Is this the worst Arsenal crowd ever? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

It was surprising (to me at least, but perhaps not to anyone else) to hear the chant of “Six percent you’re having a laugh” ring round the Ems in the second half of the Villa game.

It was of course not the first time there have been negative comments and chants at an Arsenal game, and in fact I remember some boos at Highbury during the early Wenger seasons when an individual match went wrong.

But the trouble with this chant was working out who it was aimed against.  I mean, when Martin Hayes used to get booed by Arsenal supporters to the extent that George Graham started to use him mostly in away games, to protect the young lad’s psyche, you knew what was going on.  The crowd – or rather a section of the crowd – didn’t like Martin Hayes.  (I loved the guy, but then I always have been perverse).

But back to Sunday… Was it against Wenger, by those who blame him for the recent poor run, or was it against Kronke, or against the rest of the board, or indeed against the players?

It is a difficult one to puzzle out because the people I spoke to either couldn’t understand my question or gave contradictory answers.

True, the chant was followed by an “Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal” chant – but that could have meant, “we are against this particular manager/team/administration but we love Arsenal, the concept, the tradition…” or it could have meant any of those bits and pieces.

Obviously anyone can write in and say, “I was chanting the six percent chant, and I meant…” but that’s not quite what I am trying to fathom out.  What I am trying to get at is, was there an overall message which most people joining in agreed with?  Was it, “Don’t put prices up until we win the league?” or was it “Don’t put prices up with these players being overpaid” or was it “Don’t put prices up by more than inflation, and don’t try that argument about it being less than inflation since we moved to the Ems” or was it just “Don’t put prices up”?

The same problem came with the boos at the end of the match.  The ref was appallingly biased and/or incompetent from my view – but what do I know sitting in block 99?  I am biased, and I can’t see in close up every action on the pitch.   But I booed the ref, and then stopped, thinking that maybe some people were booing the players, and I didn’t want to do that.

I have booed the players – I have quite a memory of Sepember 1994 when we lost at home 2-3 to Newcastle giving us an opening to the season of two goalless draws and three defeats out of five matches.  My season ticket seemed an utter waste of money.  And that season we got to the Cup Winners’ Cup final, so what do I know?

Of course I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking at that game against Newcastle, and joining in the with the boos was not a thought through matter.  I don’t think I was suddenly anti-Seaman, Winterburn, Dixon, Adams, Campbell, Wright and Smith, but rather I was just angry with everyone and everything, and needed some way to calm down before I started the long journey back to the lady wife who didn’t appreciate me going to football, in the midlands.

Certainly I was angry during the 1960s – that utterly wasted decade of mid-table mediocrity. But then I was at school, and school kids get angry – it is part of growing up.

Much of my mixed up thinking on this has been fuelled by a comment recently that the problem is actually quite different from the issues I normally deal with here – namely the management of expectations by the club, and the management of finance by the club.  The arguments were that the club constantly talks up its chance of success, and has put up prices too, so we the fans are geared up to success which does not come.

Of course if we go back to pre-Wengerian times management of expectations was quite different, since there was less interest in the press, and far less on the internet and email than now.  I can certainly remember as late as the 1980s when I lived in Devon, the sunday and monday papers would often have no coverage of an Arsenal game, and you would be lucky to get the one minute allocated on Radio 2 for a report (unless we were playing Man U).  No real way to manage expectations then.

So yes it is true, players wages have shot up (no more of that maximum wage business we had in the 1930s), the new stadium is paid for by the club (as opposed to Highbury which was paid for by Henry Norris) and ticket prices have risen to cover both costs.  As a result supporters complain – as supporters have always done.  (Remember the Manor Ground was closed by the FA because of a riot by Woolwich Arsenal fans protesting at match fixing by the referee).

But I remain unclear how this is due to management of expectations by the club.   To try and understand this I went back and read some of the programmes from the George Graham era – and wondered why there was such a gap in my collection.  And then remembered – it was because I stopped buying the programme because it was so bland and boring and dull.  Roger and I used to joke that every George Graham article began, “I was extremely pleased with the performance of the team…”  We even got that in 1994.

My answer therefore is, it was ever thus.  Bad ends to the season are always much more dispiriting than a poor season that ends well.  Who remembers the league trauma of 1994/5?  0-0 at home to Wimbledon anyone?  Who remembers the FA cup that year (knocked out at home by Millwall in the third round).   No, we don’t remember that, we remember the Cup winners cup final – and I can’t even start to write about that (Arsenal the official illustrated history, will give you all the details, including the Tottenham chant if you really need to know.)

And yet for the Villa game, overall, I had a great time.  Dogface, Walter (and his son Michael – sorry I don’t know the Flemish spelling) and myself, joined by Laundry Ender and Ian, plus Mandy along for her first ever match at Arsenal: what a grouping.  You don’t normally get that much Untold outside the Auld Triangle.  And meeting Tony (by which I don’t mean myself) inside the ground, just wanting to say hello and thanks for Untold.  Tony, if you are reading this, you are a real gent sir, and I wish we could have talked for longer.

(And in this, spare a thought for Walter and the friends from the Benelux Supporters Club whose journey for each game makes my trip from the Midlands seem like a pop round the corner.  Three matches this season, and not a victory amongst them.  And yet he is still there, still supporting, and I know he’ll be over next season just the same).

Worst crowd ever?  No, not with mates like these.  I’m sorry if my feelings don’t accord with yours, but I can’t wait for it all to start up once again.