by Unknown
At the very end of the match a couple Arsenal fans and at least one Sunderland fan are ejected for giving each other the finger and yelling obscenities. This is the most excitement you feel for 80 minutes. The full time whistle blows and you stand in line waiting to shuffle out of the stadium. You steal a glance at the Sunderland supporters who are dancing, their arms raised in the air and fists pumping in a pantomime of what they would do if they could ever win the league. Instead it’s just a nil-nil jig.
Looking down at the steps you realize you’d never been to a match where Arsenal failed to win, much less one where they failed to score. It’s a raw feeling; Arsenal are 6 points behind Villa and Sunderland supporters are dancing a jig on our grave. In a daze you leave the stadium and wander the wrong way back to the tube station. As you stroll down Avenell Road, the East Stand draws you in. If you squint you can just see through the scaffolding’s cover and note that backhoes litter the old pitch. Highbury, the place where you fell in love with the Arsenal is being rebuilt as apartments for the wealthy. So that we have money to compete with Chelsea and Man U, you remind yourself.
Birmingham City – 27.02.2011
You join the main throng of Gooners leaving Wembley. Out of what must now be nervous habit, you look down at the steps. Wembley’s steps are fresher than Emirates Stadium you notice. You’re shocked out of contemplation when a man throws his programme so hard it seems as if it might break the chair in front of him. Another man slams his fist against the same chairs and you wonder if he broke his hand. The boy who had been in front of you for the full 90 minutes is being carried by his father, tears sting his eyes as he looks up to the score board before quickly burying his head back into his father’s shoulders.
The day starts perfectly. You seem to have a knack for picking beautiful days to watch Arsenal and this is no different. A beautiful day; Arsenal playing Birmingham in their first cup-final since the disaster against Chelsea and there’s a feeling of optimism in the air. You have sun block on, your Bergkamp shirt from the 2006 season, and you feel… well, you feel invincible. The Jubilee Line carriage you’re in has just five men in Arsenal shirts and one boy. There’s a lot of nervous laughter as both groups circle round each other and make chit-chat. Strangely, no one is talking about the game ahead. There are no predictions of first goal scorer, or final score. Instead they focus on small things going on in their lives. Whenever the occasional Birmingham supporter boards the train they smile at us politely and take a seat. They all look relaxed and ready for the day out; to a man we look nervous and excited.
The night before the match you go out with some friends for drinks and as the night wears on you notice some Birmingham supporters at the bar. One fellow must have had his fill of drinks because he’s talking very loudly to his friend about the game the next day. “I hate the arrogance of these Arsenal pricks,” he projects for all to hear. “They act so confident that they are going to win but ask one of them this: ‘Give me 50 to 1 odds and I’ll put a tenner on it,’ and watch their confidence fade.” The real odds are Birmingham 7-1 which is a far more realistic prospect than 50-1 but despite the hyperbole the point is decent enough: the thought that Arsenal would lose the next day makes you and your friends laugh.
Wembley has a single main walkway to and from the stadium ringed by various carts of foods you decide no person should eat. The sun is gone and the rain is pissing down now. Arsenal supporters mingle with Birmingham supporters as we all make our way down the promenade to Wembley proper. Red flags, blue flags, and chequered jester’s hats festoon both sets of fans. Someone near you starts singing, “Ooh to, Ooh to be, Ooh to be a GOONAH.” Dozens around him join in forming a small chorus of Arsenal fans. A group of Birmingham supporters with blue and white jester’s hats walk past the chorus and smile. Five folks parked next to a burger van are keeping dry by waving a giant Arsenal flag over their heads, singing “Na na na na na na na na na na na nasiri, na na nasiriii!” The Birmingham supporters remain silent, while us Gooners are whooping it up. It’s as if we are already celebrating.
“WHY CAN’T WE DEFEND A SIMPLE HEADER???” The action happens so quickly and your angle is so acute that you look up to the ‘Jumbotron’ to see Zigic score the opener. In real time the goal looks like something Birmingham had drawn up on the training ground. Arsenal are vulnerable, more so than any other team, to the second header. So when we get to the first header we don’t clear our lines well and teams will simply play it back in and keep us under pressure. But this header was special: we’ve all seen teams play a long corner, head it back across, and while our defenders are chasing ghosts, it’s a free for the opposition’s big man.
As soon as the ball ripples the opposition net we jump in joy. Pure jubilation spreads like wildfire through our end of the stadium. The Arsenal fans sing again now. “We love you Arsenal”, is the chant of the moment. The boy in front of you, draped in an Arsenal flag like a superhero’s cape, is in his father’s arms, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Tears of joy; relief, anguish, and worst of all, tears of belief. Robin van Persie scores the equalizer and there is suddenly real belief in both the fans and the players. The other end of the stadium simultaneously sits on their hands. There is still a whole second half to play but the flags are put away and as Arsenal attack the Birmingham goal relentlessly they seem resolved that the loss is coming.
The sound of Martins’ goal reaches our end of the stadium like a sonic boom. We watch the collision of Koscielny and Szczesny, see the net ripple. You look over at the linesman in desperation but he’s not waving his flag. Mike Dean signals a goal; the sound of Birmingham fans celebrating the winner washes over us. Our end of the stadium is knocked back a bit. There is time left on the clock but we know that it is over: the singing is done, and we look around at each other helpless to do anything but stand there and wallow in frustration.
As we approach the first of several ramps out of Wembley people voice that frustration. “If anyone here thinks Bendtner is a striker raise your hand.” No one replies. “Why can’t we just buy a £20m centre-half and defend set pieces?” says another. On it goes; outbursts of anger like little firecrackers erupting all over the crowd.
Then someone starts to sing in sotto voce “Number 1 is Perry Groves… Number 2 is Perry Groves… Number 3 is Perry Groves…” and one by one, others join. After that song dies down, the next song picks up “There’s only one Tony Adams.” Clearly Gooners want those old days back. And who can blame them? Here was the chance to get Arsenal back on a winning track and to prove the Emirates project could pay dividends in the trophy cabinet. But the dream slipped away into the dark, cold, night.
The next day, you decide you have enough time before heading home to stop at Highbury and see what the club has done to the old Lady. It’s been a year, but Arsenal station is still the same: the same cattle-walk to allow people who aren’t going to a game to pass the crowds quickly; the same North London row houses right outside the station. Even the “Allez Arsenal” that you first noticed three years ago is still scrawled into the concrete as you approach the East stand.
You have seen all the brochures and know what Highbury is being redesigned into, but the full shock of the gleaming condos and imperious black gate is unexpected. You stand outside the gate and look inside, it dawns on you that you’ll never set foot in there again. You’ll never walk up those old stairs ever again. The old songs sung by the crowds will never echo from stand to stand. The ground where you and countless others fell in love with Arsenal has been fenced off and made into a rich man’s private garden.
***
Tim Bostelle is paid to do something other than write about Arsenal at 7amkickoff.com but he finds a way to do it every day regardless.
14 – ARSENAL’S STANDING IN THE MODERN GAME - Stuart Stratford
As football changes, the standing of a club in the modern game becomes more obscured. There is a proliferation of information with the global, and seemingly endless, reach of the Internet. Any club can be deeme
d to be the biggest in the world using one yardstick or another. Life was not always this complicated. Rewind a century and Arsenal were on the cusp of “negotiating” their way into English football’s top flight, a place they still occupy. The arrival of Herbert Chapman would take the club to another level altogether.
By the time the 1930’s had finished and the world was at war, Arsenal had become The Establishment Club. The rise had been prolific. The club were crowned Champions in 1953 for the seventh time, then a record. As well as the titles, there were three victorious FA Cup Finals. Not bad for a club whose first major honour came with a 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town in the 1930 FA Cup final. Since those times, success and failure have been equal bedfellows. If the period 1955 – 1967 was the nadir, the reign of Arsène Wenger has been the peak. In between, glory and fallow periods were close cousins. Football is a cyclical sport; few other clubs have a history as illustrious or which proves that as emphatically as Arsenal’s.
Before the 1950’s, it was easy to measure a club’s standing in the game. Parochial administrators ensured that their personal fiefdoms were unchallenged and uncomplicated by journeys to foreign shores, save for pre-season tours. How good was your team? Where did they finish in the league last season? Did they win the FA Cup? How many times have they won both competitions? Answer those questions and you found out how ‘big’ your club was.
But football is changing. Records created have become ghosts of a game that has taken to discarding the past with relative ease and a total lack of conscience. Many records have been created in the club’s 125 year existence. Some, such as The Invincibles, still stand, as does the near century tenure in the top-flight of English football. Others, such as becoming the first team to win 7 league titles back in 1950s, have been surpassed and ground into the dust of football’s past.
The modern game is light years away from its ancestors. Money swirls in and out of the game, caught in a typhoon of greed and glory. The past is suppressed and consigned to obscure satellite channels, packaged in highlights bundles for the midnight hour. Football’s face has been surgically altered and botoxed beyond recognition. And where does this leave Arsenal?
Boundaries are being wiped away. The Internet means that fans in geographically disparate locations can chat as easily about the match as our forefathers did in the pub following the final whistle. As club sides go, Arsenal has one of the most internet-active sets of supporters. It is difficult to quantify but this experience makes them one of the biggest clubs in the world by that measure. If this is the case, why is the media perception so different? Why are Arsenal treated as poor relations to other clubs, including those who make their debuts in the Champions League this season.
Investment is happening on a global scale. The European leagues, traditionally considered the biggest, are not necessarily the richest. Super clubs are emerging from the former Russian states; oligarchs invest vast sums for players in order to chase Champions League glory. The most startling example is at Russian club, Anzhi Makhachkala, who signed Samuel Eto’o on a deal rumoured to be worth £250k per week after tax, on top of a £22m fee to Internazionale. Perhaps the biggest change is coming with the arrival of Middle Eastern money. Beneficiaries include Paris St Germain and Malaga, neither of whom are reluctant to flash the new found cash. For years the Parisians lost their best players to others, now they enjoy the role reversal. Malaga has spent heavily in an attempt to gate-crash the top table in Spain. They will find little room with Barcelona and Real Madrid unwilling to share space. Indeed, with so few challengers they have made it all but impossible for anyone to win the title such is their dominance of revenues.
The biggest change is at Manchester City. Having invested heavily in previous summers, they have moved up another level with money and quality of players bought. Already targeted by UEFA under the Financial Fair Play regulations (FFP) for their sponsorship deal, City need to increase their revenues to cover ever-increasing costs. Already this summer they found it hard to dispose of players, doing loan deals with Tottenham and others to cut their playing staff. These clubs offer the biggest threat to the status quo. As they spend more on fees and wages, traditionally run clubs are marginalised in the transfer market. No longer is the solution to slowly build a squad, promoting youth with a mix of older heads. The Super Clubs want it all and they want it now, purchasing their way to silverware as quickly as they can. The FFP rules will counter some of the excesses, but not all of them as clubs become more commercially aware, exploiting their brands in the global marketplace.
Arsenal has not taken advantage of this. Tied into sponsorship deals that helped to build their new stadium, the club’s commercial revenues are found badly wanting when compared to their domestic and international rivals. Negotiations have not brought forth solutions, the club reluctant to follow Chelsea’s lead in paying off previous sponsors to negotiate more commercially advantageous deals. To put Arsenal’s position into perspective, Manchester United’s recent sponsorship deal with DHL for their training kit compares more than favourably with Arsenal’s for their first XI shirts. Summer 2011 was the first time in forty years that the club had ventured to the Far East for a tour, but two matches played in Asia hardly constitutes a massive commitment. Dipping their toes in is fine but rivals such as United and Chelsea exploited these markets long ago, moving onto the United States of America for their pre-season tours. Having an American billionaire owner, Arsenal will presumably follow that path. Arsène Wenger’s opposition to such matters will be considered but ultimately ignored in the pursuit of financial enhancement. Arsenal needs it. Wenger admits that once the bigger clubs come into the process, Arsenal will always lose out in a bidding war for either transfer fees or wages. This suggests that in the modern game, Arsenal’s business model is wrong.
How do they alter it? Alisher Usmanov makes the right noises publicly but finds little support for his desire to invest, particularly as he seems more concerned with dividends. The Uzbek wants us to believe he would invest heavily on the playing side but it is easy to say these things when you know there is little or no chance of your offer being taken. However, even the biggest clubs around the world have hit financial trouble with the traditional football model. Barcelona had severe cash flow problems at the end of the 2010/11 season whilst the debt incurred by the Glazers in purchasing Manchester United has necessitated them floating part of the club on the Singapore Stock Exchange. By comparison, Arsenal remains financially one of the most valuable clubs in the world; the self-sustaining model employed by the club shows its worth in various lists compiled by both Deloittes and Forbes. The Emirates Stadium has increased match-day revenue, enabling higher wages to be paid amongst the squad (although wages paid at Arsenal are easily and willingly trumped by Chelsea and both Mancunian clubs). Can they compete at the highest level continually when faced with those whose spending power far outweighs their own? The answer to that is quite simple: they must. It is a trite observation but true nonetheless. Clubs such as Arsenal competing with those who utilise what Wenger calls ‘financial doping’ are necessary for the good of the game. If Arsenal fail and no-one else steps forward to take their place, money has won. Michel Platini might worry that overt corruption will ruin the professional game, the imbalance caused by huge investments from owners or bankers, covertly corrupts football. This is not to cast Arsenal as a White Knight. They are not fighting any such battle for the good of the game, simply for the good of Arsenal Football Club. It is the corner into which they have been painted. Football is such a fluid game on and off the pitch, that this year’s financial champions may be next year’s Sugar Daddy plaything.
This year saw a change in the perception of Arsenal. Previous years had seen the club tipped to be the one of the ‘Big Four’ who dropped out of contention. Liverpool filled that gap instead, the season after finishing runners-up. Arsenal launched a title challenge in 2010/11that eventually withered away into a struggle for fourth place. The departures of Cesc Fabrega
s and Samir Nasri have been seen as cataclysmic for the club. If you strip away the hyperbole, losing two key players is bound to impact any team. Wenger, though, has negatively influenced opinion on this matter. Whilst not setting the agenda, he did nothing to diffuse the situation. Speaking on the club’s Asian tour, he observed, “Imagine the worst situation – we lose Fabregas and Nasri – you cannot convince people you are ambitious after that ... I believe for us it is important that the message we give out – for example you see about Fabregas leaving, Nasri leaving – if you give that message out you cannot pretend you are a big club. Because a big club first of all holds onto its big players and gives a message out to all the other big clubs that they just cannot come in and take [players] away from you.”
It is the language of football, the self-aggrandisement of the sport. The words have come back to haunt him on more than one occasion, gleefully thrown back in his face by his critics. It begs the question, can Arsenal be considered a big club if they cannot hold onto their best players? The issue is clouded by the context of the sales. Fabregas was returning home, to a former club, a club he supports and had done since he was a child. In that instance, is it a diminution of Arsenal’s status to sell the player, particularly since his new employers are considered to be one of the best club sides in football’s history?
In my opinion, it is the sale of Nasri that highlights the problems Arsenal face most. The player had all but agreed a deal to extend his contract with Arsenal. Something happened at the start of the 2010/11 season that put the matter on ice, the suspicion is that his agent had contact with other clubs and the player’s head was turned by the money on offer elsewhere. The wages he plumped for at Man City were £75k more than Arsenal offered and was willing to pay. City had the need and economic means to pay the substantial sum, showing that they were in a hurry to snap up any talent that became available in their avaricious pursuit of silverware, emphasising the wealth gap created.