Some Things We Like About Arsenal, via Arseblog

The Green

The green of the grass. Every time. It’s greener at Arsenal than anywhere else. The only time I can remember it being as green somewhere else is the first time I saw Arsenal play live. It was some time in the mid-80s, in a pre-season game against Shamrock Rovers here in Dublin.

Under floodlights, a packed terrace in a south Dublin suburb, a battle of the O’Leary brothers if I recall correctly (of course it’s possible I’ve just augmented my memory of it). David the Gooner, Pierse playing for Rovers. The pitch was amazing that night.

We lost.

The Red (and white)

I love our kit. Red shirt, white sleeves. It’s timeless, classic and simple. Which is why it’s annoying when Nike get it so wrong sometimes. I like that Chapman added the white sleeves not for aesthetic reasons but to make it easier for our players to pick each other out.

My favourite kit is the one we wore in the 1979 FA Cup final though. Maybe it’s because it’s the first game I remember properly but maybe it’s just because it’s awesome. It’s timeless, classic and simple. Which is why it’s annoying when Nike foist yet another blue monstrosity upon us because of its leisure wear properties.

And if I could find a pair of the hooped socks from the mid-90s I’d buy them in a flash.

The Fans

As difficult as things are at the moment, and as depressing as I find it that people speak to each other online in the ill-mannered, pig-ignorant way they seem to think is acceptable, in real life the Arsenal fans I have met, and meet, are brilliant.

Generous, funny, passionate and intelligent. The first time I ever did that weird thing of ‘meeting people off the internet’ was for the Arsenal v Barcelona Champions League game at Wembley. As part of the Arsenal Mailing List a meet-up had been arranged and off I went to a bar within sight of the stadium. Nobody touched my special area. I drank beer with people I hadn’t met before and despite the result it was fantastic. I’m still in touch with some of those people.

Through Arseblog I have met hundreds more, many of whom I would consider my friends, and those friendships are borne out of one thing and one thing only, Arsenal Football Club.

The Irish connection

Clearly this is what made me an Arsenal fan. I don’t remember clearly why I became an Arsenal fan but as a child of Irish parents living in England I’m sure I was searching for some kind of identity. Much as you might laugh now, Terry Wogan wasn’t it. Remember, this was a world in which I was a Paddy when I lived in England (in spite of my Yorkshire accent) but I was a Brit the moment we returned home.

Brady, O’Leary, Stapleton, Devine, Rice, Nelson, Jennings. All just Irish to a small boy. There are a generation of Arsenal fans here whose first real trauma in life was the departure of Liam Brady to Juventus. A player that many of us never saw play except on TV moving to a club in Italy, played out in tiny snippets in the newspaper, and it was enough to cause heartbreak.

I can only imagine how torturous it might have been to have blanket coverage, rolling news and non-stop rumour and gossip for the duration of the saga. Oh wait, I don’t need to imagine at all.

The Records

I don’t remember the name of the book (was it the Rothman’s one?) but I had one at home as a kid and it listed each club and gave their various records. For example, record win, record loss, record attendance etc.

I used to know that book off by heart and back to front. I knew that our biggest win and biggest defeat had come against Loughborough Town and that our record attendance was somewhere in the mid 70,000s for a game in the 30s or 40s and that no other team could beat it.

Our record appearance holder is an Irishman, David O’Leary who, as I say, blotted his copybook a bit as manager of Leeds. Particularly when he dared have a go at our dreamiest ever player. What was he thinking?

Highbury

Football moves on and business more than ever calls the shots but there’s no place like home. I’ve always loved city centre stadia. One minute you’re walking down a residential street, you turn a corner and there’s a gigantic football stadium.

Highbury might not compare to the Grove in terms of facilities, ease of access (maybe we should make it more difficult for people to get out) and the rest, but it has all the character. It’s always worth a walk past, to see that amazing East stand facade, and a touch depressing to see the apartments and gardens where so much Arsenal history took place.

But who will ever forget it?

The Cannon

I’ve never been one for tattoos but I always said if I got one it would be the old cannon. What a symbol of a club. It’s not a cock perching on a ball, nor any other kind of bird or wild animal of varying ferocity. I’ll see your wild animal and raise you a cannonball in the face. I think you’ll find there’ll only be one winner.

I get why they changed it, business, copyright, blah blah blah, but the new sanitised, we’ll sue you if you use it anywhere, version just doesn’t come close.

The The

Not the band. The fact that we have a The in front of our name and nobody else does. There’s no The Chelsea. Certainly not a The Liverpool and definitely not a The Sp*rs.

There is, however, The Arsenal. It’s ubiquitous and unique. It is ours. Sometimes you hear a pundit refer to us as ‘The Arsenal’ on the telly and even if that pundit is one who you would like to smear with meat paste then chuck into a pit with a pack of starving jackals it’s still nice to hear.

Maybe it’s a small thing, maybe completely insignificant, maybe you could say we don’t even a need a ‘the’ but the fact is we have a ‘the’ and nobody else does.

We are The Arsenal.

The Players

I know, in this day and age where all our players are shit and useless and should be sold/killed/minced up and fed to cats etc, people’s affinity with players isn’t what it was.

Yet under no other circumstances could I blindly worship another man the way I have with Arsenal players. The list goes back as long as I can remember. Liam Brady, of course. As a burgeoning centre-half I have to admit that Willie Young’s tackle on Paul Allen in the 1980 FA Cup final won him a place in my heart and taught me a football lesson I never forgot.

I can remember fervently praying that when Charlie Nicholas left Celtic he’d choose us and not Man United or Liverpool or Sp*rs. I could barely understand why he’d want to go there anyway. They didn’t have a ‘the’ for goodness sake.

Rocastle, Bould, Merson (the glug-glug celebration did it for me, for some reason … ahem …), Bergkamp, Pires and Cesc were all obvious. But why, along the way, did I have soft spots just as big for Tommy Caton, Edu, Philippe Senderos and more? Players of varying quality who meant as much to me as the bone fide geniuses. I guess that’s the beauty of it.

I’m sure there are loads more if I stopped to think about it for longer, or if I had more time. But sometimes it’s worth stepping back and realising that Arsenal is something that you should cherish. It is, for all intents and purposes, a marriage, a lifelong relationship and committment.

For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, and all that. We’re a bit sick at the moment and if you, like some columns I’ve read lately, want to leave your poorly partner because it’s all too much of a chore to lift him/her onto the toilet and then do the wiping, that’s entirely up to you. I’m sure you’ll be back once we’re on the mend though; when the good times return, which they will.

We can all be concerned and worried about where we are and where we’re going but we’ve been here before and we’ll be here again. This is nothing new in the life cycle of this football club.

I offer no solution today though, and present this simply as something to counter-balance the bile, hatred and invective that has become far too large a part of supporting … wrong word … following the Arsenal at this moment in time.

Up the arse.

via the magnificent, majestic & mercurial Arseblog: http://arseblog.com/2011/10/some-things-i-like-about-arsenal/

The Rotterdam roots of Robin van Persie.

Another reason to be proud of the Arsenal

Arsenal Football Club has chosen Save the Children to be its first ever global charity partner. It will support the charity on a range of education projects in the UK and overseas.

The partnership was officially introduced to club supporters at this weekend’s Emirates Cup. One of many children to benefit from Save the Children’s Families and Schools Together (FAST) programme was chosen to carry the match ball out onto the pitch ahead of the game between Arsenal and New York Red Bulls.

Through the partnership Arsenal will support the FAST programme and the charity’s Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! (ESLP) initiative.

Arsenal will run fundraising activities such as the dedicated Matchday and ‘Be a Gunner. Be a Runner’ scheme, together with additional activities supporting community work in the UK and overseas. The Club will also continue to back Save the Children’s disaster relief work, having made donations to the Japan Appeal and more recently, the charity’s East Africa Appeal to support the millions of children facing starvation in the region.

Justin Forsyth, Chief Executive of Save the Children said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be joining with Arsenal Football club on this exciting new partnership. With our combined local and global reach we can make a huge difference to children’s lives in the UK and overseas. Indeed, it seems that everywhere I travel children tell me they support Arsenal!”

Arsenal’s Chief Executive, Ivan Gazidis said: “We have a tradition on and off the pitch of bringing the best out of young people and know the Arsenal badge can open the door to youngsters who may otherwise not be reached. By working with Save the Children we will provide more young people around the world with the skills and opportunities they need to be the best they can.”

The club began partnering with charities in 2003 including ChildLine, The David Rocastle Trust, the Willow Foundation, TreeHouse, Teenage Cancer Trust, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and Centrepoint. Since 1992 the Arsenal Charitable Trust has donated over £2 million to hospitals, disability groups, and charities supporting young children and young people. The Arsenal in the Community programme has been running for over 25 years and has generated over 5.5 million hours of volunteering and involved 1 million individuals, across a variety of sporting, charitable, educational and social inclusion projects in London and overseas.

Patrick Vieira.

279 Appearances. 29 Goals. 3 League titles. 4 F.A. Cup winners medals. 4 Charity shield successes.

An Arsenal Legend.

Danny Fiszman 1945-2011

“I am very sad. Danny was much loved at Arsenal Football Club, not just for his extraordinary vision and commitment driving our Club forward but because he was a respectful gentleman whose passion for Arsenal was at the heart of everything he did. We will miss him deeply. I am honoured to have worked with Danny and I know that the many Arsenal staff who knew him at the Club share this sentiment.”
Ivan Gazidis, Chief Executive

“Danny did an enormous amount for this Club. He came on the Board in 1992 and he was a visionary Director. He and I became very close friends, we travelled to all the away matches together and in the year 1999 we first embarked upon the new stadium project. He and I were delegated by the Board to lead that and I really could not have had a better person to work with. He was highly intelligent, he was good at everything he did and I was very fond of him. He was a very special man.”
Ken Friar, Board Director

“Danny’s unwavering commitment to Arsenal Football Club and the sport of football was amazing and inspiring. He taught me so much about the proud history and traditions of Arsenal. We not only lost a great business leader but a good friend. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family at this difficult time.”
Stan Kroenke, Board Director

Jens in training back in the day. Some great finished from a young B52, and some top stops from Herr Lehmann too.

thearseblog:

We’ll always have the first leg.

Oh, to be a Gooner.

As a babe I was carried to that place in N5,
Where in time I felt all between dead and alive.
I’m six when begins my hazy recall,
Of so many in red who could master the ball.
Joe Baker, George Eastham, first idols of mine,
So many would follow, and join in that line,
Two years at Wembley, the pain and the tears,
But thirteen and fourteen were my special years.
Eddie, Raddy, Jon Sammels scored the goals on the night
That won the Fairs Cup, put the Belgians to flight.
Twelve months on at the Lane, Arsenal did it again,
Ray Kennedy’s header meant that title we gained.
Back at Wembley that May Eddie did it once more,
Then Charlie beat Clemence, and lay on the floor.

Too soon that side found itself broken up,
And eight more years we would wait for a Cup.
No more Frankie Mac, or wee George on the wing,
No more ‘Storey, Storey do your job, would we sing.
On the Bank we would suffer, whether ‘middle’ or ‘top’,
But unlike Mancs and Tottenham we avoided the drop.
When spring turned to summer, the first week in May,
I was proud to see young Liam Brady at play.

With the last weaving run, and incredible cross,
He set up our ‘Sundy’ to apply the gloss.
In Brussels we wept as he waved us goodbye,
For a while it was just like a part of us died.

Then along came George Graham, a stroller they said,
Put his faith in the youth, and the force back in red.
In Adams, O’Leary, and Bould, he took pride,
And landed the title up on Merseyside.
In Denmark’s main city his patched-up young pups,
Turned over great Parma in the Cup Winners Cup.
Three years on came the man with the oh-so-apt name,
To introduce us to a whole new ball game.
In his first full season, the double was won,
Bouldy fed Adams, a great day in the sun.

Wrighty went east, and Thierry arrived,
Dennis, and Paddy, and Bobby, they thrived.
A double again, won with guile and flair,
“It’s only Ray Parlour”, and Freddie’s red hair.
But the feat that surely surpasses them all,
Was thirty-eight games, and lost BUGGERALL!

(Goonerholic: August, 2010)

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THE NORTH V SOUTH CUP FINAL - British Pathe →

This goes beyond ‘vintage’ Arsenal. Simply amazing.

Taken outside my friend’s apartment in Copenhagen.

Its good to know that even the scallywag street kids on the continent have an appreciation of class.

Great composition…no?