by Unknown
Whatever happens, Arsenal will be my team through all the highs and lows. My hair is a lot greyer than those days when I stood on the North Bank as a teenager, but the emotions remain unchanged. Every defeat still hurts, every victory still puts a smile on my face for the rest of the weekend. There’s little doubt that football has become big business, but when I think about Arsenal, my first thoughts are not for the balance sheet, but the glorious sporting moments, many of which I now have to enjoy through the wonders of cable television, as I’ve lived abroad for 25 years. Like the evening I spent in Milan watching Michael Thomas’ “It’s up for grabs now” moment, when I set the Italian record for the highest jump from a sitting position; or the afternoon in Zürich when Tony Adams sealed the title with that goal.
In short, football finances are important, but let’s not forget that it’s just a means to an end and it’s the football that makes it the beautiful game.
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Kieron O’Connor writes The Swiss Ramble, a blog focusing on the business of football. He used to stand on the North Bank, but now watches Arsenal from Switzerland via the wonders of satellite TV.
18 – SUPPORTING ARSENAL FROM AFAR - Leanne Hurley
When it comes to being a ‘far-flung’ Arsenal supporter I’m luckier than most in that I’m not actually that far flung. Living in Belfast means I am only a few hours via plane, train, and automobile from the Emirates (something many would give their left one, and that of someone close to them).
Growing up in Northern Ireland I was introduced to football by my grandfather at the age of four. The choice of football back then was Irish League, while English football wasn’t anything more than Man United or Liverpool, with a televised match once a week. Easter and New Year were a veritable football fest when we might have been spoiled with two, maybe even three, matches.
I didn’t know much about football then. I was quite possibly the only female who went to matches in Northern Ireland, but I knew I didn’t want to support either United or Liverpool. Some would point to my contrary nature but I prefer to believe that some are just born with sense. When it came to footballing matters I knew, even at a young age, those teams weren’t the ones for me. So, with a father who was a rugby fan, a grandfather who had no interest outside the Irish League, and little or no football coverage beyond United and Liverpool, I got on with supporting a bunch of Irish league part-timers playing hoofball on a rectangle of mud.
It wasn’t until 1987 (when I was 11), that Arsenal finally made their way into my heart; a place they would come to own, fill with joy and tear apart with no regard for my feelings or my life away from football. It was a school trip to Germany, a round trip of some 1800 miles by coach with an overnight stop in London on the way home. For some reason the school booked a trip around Highbury and from the moment the coach pulled up outside that magnificent stadium on Avenell Road I was hooked.
It has only been in recent years I have been able to afford to go and see Arsenal play; usually against the Blackburns and Sunderlands of this world as they are the matches it is easier to get tickets for. In these financially tough times, I don’t get to as many matches as I used to or would like. I never got to see Arsenal play at Highbury, yet the stadium feels as important to me as it does to any other Gooner. I was lucky enough to have had one opportunity to walk on (well, near) the hallowed turf at the Highbury, as well as see some of the players on the pitch as they posed for photographs with the Littlewoods Cup. If I’d had a bit more of a clue back then I’d have paid more attention, but as it was, I was just so blown away by the surroundings and Highbury itself that I paid only a fleeting glance to the players (I think it was David O’Leary and someone else).
Following Arsenal while not being able to get to games regularly has not been easy, but I know I’m fortunate in that I‘ve actually been able to see the love of my life in the flesh. Many others aren’t so lucky and I know this it is a bone of contention with some fans, who believe you should truly only support your local team. That’s a view I simply do not ascribe to, not because I don’t live near Arsenal, but because if not for the international fans we would be a much poorer club. And I don’t just mean financially.
Supporting from afar is not always easy; there can be a sense of isolation –somewhat helped by the arrival of social media sites such as Twitter. Whereas before the only real choices were to watch at home with as many friends as you could squeeze into your house (if you were fortunate enough to have friends who wanted to watch Arsenal), or head to your local pub (not always practical due to location or religious beliefs), now you can watch with thousands of other ‘virtual’ Gooners online. While it might not give the same buzz as being surrounded by a sixty thousand actual Arsenal fans, it has fostered a sense of community and offered a space to show that we are not alone in our footballing madness. Now, you can have instant reaction from fans around the world, you can view and respond to the opinions of others, engage in debate; and while Twitter will never replace the feeling of actually being at the Emirates, it does afford Gooners the chance to share their joy, pain and disbelief at what they are watching in a way that few ever imagined.
If the worst thing about being a far flung Gooner is not being able to get to games, or see their heroes in the flesh, the best thing is feeling part of the global Gooner community, something quite impossible pre-Internet. There are plenty of other benefits too, such as fewer Spurs fans, not having to read The Sun, and it never being too warm at 4am to wear an Arsenal scarf. A common complaint heard by far flung supporters is abuse for not being ‘real’ fans as they don’t live in N5, but thankfully that tends to come from a vocal minority and is not reflective of how most Gooners who live near Arsenal feel. Should we really let something as arbitrary as where a person was born, or where they live, dictate who is a real fan and who is not?
Sometimes arguments ensue between those who go every week and those who can’t, and valid points are raised, all the while missing the obvious. It isn’t the amount you spend that makes you a ‘proper’ fan; it’s the amount it takes out of you.
We all want the same for Arsenal, that is, success on the pitch. How the club go about achieving that will always divide fans. Some want to spend, some want to promote from within, some want to trust that the manager might know better than the rest of us. Some want to see pretty football, some want to win at all costs. Others think that if only we’d signed player X from club Y we would be doing better, while others believe if we hadn’t signed player A from club B we’d be doing even better. It’s complicated, like life, but it is just football.
There are many around the world who will never get to experience being at an Arsenal game first-hand, yet these people still support the club, our club, their club, because that’s what supporters do. We shouldn’t care about distances or regular attendance; we should care about the quality of support. We have some of the greatest fans in the world, spread right across the globe, and we are lucky to have them. The dedication of Arsenal fans across the globe is really something all Arsenal fans should be proud of. There isn’t a time zone we don’t occupy, a continent we don’t claim as our own, or a time considered too ridiculous to get up and watch The Arsenal.
Living far from the Emirates does not exclude you from being a fan and as Arsenal’s tour of the Far East in the summer of 2011 proved, some of our most passionate fans live far and wide. Witness the Chinese fans with their magnificent banner: Barce pay £40m take Cesc away or go home to wank [sic]. They take every crumb that falls their way and they are grateful for it. Football is now a global industry with all clubs making more and more of an effort to include those fans who do not live on their doorsteps. We all hold close our memories of our favourite Arsenal goal; the player we longed to see in the flesh but never got the opportunity; the matches we wished we could have been there for; for those fortunate to witness them in person the memory might be different, but the events are the same for those watching from afar. We remember where we were when Henr
y blasted past Barthez, or when Bergkamp spun the Newcastle defence, to score what is regarded as Arsenal’s best goal of all time. We wear our shirts with pride and we defend our club as if it was a member of our own family because, well, it is.
Arsenal are in all of our hearts no matter how we came to start supporting the team. We feel the pain and humiliation of a bad defeat just as deeply as those who were there, perhaps even more so, because we know that we missed the chance to be there to cheer the players on. In troubled times such as this, the demon year of 2011, we feel further from our club because we feel helpless. We want to be there, to lift the spirits, to support: isn’t that what ‘supporters’ do?
We know that the players and the managers won’t read our words on the internet or hear our anguished cries which echo around our living rooms, but we still get up at 4 and 5am no matter what time we start work. We still stay up until late, if only for the chance of watching Arsenal from hundreds and thousands of miles away.
We are still Gooners, no matter our postcode, and together, we make up the largest and most united Global footballing community on the planet and that is something we should all be extremely proud of.
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Leanne Hurley runs LadyArse.com. She has been an Arsenal fan since 1987, a blogger since 2008, and a mouthpiece since birth.
19 – STRENGTH FROM WITHIN: FROM MEE TO GRAHAM - David Faber
I suppose if I were to suggest to supporters born in the late 40’s that I had a bit of a tough time following Arsenal in my formative years, they would have an inward chuckle. My first vivid Arsenal memories go back to our first European campaign in the autumn of 1963. Ten trophy-less years had passed to that point, so the teens of the day had a lot more to grumble about than I did. Arsenal were a team for whom goal-scoring wasn’t an issue, but a porous defence ensured season after season of frustration. Billy Wright, then holder of the world record for international caps, had been the first manager appointed from outside the club in nearly forty years. The last one, Herbert Chapman, took five years to bring a trophy to Highbury, but the former England captain would not get as much time to deliver. In each of his four seasons, Wright’s Arsenal slipped lower in the First Division table. Unlike Chapman he did not deliver a Cup Final appearance to suggest better would come. His dismissal in the summer of England’s World Cup triumph was inevitable.
The man chosen to succeed him was certainly not predictable. Bertie Mee was the physiotherapist who had a reputation among the players as a strict disciplinarian, but was little known outside the walls of Highbury. Denis Hill-Wood, the chairman, and his board had gone back to the tried and trusted method of promotion from within established following the death of Chapman. Bertie was entrusted with repeating the achievements of Tom Whittaker, who moved from the treatment room to the manager’s office, and delivered two League Championships and an FA Cup in a five-year spell around the start of the 50’s. The new boss would be the first to acknowledge that he needed help with the coaching as the modern day game was taking shape, and the old fashioned ‘trainers’ now needed to develop greater tactical and motivational skills in their armoury. The appointment of the progressive Dave Sexton was a good one, and it was no surprise that he would soon go onto the ‘big job’ at Chelsea and Manchester United.
Fate also delivered Mee, a second lieutenant, who would get to the very top of the coaching tree. Don Howe was a former England right-back recruited by Wright, but had fallen victim to a broken leg in March from which he would not recover sufficiently to resume playing. He was a leader and a thinker who learned very quickly from the more experienced Sexton and when the latter took over at Chelsea, little over a year later Don became the chief coach of Arsenal. The gift of timing did not just present the new boss with top coaching staff. The junior set-up established by his predecessor meant that a very talented group of youngsters were graduating at much the same time. Bob Wilson, Peter Storey, Peter Simpson, George Armstrong, Jon Sammels, and John Radford were all progressing from being good prospects to established players. They were to be followed by an equally talented trio of Eddie Kelly, Charlie George, and Ray Kennedy.
Almost immediately, Bertie took the opportunity to ease out some of the established stars at the club. It is probably fair to say that the supporters were not best pleased when George Eastham and Joe Baker were shipped out to Stoke City and Nottingham Forest respectively. The two had made the initial England World Cup squad, although Baker would not survive the final cut, and many considered the best of a bad bunch had been lost. The experience that was lost was soon replaced. Although the roles vacated by Eastham and Baker would offer opportunities to Sammels and Radford, the signing of left-back Bob McNab provided a first-class solution to an old problem area. Radford, promoted from a right wing position that did not play to his strengths, would get some support up front from Scotland international George Graham, signed from Chelsea.
Proof of progress was delivered in the first season of the new regime, as Arsenal climbed from a fourteenth place finish in 1966, to seventh place twelve months on. With the benefit of hindsight it is apparent that George Graham in particular had learned the lessons of promoting the youngsters and adding the experience they lacked. Nobody at that time could have imagined what he would achieve little more than twenty years later following that train of thought.
In his second season at the helm Bertie delivered a Wembley final. It was only the second time the culmination of the League Cup had been staged at the home of English football, and we were in it. Standing between Arsenal and the trophy were a Leeds United team being honed by Don Revie. They were ruthless, and although the likes of Frank McLintock and Peter Storey matched them kick for kick, a hotly disputed volley from left-back Terry Cooper settled the match. That it was put past goalkeeper, Jim Furnell, who had been floored at a corner by big Jack Charlton, still rankles with older Gooners today.
Twelve months on an even more painful defeat would be suffered at the same stage of the same competition, and in the same place. A year earlier I had missed out on seeing my first Wembley final in the flesh. At least defeat to Leeds meant I would be present to see us grab the trophy from the frail challenge presented by Swindon Town, then in the Third Division. That was the theory, anyway. One hundred and twenty minutes of pure footballing theatre on a mud-bath (created by holding the Horse of the Year Show on the hallowed turf) left this twelve-year-old with a pain I had not experienced before, but one that would become repeated many times over in the ensuing years. Swindon were deserving winners after extra-time, but I was not as charitable at the time. Would Arsenal ever win anything in my lifetime? I was taking it very personally.
Taking it even more personally was Frank McLintock. Prior to joining Arsenal he had been in the Leicester City side that had reached two FA Cup Finals, only to lose both. That he was now a four-time runner-up left him with a burning desire to get his hands on a winner’s medal. Arsenal’s fourth place finish in the League was impressive, but Frank was after something better. That League position earned Arsenal a second crack at the Fairs Cup, and in Europe, as the ’60’s became the ’70’s, Mee’s Arsenal came of age. A remarkable journey for the Gunners opened with a 3-1 aggregate victory over Northern Ireland’s Glentoran; continued past Sporting Lisbon (3-0); Rouen (1-0); Dinamo Bacau (9-1); and Ajax (3-1) to a Final meeting with Anderlecht. To put that battering of Ajax in perspective, the Cruyff-inspired Dutchmen would go on to own the European Cup for the next three seasons. Beating them 3-0 at Highbury in the first-leg of that semi-final was probably the performance that convinced that Arsenal team they were a match for anybody on their day. Success again looked to be out of Arsenal’s grasp in the first leg of the Final as the Belgian hosts took a three goal advantage, but a late header from young substitute Ray Kennedy provided the all important away goal. At a packed Highbury six days later I was on the back step of a crammed Clock End to witness fabulous strikes from Eddie Kelly and Jon Sammels – either side of a typical John Radford header
– give us the trophy. Thousands streamed onto the Highbury turf to celebrate with the players daft enough to attempt a lap of honour. Bob Wilson eventually returned to the changing room stripped of everything but his dignity.
In a corner somewhere, Bertie Mee was already planning the next momentous campaign. Ray Kennedy had made six appearances in 1969-70. It is doubtful he expected to make many more in the season that followed. Fate can be as spectacularly giving as it is sometimes fickle. On the opening day at Goodison Park Charlie George broke his ankle as he scored in a 2-2 draw. The nineteen-year-old Kennedy found himself promoted as a regular starting partner to John Radford, and the pair terrorised defences as Arsenal rampaged through the opening half of the season. West Bromwich Albion were hit for six, and four goals were notched against Manchester United, Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest, Everton, and in the Fairs Cup, Beveren Waas. Those who later called that team ‘functional’ conveniently overlook such performances. The team and supporters were enjoying some exciting days.
It was off the pitch that two events that would create a special bond in the team occurred. At a post-match dinner in Rome the Arsenal party reacted to an attack on Ray Kennedy in the street by going toe to toe with the players and officials of Lazio. Ten days later a hastily arranged team meeting followed a five-nil defeat at Stoke, and harsh words were encouraged as the players got that performance out of their system. That meeting owed as much to McLintock as it did to Mee and Howe. The players took responsibility and the reaction was astonishing. After that reverse in the Potteries on 26th September, Arsenal did not lose a League match for nearly four months, when a penalty awarded for a handball offence outside the area by McLintock presented Huddersfield with an unlikely triumph. The Championship was turning into a two-horse race between the Gunners and their old adversaries, Revie’s Leeds. At one point in February we trailed the Yorkshiremen by seven points, the equivalent of ten today as there were only two points awarded for a win. Slowly, we reeled them in. The last thirteen League matches provided only one reverse, ironically at Leeds to another hotly disputed goal. As for the rest, there was one draw and eleven wins, six of which were by the only goal of the game. I still recall the absolute joy that followed those single goals. In particular Charlie George’s belligerent thump from the edge of the box to beat Newcastle, and Eddie Kelly’s spectacular finish to avenge our battering at Stoke. It was of course the last match of that nerve-jangling sequence that provided yet more unforgettable moments, and another single-goal drama.