The media influence on supporters « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

by Walter Broeckx

What is the impact on watching a game in front of your TV compared to watch it in the stands?

Yesterday evening when I had finished my match report for the Arsenal Benelux website I went to our forum where the other fans from our supporters club give their view on the game and other stuff. I was in a good mood for various reasons after we had won the game.

Normally we have a rather optimistic view on things and we are happy with every win. But when I went to the forum yesterday I saw a lot of unhappy people. There was a lot of moaning. I even found it necessary to point out towards my other supporters that:

It was one year ago that we had won an away game in the CL: so yes there could and should  be some joy for this.

We had an entire team first teamers out injured or on the bench to give them some rest: so yes we could have fielded a much stronger team out there but still we managed to win the game.

Our best players like Cesc, Van Persie, Vermaelen from last season and our best player of the start of the season (Walcott) were not playing: so we there is still a lot of room for improvement that we can expect in the coming months.

Partizan Belgrade had only lost one game so far and that was a narrow 1-0 defeat away to Shakthar Donetsk. A team that has not lost in six games and had only conceded 1 (one) goal in their league so far. And I know that you cannot compare the Serbian league with the EPL but whatever league you are in this is not a bad thing I would say.

We played a team that is very strong at home and has an intimidating atmosphere in their ground and we had to cope with that with some 18 and 19 year old players who just are starting their career like Wilshere and Gibbs.

And yes after a slow start we took over and showed them what we can. The only regret is we missed to much chances and we kept them in the game.

And then I told them that you just cannot expect us to win any game with 6-0. Oh yes, I would love us to do so but this just isn’t possible. So one has to be realistic in his expectations.

But after reading Tony’s article on how biased against Arsenal the match reporters have been I started thinking if this suddenly negative view on our performance was not down to what they had been hearing all evening from those match commentators.

Because we exchange the streams we get on our forum and so we look at the same stream most of the time and it was the English stream yesterday. Now I must say that I hardly listen to what those people say. I’m to busy looking at the pc, write my comments down at the same time. So I only listen carefully when they say the name of who scored as sometimes the streams are too bad to make the difference between Arshavin and Wilshere for example.

And after my little rant at our forum people told me that they hadn’t looked at it that way and yes in fact it was a good result, certainly after what happened last weekend, and yes that we should enjoy it and not act like old grumpy fans after a solid performance away from home in what is the Champions League after all.

So I am wondering if this sudden form of negative thinking came as a result of being told for 90 minutes that we are rubbish? Of being told that we have no decent goalkeepers? Of being told that we lack steal? Of being told whatever they have told?

And if it would be true that our supporters have been influenced by the negative comments from the match commentators I really wonder how many fans are influenced by this. All those fans who have to hear it all the time they see us play. After all we live in a society where the influence of what is being shown and said on TV is taken as “The Truth” by many people.

So after reading the article from Tony today and the unusual negative comments from some of our fans 1984 came to my mind. The ministry of (dis)information at work in 2010?

The season before we had an issue with our sporting channel. We felt that they were so anti-Arsenal in their comments that our supporters club had written to them and asking them to be more neutral in their comments when they showed a game from Arsenal. We suggested them that we could suggest our fans to stop their subscription and look at internet streams or even take a satellite dish and look at other channels who broadcast the EPL.

And much to our surprise they did answer and told us they didn’t realised we felt this way and they would take a look at it. And I must say that since then our complaining between each other about the negative comments on the channel has stopped. So I think they had a word with their match commentators about it.

So maybe writing to the advertisers telling them you will not buy their products as long as they support the anti Arsenal approach from the sporting channel they pay,  could make those sponsors react and pass it on to the sports channel. Because if there is one thing that sponsors hate, it is the fact of being associated with liars and bad people.

Companies advertising with Sky Sports (the list will be extended – if you see any more please drop a note in so we can add them to the list)

• Ford
• Gillette
• Bose
• Mazda
• The Times
• Next
• DFS

Partizan v Arsenal: The most disgraceful, appalling, awful, inept…