UNTOLD ARSENAL » 2008 » August » 21

I guess it is only one when goes abroad for a while and you bump into supporters of rival clubs who (c0ntrary to popular belief) do not have six heads and can manage more than a couple of grunts in response to questions on Britain’s entry into the Euro and whether Paul Ince is actually a decent manager, that one begins to see the extent of the bile that “supporters” pour out onto their clubs’ managers and directors.

Personally I think Wenger represents everything I want an Arsenal manager to be, and the attacks on him that I read on blogs and in the press suggesting that he is so trapped by his own notion of recruiting youngsters and not spending money that he needs to be sacked NOW, are really just rather silly.

So it is a relief to realise that supporters of other teams suffer from the same attitude.  Once you get below the bravado, and learn how to speak the lingo, you find that many Liverpool Weetabix supporters are very fed up with their manager and their board.  While the media keep running the rather pathetic “big four” line, the Weetabix supporters actually do recognise that they haven’t won the EPL and don’t look like doing so and that there is in reality a “big 3″ and they are not there.   They see themselves slipping when they should be rising, and they are full of frustration.

Manchester Bankrupt supporters are surprisingly critical of Wayne the Virus Eater, are utterly frustrated by the Board, and worried by the fact that they cannot pay their debts.

CSKA Fulham fans are really not convinced by their new man at the helm, and believe that the owner is interfering in team selection and transfers.  And there is that nagging doubt that one day, just one day, the Great and Glorious Leader of the People’s Revolution (and multi billionaire) will get pissed off with the lot of them.

So it goes on.  No one is very satisfied.  No matter whether you have just risen from the Green Cube Conversation or whatever the league under the league is called, and are having your first season in Division 4 for 10 years, or whether you have the entire economy of Russia at your disposal, there is a feeling that the manager and chairman are dolts.

But, in terms of Arsenal, I have to differ.  My dad watched Arsenal under Chapman, and those who followed during the three consecutive championships.  He was there in January 1933 when we lost 2-0 away to Walsall (away support was not huge at the time, but he played in a jazz band and they were on tour in the Midlands) and went on to become the greatest team in the world.   And he told me about the good and the bad.

I watched the club through the Billy Wright era – hardly a high point, and through those long long years of Liverpool domination when Arsenal and Manchester Then Not Very Bankrupt were considered  to be dinosaurs.  Relics of an old time – no longer relevant to the new ways of football.

Wenger has taken us beyond that and given us a new approach – an approach based on World Wide Scouting.  An approach where we can put out a team aged 19 and win a European 3rd round tie.  An approach where we are the only team to have gone a season unbeaten since the opening season of football in the entire world.

And what do people do?   Attack him.  Over and over again.  He signs no one: attack.  He signs a guy from Cardiff: attack.  He signs some 16 year old from Barca that we have never heard of called, oh, what’s his name, Francesca Fibreglass or something – what’s the use of that?   Attack.    And when four years later Cesc is one of the greatest players on the planet, a player who we now could not afford to buy, a player who is devoted to the manager who gave him a life, who apologises?

No one.

The only thing going for the Arsenal fans who attack and attack is that they are the same as the fans of Liverpool Weetabix, CSKA F, and Man Bankrupt.  And personally, I’d sooner keep my difference.