Sunday, October 10th, 2010 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does

Feck!  Girls!  Arse nal!

By Belfast Kiwi

Ambrose is aptly named after his Patron Saint and is a bit of a character that drinks down at my local Irish bar, The Shuck and Shamrock, seemingly he lives there.

There is more than a bit of Father Jack about him. Wild grey hair and fascinatingly long finger nails (only on one hand) that would rate a 5 on the Werewolf scale.

He is ever present. No matter what time I happen to call in, there he is nursing a half pint of Guinness. He will change to whiskey however should you buy him a drink and surprisingly many people do.

He is a little dishevelled and could do with a wash, but is good value or ‘great craic’ as the locals say.

Despite all indications to the contrary, the man is bright, very, very bright. If he should drift into your company as he is prone to do in search of a proffered libation. You can be sure of an accurate and incisive comment or two, no matter what subject is being discussed.

Often the interjection is so apposite, pithily eloquent and focussed it becomes a real conversation stopper. He has often caused the bar room intelligencia to re evaluate their stance on many an issue. As I said the man is clever; much maligned but undoubtedly knows his stuff. (Remind you of anyone?)

As a result of his undoubted intelligence he is tolerated and often actively encouraged by the disparate groups which populate this hostelry to supply his two pence worth. I have never counted but I gather he is well paid in terms of liquid reward for his cogent thoughts. But he never stays too long at one table or with one group; he wears out his welcome quickly.

The main reason being he is a purveyor of inconvenient truth. With his photographic memory, he will remind you unerringly accurately of something you have done or said in the past, often embarrassingly.

Recent conversations of the bar room football experts encompassed the hairy issue of career ending tackles. Views were expressed on

both sides of the argument, Arsenal fans bemoaning the brutal response of talentless teams to violently stifle the wonderful Wengerball. The vast majority of the rest stating that football is a man’s game and hard tackling is just ‘part and parcel’.

Ambrose had this to say.

The likes of Stoke, Blackburn, Bolton, Sunderland and Wolves will not play good football unless they are financially forced to.

They do not have the required talented, athletic and technical players and lack the current ability and future desire to find or develop the same.

They are terrified of changing their brutal philosophy as it may result in loss of Premiership status and the cash cow it has become.

They are too slow physically, too dim intellectually for the modern fast paced, choreographed beauty of evolved teams such as Arsenal. After all is difficult to concentrate on great football in the certain knowledge that some thug is about to break your legs.

In the absence of true footballing talent they resort to a proven and successful default position of brutality and violence.

Complete lack of Ctrl/

Alt/ercation at all costs

Del/ete the threat by any means.

They are under skilled and to compensate for this they are whipped up to an aggressive frenzy by their tactically limited coaches to deliberately injure, disable and intimidate.

They aim to exploit the Referee; they push the rules as far as they can to gain any advantage.

They prey upon the weak wills of Referees, who cannot deal effectively with all aspects of violent play in the heat of the moment of a game.

Referees actions and decisions reflect the national desire for violence. The majority want football to be a war, a licensed fight. There is something in the national mentality to turn the game into gladiatorial combat proven by the fact that fans will deride a ‘diving’ player more than a leg breaker.

Players will continue with the two footed tackle, the scissor tackle, the tackle from behind until they and their clubs are severely and consistently punished.

The rules conspire with the thugs as there is no retrospective punishment. The matter cannot be revisited if the referee sees the incident, irrespective of the accuracy of his decision.

It will take a serious injury caused by an English player to a Star England player to even begin to sway public opinion. Eduardo, Ramsey, Diaby et al lack the ‘love’ of the whole nation.

Until retrospective punishment is introduced, irrespective of whether the Referee has seen it or not, nothing will change.

Danny Murphy has had an epiphany and just might have seen the light.

Arsene Wenger is universally castigated for leading a one man crusade against this violent institutionalised cheating. Just because he is apparently alone in this, does not mean he is wrong.

After all no one likes to be reminded of an Inconvenient Truth.