Three go missing at the Emirates; black flags in the Gooner. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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Reflections on Arsenal v Sunderland; by Tony Attwood

There are three guys who normally sit a couple of rows behind me.  They come to each game, and they complain.

One shouts out “What was that?” endlessly, suggesting that every pass, every leap, every corner, every goalkick is something worse than anything he has ever seen before.  (Clearly he’s never had the privilege of watching non-league football).

Another endlessly made fun of Bendtner, irrespective of whether he was the pitch or not.

The third just says, “Oh for fuck’s sake” over and over again, and leaves it at that.

Anyway, they have been threatening to anyone who cared to listen that they would not be coming any more, and yesterday, en masse they didn’t (if it is possible to not do something en masse.)

It was a blessed relief and allowed the rest of us to enjoy the match in a more pleasant manner.   But it led me to wonder: people like this who moan and complain about everything – do they “support” the club, or individual players, or the manager, or the team….?

Listening to them over the past couple of years it has been hard to know.  Certainly they don’t support Mr Wenger, just as they don’t support some individual players.  Indeed they can be hyper-critical of individual players of great class who just miss the occasional pass – Cesc certainly wasn’t immune from their attacks, nor Van Persie.  I suspect they attacked Henry and Pires on occasion (if they were supporters in those days).

So if they don’t support players, or the manager, then is it the team?  In fact no, because they spend far more time complaining about the team’s performance than doing anything else.

Which leaves the club – for them to spend nearly £4000 between them a year on their season tickets they must support something, and the club is the only thing left.  So I guess it is that.

But what club?   Obviously not the one that I follow, the one where I give all my energy to supporting all aspects of the club, the players, the managers etc etc.

I can only conclude that they support their own Arsenal – and that is where things start to get a bit nebulous.   Can a supporter actually have his/her own Arsenal?

In a sense I suppose if pushed these guys would probably align themselves with the Black Scarf Movement – the rather nebulous grouping without a “membership” whose aims seems to come down to a desire for the transfer funds to be used differently.   A bit like the earlier “Give us back our Arsenal” campaign which seemed to feel that the club actually belonged to the supporters – which of course in reality it doesn’t.   (There’s a really interesting article on Black Flag in the current Gooner magazine – 01233 665682 or thegoonerfanzine@btinternet.com if you want to get a copy and can’t get to the ground).

They have the view (if I have understood it correctly) that the club is drifting, that prices should not be going up, and that some tweaking of ticketing arrangements should be introduced (some of which policies are akin to those of AISA – of which I am a committee member – so I don’t have any problem with them).  They are the people who took over a billboard by the ground and put the word “Forward?” on it.

Which brings us back to what seems to be the key point then – buy some other players (which was the chant we heard at the end of last season, and early this season: “Spend some fucking money”.)

It is an interesting point, in that in its simplest form it suggests that the money is there, and can be spent on anyone.   As if one might say, “Arsenal want you” so the player comes along.

Except we know it doesn’t work like that.  If Arsenal have an interest in a player the most likely outcome is the selling club will offer the player to Chelsea and Man City in the hope of getting more money, and the player will fancy holding on, in case of an offer from one of those two, to get more money himself.  An extra £20k a week let us not forget is an extra £1m a year.  Not bad for my pension fund.

But let’s try this another way.   Liverpool spent £110.5m on players since K Dalglish (who had been unemployed for 10 years) took on the managerial role.

That is in fact just about double the money Arsenal have.  It isn’t money Liverpool have – but they spent it, because they like to be in debt.

£35m on Andy Carroll, £20m for Jordan Henderson and another £20m for Stewart Downing, £22m for Luis Suárez and £6m for José Enrique

This is seemingly all based on a system call “sabermetrics”, in which data is gathered on players and turned into “value for money”.

I am not sure that if our summer spending had been along those lines that Nasri and Cesc would have stayed.   Nasri’s agent made it clear his man would want to move after the first year at Arsenal, and spoke of “the next stage in his career”.  Cesc as we know, always wanted to go back.

Had we spent like Liverpool would we have had different results so far this season?   Would the three guys who previously sat behind me now start to believe in the club, or the players, or the manager, or anything else?

I doubt it in both cases.   Rather, for some, complaining, moaning and bitching has become a way of life.   Trouble is, when you adopt that style, it tends not to make you very happy.  And these guys certainly aren’t happy.

I do agree with the Black Scarf Movement, and the Gooner, on one thing – the publicity being generated by the club sometimes looks naff.   I did have some discussions at the club over the way to celebrate the 125th year of the club this year, and wrote a report for them with my thoughts (which certainly didn’t include the use of “Forward”) but they were not taken up.    Fair enough, no reason why they should be – it was just my view, and I get to write about the things I find interesting, in the “Uncovered” column in the programme for each match.  But I personally agree that the “Forward” campaign doesn’t hit the right note at all.

But let’s not hide from the fact that PR always has a problem because different people have different perceptions to begin with, while PR tends to put out its message to everyone irrespective of where they are coming from.   So the three hardened cynics who normally sit behind me get the same PR as the three people sitting in the non-season ticket seats to my left who were clearly at the Ems for the first time against Sunderland, and who were loving every single second of the experience.  They were in their seats before the players came out to warm up, and they were still there until the last player left the pitch.

In the end, we support the club, and because certain players play for the club, we support them too.  If you don’t do that, there’s not much else is there?

Maybe those guys behind me have finally realised that, and won’t come again.  But I rather fear that after this run of five consecutive home victories they might be back against Stoke.

I’ll just have to wear ear plugs.

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We really do welcome writers who have a positive view of the Wenger revolution, or who have something new to say about any of the topics that we regularly cover – all listed above.  Just email your idea to Tony.Attwood@aisa.org or send in the whole article as a Word file attached to an email.