

I really do limit the number of articles we publish about this little group and their activities, but as we haven’t looked at them for a while, and as we have had a few notes saying “what is the AAA?” after someone mentions them in a comment, I thought it might be helpful to do a little review of the AAA, their activities and their attitudes.

1. The Anti-Logic group

The AAA is fundamentally anti-logic.  If one says, “Looking at this you might agree that this was a well-refereed match or a poorly refereed match”, then with two options on the table you are already likely to lose them.   Likewise if one does a detailed analysis of a referee’s actions, or indeed those of a player, then again all this is bypassed.  What we get back tends to be abuse.

Of course some people do come along and debate the logic, and reach different conclusions, but these are not the AAA – for they are engaging in the concept of logic.  For the AAA, it is a case of conclusion first, and then a fair amount of abuse.  There is in fact no debate.

2. The Anti-evidence group

Rather like Aids deniers, Holocaust deniers, global warming deniers, white supremacists, and other such groups they do not rely on any evidence other than incidental issues.  So the Holocaust denier finds a report of a concentration camp in which the facts don’t quite add up, and use it to deny the total horror.  On a much smaller scale (and believe me I am using these examples merely to make the point, not because dealing with the issue of the AAA is as remotely as important as dealing with the arguments of the groups noted above) the AAA takes one player who is having a poor game, and then opens that up to suggest that the manager is an idiot.

The AAA are, I suppose, the inheritors of the position of the Catholic Church in 1615  when Galileo was brought before the inquisition.  Evidence was not an issue, it is not to be debated.  (OK, that’s not a serious comparison, but I think it makes a point).

3.  It is a conspiracy theory

The great constant mind-numbingly repeated argument of the AAA is that anyone who is not part of the AAA is a conspiracy theorist.  It is a measure of intellectual position of the AAA that they have not grasped that for there to be a conspiracy there needs to be lots of people working together plotting and planning.

If however we consider for a moment the issue of Moggi et al in the Calciopoli corruption scandal in Italy, the fact is there was no conspiracy.  Moggi and others independently had conversations with officials of Italian football to influence which referee got which game.

That is corruption, and criminal, but not a conspiracy because it evolved over time on a one by one basis.  If you want a conspiracy, (and if you know your British history) you might care to look at the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 in which a group of Jesuits planned to blow up Parliament.

That was a conspiracy, and explaining how the group attempted to kill King James I is the theory.

If we were to suggest that the PGMOL worked with certain clubs to ensure that bent referees take on certain games – that would be a conspiracy theory, and quite possibly we would be sued for libel.  But we don’t.  We say that the rather slack rules of the PGMOL don’t help the situation, and that if an English “Calciopoli” is taking place or were to take place, then the way PGMOL is run will make it harder for anyone to catch the club involved.

So people who support the Untold view that the PGMOL is open to the same type of corruption as happened in Italy are not conspiracy theorists – if anything we are people who analyse the way in which PGMOL works, and suggest that the structural organisation leads it open to corruption.

It is the fact that the AAA fail to understand this point that is probably the largest downfall in their argument.

4. Abuse is the key characteristic

Without logic and an understanding of argument abuse is the central point of the AAA.  There is of course no AAA central command or organisation, although they do have a few blogs, some of which do carry interesting and well-argued commentaries, but their approach to anyone who does not agree is abuse.   This is in contrast to an approach which says, “here’s an argument, here’s some evidence, and now let us debate this rationally.”

Of course football support is not rational – I support Arsenal because my parents and grandparents supported Arsenal, and having been born and brought up in north London my choice was either to defy the family and support Tottenham, be really perverse and support Orient, or follow the family with Arsenal.  I chose the latter – no logic, just emotion.

But I have always known many Tottenham fans, Man U fans etc etc etc, and I have always been able to discuss openly with them the issues surrounding my club and their clubs.  I love finding out what these hard core supporters who like me now travel huge distances to see games, think of their managers and players.

The AAA don’t seem to be able to move between the passion of the terraces (as it used to be) and normal civilised debate and discussion.  If they ever go to dinner parties (which I suppose they don’t) the result must be bizarre.

5. A simple change will solve everything

Simplicity is the AAA game.  Change the manager and everything will be fine.  No other factors need to be taken into account – that is it, one change fixes it all, and if you don’t see that then you are a moron.

To the AAA the world is a simple place, and I suspect they genuinely cannot understand why everyone doesn’t agree with them.

6.  Football has not changed

Following point five, the AAA believe that nothing much has changed in football of late.  So, the notion that Arsenal used to be able to go out and buy obscure young players from around the world and turn them into stars within a year, but now can’t, because every other club is doing it, doesn’t really come into their logic.  The fact that two clubs in the Premier League can buy anyone and everyone they want, and so take our best players, doesn’t come into it.  The fact that if Arsenal make an enquiry for a player, there is every chance the selling club will instantly call other teams and say, “Arsenal are in for him – would you like first chance” in order to make more money, doesn’t come into it.  The fact that tapping up is now widespread and not stopped by the FA, League or anyone else, is ignored.

The fact is that if one accepts any of these points, then it is clear that a simplistic change of the manager is not enough.

Of course one could argue that Mr Usmanov could come in, with a new manager, and take on the rich kids at their own game – which is at least an argument, although it still has to deal with the tradition of the club, and the fact that there is still just a chance that the FFP rules might come into effect next year, and the dangers of having a single benefactor.

7.  Judge everything by the last match; judge every transfer by one example

Simplicity and the AAA go hand in hand.  If one player has a poor patch there is no suggestion that he should be allowed to play through his problems – as players have done for 100 years, and has happens at other clubs.  No, he should be out.

The problem is that every player has a poor patch, no one is perfect all the time, and the way they come out of it is through playing.  I can remember poor games from even Dennis Bergkamp.  I can remember Thierry Henry having a poor run.  And certainly if we had measured him in this way, Robin VP would have left years ago.

Likewise every transfer is seen as simplicity.  If Mr Wenger acts like every manager in every club since league football began and sometimes brings in a player who doesn’t make it, then he must go.  Forget all the great players.  Forget the way that virtually unknowns like Koscielny come through to the match winners.  Forget the failure that was Henry.  Forget Bergkamp – the laughing stock of Italian football before we got him.  Forget the extraordinary transfer of Arteta, and his success.  No, one failure, and that’s it.

8.  The club is badly run

This AAA argument comes up with all sorts of amazing things – from the directors taking funds out of the club (they don’t), to that amazing story in which we signed a goal keeper from Argentina only to find when he got here that he was only five feet six inches tall.  Or the one about a member of our current squad who simply refuses to train.   “You’d think they would have checked this out first!”

The AAA approach is to say these stories often enough, with no real backup evidence, and then they become true – but of course they are not.

These are just stories.  Anyone can make up stories, and the AAA do it a lot.

9. False names

Many AAA activists have multiple email names and addresses and we often find one person posting under different names.  We have even found them having conversations with themselves.   ABC says “The problem with the team is our chronic midfield – we should not have let Nasri go,” and DEF says, “I am so glad you have had the nerve to say that – a lot of people I know think the same, but the blogs are afraid to print this.”   GHI comes in with “Wow, at last, somewhere where the truth is being told…”

So it goes; but they are all the same guy.

10.  Cut and paste

This is perhaps the annoying face of the AAA – taking an article from an AAA blog, and reposting it to all the non-AAA blogs as if it were original.  What can you say about such practice?

So, there it is: the AAA.  Not really that important, but rather like the neighbours, quite noisy.   Fortunately there is a fairly large number of blogs that exist to counter their rather silly approach, and by and large Untold doesn’t have much to do with them.

Last time we talked about them a couple of people wrote in and suggested that we were taking a superior view, claiming the right to define debate, while others suggested we were fixated by them.   I don’t think either are true – but of course it is up to each person to decide.

But for once I have been rather grateful to them.  Untold has been hovering just under half a million hits a month on our “OneandOne” analysis of the site’s progress, and I think all the interest the AAA has paid to us of late has taken us over that magic number.  I’ll know more in a few days.  It is interesting because the more hits the site gets the further we go up the rankings and so the more people who are seriously interested in debating issues find out about us.  So maybe the AAA have for once done us a good turn.

Anyway, that is the AAA for a while.  Time to move on to something else.  Like…