Let’s sack all the managers (and close the grounds too) « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

This article is a muddle.  It is a muddle because I am muddled to the point of despair.  We are in a time when it is seemingly normal to boo your own club’s manager, and to engage in anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic chants.  Two different issues, but as I try (with I admit limited success) to point out below, they are linked.  Linked because managers are trying to avoid criticising the supporters of their own club.

So, to the muddle…

If anyone expected the Chelsea fans to take to Benítez then they are obviously not following the situation closely.  If anyone expected the Tottenham/West Ham game to be peaceful, that person is not really watching how football is developing.  And if anyone expects peace and light in Scottish football, well…

To boo the new manager before his first game though, is unusual.  In fact I can’t remember the last time it happened, and doubt that is has happened ever at Arsenal – at least since we moved to north London.

Chelsea supporters didn’t muck about.  It was “Fuck off Benítez, you’re not wanted here”  from before the game started.   The manager claimed that he did not understand what the Chelsea fans were saying, and when he had it explained to him, said he would win them over.

In relation to the banners, Benítez added said, “How many people do you need to write a banner? Just one. Then two to hold it up. If we start winning games, the fans will come on board and they will see I’m trying to do my best. Some of the fans will realise that is not the way to support their team. They’ll know they have a professional manager in charge, someone who wants to win games, and the fans are the same. So we will win together.”

Meanwhile at Celtic Inverness won (reminding us all once again of the Sun’s best headline “Super Cally go Balistic Celtic are Atrocious) and Neil Lennon threatened to resign – not because of his team’s poor display but because of the fans’ reaction.  And this just a little while after beating Barcelona.

The manager was forthright: “Look, if they are not happy with what I am doing and they want me to go, I will. If the fans make it clear that they are not happy and they want me out then that’s OK, I will do the honourable thing.

“I can’t repeat it [what fans said] because it is public arena but there were a lot of expletives and heavy criticism, which I didn’t think was justified and [there was] a lack of patience with the team as well…. But they pay their money, they are allowed to say what they like.

OK – so Lennon will go, Benitez won’t.  Right that’s clear.

Part of the issue for Celtic was that the Green Brigade boycotted the match in response to oppressive police tactics recently.  The ground was half full.  Those in the ground applauded those who were not.

Meanwhile the racism and anti-Semitism issues continue.  Chelsea and the FA refuse to take proper action over the Clattenberg affair.  Untold, and our companion site Referees Decisions, criticise referees and their controlling body continuously, and through our constant review of referees we do pick up inside knowledge on the refs, and I can say, I believe on behalf of everyone working on both sites, that this knowledge made us certain before any investigation that there is no way that Clattenberg could have been guilty.  On this you might believe me or not, and I can’t reveal what I know, so that doesn’t get us far, but our view here is that Clattenberg was utterly innocent as the findings showed.

But it looks like nothing will happen about Chelsea’s complaint, which is frustrating if, as I believe, it was created out of nothing as a ploy to discredit a ref.

Elsewhere, and as I pointed out the other day the action of the  Society of Black Lawyers meant that the Arsenal/Tottenham game was played in the most poisonous atmosphere I can remember.  I even found myself wondering if it is worse for a group of Tottenham supporters to call all Arsenal fans “paedophiles” or for some Tottenham fans to call themselves a Yid Army?  Is it worse for Arsenal fans to call Tottenham fans Yids of for the Tottenham fans to call us Paedophiles?   I guess the Yid business is worse, but being called a Paedophile simply because one supports Arsenal takes us to a new low.

As far as I know Tottenham was not founded by the Jewish community, and has a tiny minority of fans who are Jewish – as does Arsenal.  But in Rome there was the chant of  “Juden Tottenham”.  And Uefa has done… well I will write it out in the next five lines.

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So some (I stress some) WHU supporters thought it was a good idea to continue the attack, given Uefa’s lack of action.  After all when in Upton Park do as the Romans do.    “Can we stab you every week?” was their response. Plus “Adolf Hitler, he’s coming for you,”

Obviously I wasn’t there, but reports suggest that quite a few WHU supporters were involved.  Although WHU, like Tottenham and like Arsenal, have Jewish support.   But Sam Allardyce claimed not to have heard anything saying “They shouldn’t be doing things like that, but it’s the least of my worries. What do you want me to say? If I didn’t hear it, I can’t condemn it.”

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What can one say?

The fourth official at Tottenham’s ground was Mark Clattenburg.   His report will be interesting – as will the continued refusal by anyone to take on Chelsea’s action in reporting Clettenburg for racism.

Tottenham’s manager said, “You know the animosity between Tottenham and West Ham. As long as it doesn’t reach stupidity, it’s a great rivalry.”

As long as it doesn’t reach stupidity????

So what do we do?   Sack managers because they are not taking us top of the league?   Chant racial and anti-Semitic chants?  Have managers resign because their team can’t win every game? Leave it to the FA, the League and Uefa to do nothing and thus think everything is ok?  Allow accusations of racism to be made and then find there is no basis for them and do nothing?  Allow racists to take over as away supporters?

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The strange thing with this total, hopeless mess is that while Celtic fans stayed away because of heavy-handed police action, for the first time in years at the Arsenal/Tottenham game I felt unsafe and wanted more police around.  There was one copper in Arsenal police station 20 minutes before kick off.

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Of course I don’t want massive police movements all around the ground as we used to have.  It was shown then (and I am not sure it is changed now) that the police can’t control their own men when under challenge from a mob.  But I do know that I don’t want racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic chanting, nor do I want managers turning a deaf ear to what the supporters of their team do.

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Maybe we should sack all the managers, close all the grounds, and just give up.  Or maybe those of us who are really fed up with the whole thing should take a stand against racism etc etc and the bodies such as the FA, and Uefa who allow clubs to continue to participate in football when their supporters engage in this behaviour.