Arsenal News » 2009 » November » 02

A word of warning. In this article I will not be hiding my bushel under a 40 watt bulb.

I’m  over the parrot.

(Sorry if English is not your first language, that’s a really stupid play on words.  In simple talk I am happy and I am going to boast).

Let me put it another way.

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The Arsenal programme (that is the official actual real live Arsenal programme that says ARSENAL in red on the cover and you buy outside the ground before each game), the Arsenal programme for the match against AZ Alkmaar on Wednesday in the Champs League will have a page in it written by….

ME.

Yup, me.  On that one page it is me as author.  No one else.  Me.  Just me.  Me alone, and that’s it, me.

The piece is, as you might have guessed, given the other stuff I’ve written of late, about the takeover of Arsenal by Fulham 100 years ago – the event which I believe was the start of the making of the modern Arsenal.

And of course the page mentions my new book MAKING THE ARSENAL, and this blog of ours.

In case you are new to this blog, let me assure you it is not normally as self-centred as this – but this is quite a breakthrough for us.   Read some of the older article and you will see that the title UNTOLD ARSENAL is the clue – we try and cover the bits other people don’t, and we are utterly totally supportive of the Lord Wenger.

In addition to Arsenal topics we do a lot on football finance, and were one of the first places to predict the financial collapse of Liverpool.  We also do lots of silly pieces, quite a bit about the kids teams, a fair bit of history, the whole Sustainable Arsenal project, and we expose some of the sillier stuff in the papers and on TV.

So it is great news to get allowed to do a page in the programme.  And here’s another thing to get excited about.  October 2009 saw Untold Arsenal reach an all time record of 109,049 individual readers.  To qualify as a reader a person has to come onto the site and visit two articles in the space of the month.  (I admit the technology for measuring web visits is not perfect, but we’ve got a fairly robust system I think).

Now I have no idea how many people will turn to my page in the programme on Wednesday and read the piece and think, “hmmmm this sounds interesting I must buy the book and look at the blog,” but if you happen to be in the stadium, and sitting next to someone who looks as if he/she is of a high enough intellect and theoretical awareness to get what we are all about, perhaps you could point out that it is worth reading this stuff.

And the book.

Tell them, “Type UNTOLD ARSENAL into google and you get us.”  Or follow the link in the article.

MAKING THE ARSENAL is a novel – not a dry history book.  It is set in 1910, and it is as factually true as I can make it, but it told as a story (a diary of a Fleet Street journalist) and so far everyone who I know has read it has admitted to laughing out loud (that’s at the jokes, not my English).   I do hope you’ll consider buying a copy, as well as reading my page in the programme.

The novel is 300 pages long and has lots of words in it, many of them in the right order.  Read more and/or place an order at www.emiratesstadium.info

Tony Attwood

(PS No copyright on this article – if you want to put it on Team Talk, please do.  As often as you like.  In fact I rather think I might mention it myself).

PPS:  Promise I will calm down tomorrow, but be kind to me and let me have my day of excitement.  And count yourself lucky you don’t have to sit next to me on Wednesday.  Actually one of my sons-in-law is coming with me on Wednesday, and poor guy, he by and large has to be nice to me.  It sort of goes with the territory.

Tony Attwood (oops sorry already said that, getting a bit carried away here.)