Why Arsene @ Arsenal « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

Why Arsene @ Arsenal

Aditya Tummala

A Perspective from a relatively new football and Arsenal Supporter

Firstly, let me start by stating that this is the first time I have written an article of any sort, so please excuse any mistakes and the amateur nature of this piece.

I wanted to start of by stating what prompted me to attempt writing this piece.

I hail from the city of Hyderabad, in the southern part of India and have been following football from around 2003 and have been a die-hard Arsenal supporter ever since. I am not sure how many of you are aware of this, but India is the land of cricket, it’s considered more than just a game and the players are almost worshipped. The exposure to the most popular game in the world (and I mean Football of course ) was limited to the world-cups at most. Sure there were a few football fans, but all they ever spoke about was Man Utd or Liverpool, and the first game that I remember seeing involved Man Utd and I naturally supported them.

It was then that on one weekend with nothing to do on a Saturday night that I switched to ESPN (they cover the EPL back home along with Star) that I saw this team called Arsenal for the first time. (Okay let me be honest, the reason I started watching that particular game was because I liked the name J). I think it took me all of 5 minutes before I was hooked!!! What I was watching was fantastic. I had seen a few internationals and a couple of Man Utd games until then, but this to me was almost unreal. I finally understood the meaning of the phrase, “The Beautiful Game”. From then on I tried to catch every game that I could, involving Arsenal (the reason I say tried, is because not every game was shown). It is a love affair that has continued and still grows stronger every year. I watched as many games as I could during “The Invincibles” season and remember watching the penalty shoot-out against Man Utd in the 2005 FA cup final. Those were some real good times.

Now, moving onto the real reason for me wanting to write this article. What has changed in all these years, and I don’t mean on the field. Back when I started watching and following Arsenal, it was impossible to even get an Arsenal Jersey. I was lucky enough to find one in a Nike store back then that was closing down and it was actually a home jersey that was at least 2 seasons old. I still remember the last season at Highbury, someone gifted me the home kit (u guys know, the one we had used for that season only) and I was ecstatic. Next season came the Emirates, EPL was actually gaining some popularity, stores started carrying the kits from different teams and people started watching it over the weekend.

Before I go any further, I want to talk about the buying power of the sports lovers in India. IT IS HUGE!!! The country is a consumer rich environment (well there are more than a billion of us!!) and the BCCI (which is the Indian Cricket Board) is actually the richest cricket board in the world. The potential was huge and what was left was for the people to choose their teams and start supporting. This is where Arsene comes in.

Believe me a lot of people who sat down to watch football with me for the first time could not get their head around the fact that two teams could play a game for 90 minutes and there is chance that neither scores a single goal!! (Yes, these are the same people who can sit for 5 days and watch a test match, nothing against it, I love test cricket myself). But you get my drift, to get these people onto the game, it required more than what a lot of English clubs could offer (including the best). Arsene provided this magic. What he brought to the game, was pure class, finesse, eloquence (I would have loved to use the word poetry but well its been done before), and a true fairy tale in the sense that, all around there were super rich guys splurging cash, buying players for ridiculous prices, tantrums from owners, coaches and players alike, while we went on, heads down and hard at work.

A lot of people now ask me, did you guys really need the Emirates if it meant that you don’t have the money now to compete, and my answer to them is a big yes. Arsene Wenger has created one of the most attractive football teams on the planet and the Emirates has given him the perfect platform to showcase it. (Of course I don’t just mean the stadium itself, it is everything associated with it, the marketing, the brand etc). Its heartwarming to now see a lot of people watching the game, you go out during the weekend and you get to see some young people sporting Arsenal Jerseys supporting their football club at different sports bars. According to me Arsene Wenger is probably one of the biggest brand ambassadors of the game of football itself. He has made Arsenal a true global brand. I was at the Bukit Jalil stadium (KL, Malaysia) when they were here for the recent pre-season and you just had to be there to understand this. The fans were competing on who would be loudest, was it Arsenal Malaysia, Arsenal Singapore, Arsenal Indonesia etc (I now work in Singapore so I was with the Arsenal Singapore contingent). It was a beautiful spectacle.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the local pub watching the Blackburn game, when this gentleman who was visiting from England asked me, “Why Arsenal?”. A million things came to mind, but I was stumped. After almost 8 years of supporting my club, I could not articulate a response to a simple question “Why Arsenal?”!!! I finally said “No Clue, but I love them” and surprisingly he said, “Right Answer, You don’t choose your football club, your football club chooses you”. After having a good laugh at his response (well, initially it sounded like something Yoda from Star Wars would have said) I got thinking, in essence that was what happened to me. I started off watching football thinking I would support Man Utd, but now am a die-hard Arsenal fan. A lot of credit for this goes to Arsene; he has created a brand that is easy to market, not just to football fans, but also to those who are new to the game itself. A clear indication is the growing popularity of Arsenal, a once unknown brand. His master class is evident in all areas of the club now, from the training facilities to the youth program to the wonderful Emirates stadium.

In conclusion I would like to state that, in my humble opinion, Arsene Wenger is most definitely the right person for the job. Its actually amazes me today that people question his abilities, it saddens me to see that managers, players and even fans of other football clubs see what this man has brought to our club and some of us fail to. The only thing that I wish was different about Arsene Wenger is his age, if only he was a decade younger, he could be caching us for that much longer.

*Note – I know a lot of people will say there are teams like Barcelona who also play attractive football and win trophies and would be a bigger attraction. The reality is, La Liga is not as popular and not marketed as much as EPL. So, given the options that the viewers have, Arsene Wenger’s product is definitely the most attractive. In this article I am trying to bring out the value that one man has added globally to our Football club and the game as a whole.

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