Forgive? Yes. But with supporters there is still a limit « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Walter Broeckx

The beautiful (I still haven’t found the right words to praise it) article from Paul Fowler about good supporters had made me think a bit.

Forgiving is indeed maybe a big part of what we as good supporters should be able to do. A good supporter can forgive a striker to have missed a chance. A good supporter can forgive a midfielder for not having been able to track back in a match at a certain time. A good supporter can forgive a defender for making a mistake which lead to a goal. A good supporter can forgive his keeper for making a terrible blunder.

I can understand that at the moment it happens we are frustrated and swear at that player. I wouldn’t do it but I can even understand that other people with other characters and temper would boo a player for his mistake. During the game our adrenaline is running high, we suffer, we are nervous, we have stress and because of this we could lose our reason for a while. After all we are just human beings.

Just as our players are human beings and can make mistakes. No player will make a deliberate mistake. I honestly believe no Arsenal player will come on the field and say to himself: “Hey, why don’t I miss a real open chance in front of goal today”. Or a keeper that will say: “Well why don’t I make myself look like an idiot today and let a stupid goal in”. If you really believe one of our players would think this and do it, then you can stop reading now.

Then you can stop reading and you could be thinking about yourself and how you stand in society. Because most of the thoughts we project on other people are just our own thoughts. Maybe it would be yourself thinking that way? Or maybe it would be yourself thinking: I have called Almunia a bad keeper so if he makes a mistake I could tell people: ‘See, I told you so”. You would rather have Arsenal losing a game, just to be able to tell: “told you so”.

This could be why some people even after every win are still always blaming players and the manager and still are unhappy with one players performance and feel the need to have a go at him.

But as Paul Fowler pointed out forgiveness is a mark of a good supporter so even I can forgive those people. We all have our different view on things and so if they are real supporters and are so depressed or feel the need to be depressed even when we win, who am I to tell them they cannot be depressed. So in a way I could forgive my fellow Gooners for being so negative towards all and everything linked with Arsenal.

So yesterday I did my rounds of the Arsenal internet world and as I stumbled on to the website which if you take its name in to Dutch and translate it you get the name “the rude” or “the abusive”. Until yesterday I didn’t realise it but it hit me when I read the comments the Dutch word came in my mind and my brains somewhat made the link.

I can accept that 95% of the people like on “The Abusive Rude” are real Arsenal fans. Be they “success supporters” or “life long supporters”. But the way some of them focus with their blinkers on and moan about buying this and that and we must do this and do that shows that they are short sighted or only care about winning. But I can forgive them for that.

I also do care for Arsenal being a healthy and financial stable club. And I can accept that to obtain this there can be difficult years and times. Most of them over there cannot accept this and think we have a god given right to win all the time. We don’t. Nobody has. But once again I can forgive them for that.

But when I was looking at what they were writing yesterday my first thought was: this is worse than nursery school.

You know when little kids talk about their father’s job and they are bragging about it and everyone wants to make the biggest impression on what an important father they have. And how there’s one that could silence them all by saying that his father was a general in the army. The boy’s dad was in the army but he was just a corporal and sitting behind a desk all day sharpening his pencils over and over again.

Yesterday on the Abusive Rude they were seeing who could make the biggest insult on Wenger. Someone started comparing him with Mugabe and the biggest bragger of them all ended up with Hitler (maybe someone came up with Stalin or Pol Pot but I stopped reading after that).

Now I can understand that one can be disappointed with us not getting a goalkeeper. I’m not that disappointed because the keepers that were discussed during the transfer window would have brought nothing more to the club than Almunia already gives us, IMO.   After all I saw  Schwarzer making a big howler right in front of my eyes at the Clock End in the Fulham game last season.

But any normal adult person who has a brain should be able to avoid lowering himself from comparing Wenger with all those people who have thrown a shadow over humanity. I can accept that some fans don’t like Wenger (anymore). I can forgive those fans for not seeing the bigger picture.

But the things I have read yesterday and the abusive and rude comparing of Wenger with those terrible persons out of our world history was so low I find myself suddenly a bad supporter. I feel it hard to forgive those people for doing this. It made me angry, it made me sad. It made me think how on earth can people sink so low. And even now they don’t have the excuse for the stress of a game, the nerves during the game or just after. No in the cold daylight they compare Wenger with those persons and they are even proud of it when people tell them they are going to far. I couldn’t as I am banned over there for being an AKB.

So forgive me but those are things I cannot forgive anymore. Those people who have been throwing around those stupid insults have not only insulted Wenger (who will not care I think) but most of all they have insulted millions of people who have suffered and in some cases are still suffering from those criminal minds. They have insulted the millions of people who have died under their hands and insulted the millions of people who have given their lives to free us from their tyranny. And this I cannot forgive that easy.  And when I come to the Emirates this season I really hope those fans have done what they are threatening to do: to stop supporting Arsenal as long as Wenger is our manager. I can only tell them that would be the right thing to do in my opinion. Just hold on to your word.

If you support Arsenal from outside of the UK, do take a look at Arsenal Worldwide

If you support Arsenal from within the UK, you might care to show your support here

If you would like to know what it was like to support Arsenal 100 years ago, try here

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