Man U, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, Barca… who should Arsenal emulate? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Tony Attwood
If you have taken a glance at the Arsenal History site of late you will know that we have been considering the issue of the man who managed the club after the first world war: Leslie Knighton.
His role at Arsenal is interesting because 20 years after he was manager he published a vitriolic attack on the club and its then chairman Lt Col Sir Henry Norris. Since the board of the time were by then no longer with us, the Leslie Knighton version of those years has been allowed to stand. You will find it repeated in every history of Arsenal.
And yet, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that what Knighton said was nothing more than a set of allegations very similar to those posed by the current day AAA. Allegations of mismanagement, blindness, self-serving, stubbornness, and above all, a refusal to spend money.
I thought of all this, not just because of researching Knighton but also because of the similarities between then and today. Here’s but one example…
Knighton made much, in his book, of the way in which Sir Henry refused to allow him to transfer in the players that he wanted, suggesting that Sir Henry was so mean he even wound up the whole scouting system at Arsenal. This, Knighton suggests, left him (Knighton) scrabbling around to find anyone who could turn out for Arsenal. At one time he says he even had to sign up the brother in law of the club’s doctor, just to make up the numbers. (And that’s only one of the stories – there are many others of that type).
What a prat Sir Henry must have been! What a dolt! What a self-centred money grabbing idiot!
So the story of Jimmy Patterson, the club doctor’s brother in law, has been told and repeated. But if we do check we find that far from being a make-weight, brought in because Sir Henry would not transfer in players, he played for Rangers and Queen’s Park in Scotland, and after coming to Arsenal played for the English League in a representative match. What’s more, he retired just as Chapman arrived, and Chapman personally persuaded him to come back and play for the club.
My point is simple: some “facts” become true simply through repetition. Had the internet existed in the 1920s you would have seen “Now Arsenal reduced to signing the Doctor’s brother in law!” and “Arsenal descend into farce” and “No transfer money: can your brother-in-law kick a ball?” as headlines.
And it leads me to a more contemporary question. For those people who really do believe that we ought to doing far better than we are doing, and that the club is being badly run at several levels, my question is not so much what we should do but: who should we try to emulate?
To illustrate this point, look at the following, posted on Untold recently…
We are owned by a club collecter, Kroenke, probably the worst scenario possible, and a man who knows little of soccer and does not have the love of ‘soccer’. We have the Alastair Campbell of football, Gazidis, who is a master of meaningless bullshite. The relationship between the board and the fans is an insult. Arsene Wenger himself is almost autistic in his non-existent relationship with fans. I will support this club until I die, but I will not support this board, who in reality are enjoying control and power without giving anything back to the fans. What saddens me is the docile way the Arsenal fans are led to the ‘slaughter’. This club is not in financial danger, it is losing the iqyalitative factors…mystique, public image, and numinosity. We are run by bullshite merchants.
Take just one sentence: the relationship between the board and the fans is an insult.
Now I have commented in the past how I think Arsenal’s relationship between board and fans is much better than at other clubs. I have noted the way Liverpool fans can’t communicate with their owners, while we have the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Assn, which does liaise regularly with the club.
I don’t mean that just because we are better off than Liverpool, everything is ok, but it still seems to me a point. Which club is getting it more right than us?
If you have ever read a word of mine, you’ll know I don’t accept the piece above in italics. A comment that I would have used against Leslie Knighton’s allegations, had I been around at the time, is apposite here. Where’s the proof?
And it makes me ask this. If any of those allegations could be shown to be true through example and proof (as I have tried to do very simply by taking the Knighton story to bits) who should we emulate?
Man City? They won the league after all – but what is Man City’s answer to FFP? What is their guarantee that the owners will still be interested in a few years? What will they do to stop the sort of league form slide that Chelsea, who operate in a similar way, had.
Man U? We know that in a couple of years we will find our marketing revenue rising rapidly – but can Man U keep their commercial revenue on the up year after year? And after Sir Alex? Yes I make fun of him, but I also have enough sense to see him as the Herbert Chapman of the 21st century. And what of the money still being taken out of the company by the Glazers. Is that what we want?
Rangers? A few years ago it seemed they had everything. Nine league wins in a row, bringing in the best players from Europe…
Tottenham? (I leave that one open)
Liverpool? Remember Hicks and Gillett, and how easy it is to fall into their hands. Remember their regular change of manager. Yes they have won a trophy and we haven’t so should we be like them?
Newcastle, with their ownership?
Barca? With their sudden rules to the effect that colour photocopying is not allowed, and not being able to pay their players one month. Barca who signed Thierry Henry just to show they could, and then played him so rarely that what with transfer fees and salary it cost them £2m a match to play him. On the wing. And all that money to come second in a two-club league?
Real Madrid. League winners indeed, but with a certain delicate question mark hanging over their finances.
Juventus? Match fixing anyone?
I could go on, but you are getting bored, I can tell. So, who exactly should we emulate?
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