Wenger And The Ides Of March

Wonder why so many of us have little faith in Arsene Wenger to win the league again? Look how many times we have croaked at the business end of the season. We were led to believe the tackle on Eduardo away to Birmingham in 2008 had a real impact on the team and the players, which overlooks our triumph in Milan, but that was just the club offering a lame excuse. Wenger has become better at rewriting history rather than making history. 

Time and time again we have fallen short and nothing Wenger says or does suggests he has the fibre to turn our team of snowflakes in to battle hardened warriors. Too often a big loss is followed by a silent dressing room, no doubt where Wenger lights incense candles and leads the team in a solemn rendition of Kumbaya rather than tearing new arseholes in over paid, over hyped, over groomed players who feel nothing for our club beyond collecting their pay every week. To happen once in understandable, six times in such a short period time suggests a club in denial.

2006/2007

17/02/07 - Blackburn (FA Cup) 0-0
20/02/07 - PSV (Champions League) 0-1
25/02/07 - Chelsea (League Cup Final) 1-2
28/02/07 - Blackburn (FA Cup) 0-1
03/03/07 - Reading (PL) 2-1
07/03/07 - PSV (Champions League) 1-1

2007/2008

16/02/08 - Manchester United (FAC) 0-4
20/02/08 - AC Milan (Champions League) 0-0
23/02/08 - Birmingham City (PL) 2-2
01/03/08 - Aston Villa (PL) 1-1
04/03/08 - AC Milan (Champions League) 2-0
09/03/08 - Wigan Athletic (PL) 0-0
15/03/08 - Middlesbrough (PL) 1-1
23/02/08 - Chelsea (PL) 1-2
29/03/08 - Bolton (PL) 3-2
02/04/08 - Liverpool (Champions League) 1-1
05/04/08 - Liverpool (PL) 1-1
08/04/08 - Liverpool (Champions League) 2-4
13/04/08 - Manchester United (PL) 1-2

Finished 3rd, four points behind champions

2009/2010

27/03/10 - Birmingham City (PL) 1-1
31/03/10 - Barcelona (Champions League) 2-2
03/04/10 - Wolves (PL) 1-0
06/04/10 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-4\
14/04/10 - Spurs (PL) 1-2
18/04/10 - Wigan (PL) 2-3
24/04/10 - Manchester City (PL) 0-0
03/05/10 - Blackburn (PL) 1-2

Finished 3rd, 11 points behind champions

2010/2011

27/02/11 - Birmingham City (League Cup Final) 1-2
02/03/11 - Orient (FAC) 5-0
05/03/11 - Sunderland (PL) 0-0
08/03/11 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-3
12/03/11 - Manchester United (FAC) 0-2
19/03/11 - West Brom (PL) 2-2
02/04/11 - Blackburn (PL) 0-0
10/04/11 - Blackpool (PL) 3-1
17/04/11 - Liverpool (PL) 1-1
20/04/11 - Spurs (PL) 3-3
24/04/11 - Bolton (PL) 1-2
01/05/11 - Manchester United (PL) 1-0
08/05/11 - Stoke City (PL) 1-3
15/05/11 - Aston Villa (PL) 1-2
22/05/11 - Fulham (PL) 2-2

Finished 4th, 12 points behind champions.

2013/2014

08/02/14 - Liverpool (PL) 1-5
12/02/14 - Manchester United (PL) 0-0
16/02/14 - Liverpool (FAC) 2-1
19/02/14 - Bayern Munich (Champions League) 0-2
22/02/14 - Sunderland (PL) 4-1
01/03/14 - Stoke City (PL) 0-1
08/03/14 - Everton (FAC) 4-1
11/03/14 - Bayern Munich (Champions League) 1-1
16/03/14 - Spurs (PL) 1-0
22/03/14 - Chelsea (PL) 0-6
25/03/14 - Swansea City (PL) 2-2
29/03/14 - Manchester City (PL) 1-1
06/04/14 - Everton (PL) 0-3

Finished 4th, seven points behind champions

2015/2016

23/02/16 - Barcelona (Champions League) 0-2
28/02/16 - Manchester United (PL) 2-3
02/03/16 - Swansea City (PL) 1-2 
05/03/16 - Spurs (PL) 2-2
13/03/16 - Watford (FAC) 1-2
16/03/16 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-3

Finished 2nd, 10 points behind champions

David Dein's Dreams Of Football's Brave New World

The new season kicked off Friday night of course with the Arsenal beating Leicester City 4-3 at the Emirates, a thrilling affair for the neutral and armchair supporter tuning in for the new campaign. The Premier League began in 1992/93 so this new season is the 25th anniversary, the silver anniversary if you like, for what has become the most popular league in the world. Not the best but the most popular. 

In England a generation of fans will have no idea what football was like before the Premier League was vomited forth from a number of the bigger clubs, including the Arsenal, and a TV company desperately short of subscribers. From little acorns and all that. Today the Premier League us arguably more popular outside of England than it is in its own country and pre season tours have become the norm to allow the minted clubs to meet their fawning consumers in far flung places.

Before the Premier League football was not necessarily better and neither was the match day experience. Brawls on the terraces, in the streets or at the railway station were not everyone's cup of tea though many were forced to witness the ugly scenes. Stadiums were slowly being upgraded though so at least we could watch games in a degree of comfort though the enforced introduction of all seated stadia brought in post Hillsborough wasn't welcomed by everyone.

You could though wake up in the morning and decide to go to the game, all ticket affairs were few and far between on the whole, and you could be in the same part of the ground as your mates. Ticket prices were also pretty reasonable, in the last season before the Premier League began Arsenal were charging from GBP 10 - 20 for a seat ticket and GBP 8 to stand.

The last season before the Premier League was 1991/92. It also marked the last time an English coach, Howard Wilkinson, would guide a team, Leeds United in this case, to the title. On the dawn of the new era Liverpool had 18 titles to their name, Arsenal had 10 and the next best, with seven, was Everton. Boy, how that has changed! Manchester City and Chelsea were the also rans of also rans, not world behemoths powered by the deep pockets of foreign oligarchs and sheikhs.

But if as football fans you thought we were wetting our collective boxer shorts at the thought of this super duper new football league you would be wrong. As an Arsenal fan I was more concerned about the North Bank being demolished. I had returned to England in time for the start of the season and went to a few games but I didn't like what I was hearing. Supporters were being asked to hand over in excess of GBP 1,000 for the right to buy a season ticket! You still had to buy your ticket! And there was to be the season when the North Bank would be no more, the construction work of the new stand would continue behind a mural. I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't wanna see Highbury disfigured in such a way so I left, moving to Cologne to live out my Aug Weidersehen, Pet fantasies. For me and perhaps many other fans the Premier League was just another name for Division One. Little did we know how much things would change though it is fair to say a number of fanzines at the time could see the writing on the wall.

In Arsenal's first home game of the 1991/92 season, against Queens Park Rangers, there was a two page interview with our vice chairman at the time David Dein where he was asked to explain this whole brave new world to us and he attempted to woo is by saying 'the present league structure neither efficiently looks after the top of the First Division or the bottom of the Fourth Division. Effective change is virtually impossible under the current football league system as its voting composition very often has a frustrating effect on real progress.' So the Premier League was about power? 

Later in the interview the programme editor, Kevin Connelly asked Dein if the creation of the Premier League was about money. I can only assume Dein put on his ultra gravitas voice as he said 'No, it is about progress, management, the future,' before adding money played an important role, England needed to keep its best players playing in England. Dein noted Liam Brady, Mark Hateley, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne and David Platt had all be tempted by the riches on offer overseas. 

\Dein also insisted the clubs from the lower divisions would also benefit in  this brave new world with the Football Association, which would run the Premier League, promising to 'indemnify' clubs should their income stream be impacted negatively by the new league.

Then came the key question, on page two, when Connelly asked Dein 'Who will be the ultimate beneficiary in the Premier League?' Smooth as you like Dein replied 'First the spectator because there will be better facilities and stricter criteria for grounds. Secondly, the international team because when the Premier League is finally reduced the England manager will have more time with his players. Thirdly football generally because progress will be able to be made without the confines of an unwieldy system.'

At the time there was talk of a payers' strike and legal action being taken by the Football League so the rest of the interview covered those topics before one little gem. 'What role will television play in the new Premier League?' Answer? 'There will be joint negotiations between the football association and the Premier League together with broadcasters...'

As far as interviews go Dein was giving little away probably because, much like the ministers today discussing Brexit with the EU, no one really knew what they were doing. Nothing like this had been done before and all involved were essentially inventing the wheel.

Twenty five years on and with some hindsight offering some excellent benefits, it is clear the arguments Dein put forward for the creation of the league have been shown to be bogus except one about power. Certainly the national team hasn't improved, the gap between the haves and have nots has widened to a chasm  and television basically owns the game. TV clicks its fingers and football rolls over to have its tummy tickled. 

The Premier League has become massive thanks to the brands, the history and the chaotic style of play. When it kicked off all the football money was concentrated in Italy. Sky and the Premier League has changed the way people see football and the way football is viewed. Clubs are brands, players are celebrities and replica shirts are fashion items and not even the far seeing Dein could have envisaged that. English football, once the preserve of people like me and eccentrics from Northern Europe has come to be shared by people all around the world and especially Asia and Africa. 

Top flight football for many of my generation is irredeemably broken on the alter of mammon but it is more popular than ever and Arsenal, through David Dein's efforts, were there at the very start continuing the innovative thinking that had started in the 1920s and 1930s with men like Henry Norris and Herbert Chapman. And that innovative DNA continues to this day with the great prophet Arsene Wenger convincing a generation of fans football isn't just about trophies and an American owner who is so disconnected from the club he may as well be on another planet or in the Serengeti being hunted down by hordes of wildebeest or irate shotgun packing conservationists. And yes, both Wenger and Kroenke were introduced to the Arsenal by Dein

The Bird Man Of North London

It has only been in recent years that I have realised how lucky the Arsenal have been with goalkeepers. Growing up I knew all about Jack Kelsey, hell  I even had his book, and would see him in the club shop on the rare occasion I visited that primitive emporium. I got to see Bob Wilson, Jimmy Rimmer, Pat Jennings, John Lukic and David Seaman, I went through life thinking every goalkeeper in England was blessed with talent and everyone who signed for the Arsenal was a cut above the rest.

Some keepers of course made no impression on the first team even though I was familiar with their  names from my avid reading of the match day programmes. Geoff Barnett was 'my' first proper second choice keeper. Famous for his hair (!) he did play a few first team games but was never able to dislodge Bob Wilson and was allowed to leave. Brian Parker and Martin New made even less impression than Barnett and it wasn't until the signing of Rimmer from Manchester United in 1974 that we had a successor for Wilson.

After a couple of years where Rimmer, along with the goals of Brian Kidd, almost single handedly kept us from relegation, new gaffer Terry Neill decided to let Rimmer go to Aston Villa and he signed Pat Jennings from that lot up the road and for a while the genial Irishman was untouched as our number one.

In 1978 we signed Paul Barron as understudy and from the little I saw of him I liked what I saw. However he was never going to take over from Jennings who was still a model of consistency despite being in his mid 30s and when Neill sought to swap Clive Allen for Kenny Sansom in 1980 Barron was added to the deal as a sweetener.

With Barron leaving there was a need for an experienced keeper to standby in case Jennings was interested so Neill, perhaps feeling 18 year old Rhys Wilmot was not yet ready to step up to the first team, went back in the transfer market to sign 27 year old Scottish international George Wood from Everton.

The Scotsman didn't have long to wait for his debut, deputising for Jennings in an away game against Middlesbrough and although we lost the game 2-1 he was retained for the following week. The next game was against Nottingham Forest at Highbury and for many of us it was the first chance to see our new keeper. We won 1-0 and went home happy, not giving the new man between the sticks a second thought. He played the next nine games before Jennings came back to the first team and his record was: Played 11, won five, drew three and lost three. He also played in a couple of League Cup ties away to Stockport County and Spurs.

The 1981/82 campaign saw Wood even more involved as he played in 26 league games and one League Cup tie, a replay at Anfield, and with Jennings not getting any younger it was looking like the former Everton keeper was being groomed to take over from the big man. From my place on the North Bank I was not convinced. Jennings had started the season with Wood not playing his first league game of the season until Janurary away to Stoke City. We won that game as we had won the previous five games but we as a team were not playing well and the confidence many of us supporters wasn't transfered to our new keeper.

Wood kept his place from the Stoke game onwards  and we lost one game in our last seven but we weren't playing that well, it was only in our last game of the season at home to Southampton that I felt we played with any kind of fluency or confidence. We had lost players like Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton over recent years and their replacements, be they Paul Davis, Graham Rix, Brian McDermott or John Hawley weren't felt to be up to the task. With Jennings absent for much of the campaign we were missing a core of the late 1970s team which had reached four finals.

Wood started the 82/83 season playing in our opening 13 games when we only won three games. We had been promised big signings and Terry Neill had certainly spent big but Tony Woodcock and lee Chapman were facing their own problems adapting to their new surroundings. Jennings and Wood alternated between the sticks for a while but the Scotsman's number was up. He was involved in the 5-0 debacle at White Hart Lane and played just one FA Cup tie, the semi final against Manchester United which we also lost.

A few days later George Wood pulled on the Arsenal number one shirt for the last time in a midweek league game away to Norwich City four days after that semi final loss. We lost 3-1, Jennings saw out the season and Wood was allowed to leave during the summer.

Personally I was glad to see him gone. I never took to him as an Arsenal player even though he was experienced and had a good background. He never felt like an Arsenal player and I never felt safe when he was playing. No disrespect to the lad but for me he was the worst keeper we had...until Manuel Almunia.

Still, there was one thing I always remembered about George Wood. He wasn't what you would call a party animal and with Charlie Nicholas arriving in the summer to team up with Woodcock, Alan Sunderland, Kenny Sansom and the other drinkers in the club he would most definitely have been the odd man out. For Wood was no party animal. He was in fact a twitcher. A bird watcher.

The programme for Liverpool at home in September 1982 had a profile with Wood and we were told Wood had grown up in Scotland spending his free time with a game keeper learning about animals and birds. He would lie on a river bank with his arm in the water trying to find trout for example and if he got lucky, as he frequently did, he sell the surplus to local restaurants or hotels.

Even as an Arsenal player he never lost his interest in the countryside and would carry out a survey of birds in Hertfordshire as well as counting the winter birds in his area. While most players of that era were listening to U2 or Level 42 Wood was most content listening to recordings of bird songs, preferring a bit of 'cheep,cheep' to 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. As for his football ambitions? He was happy enough being a professional footballer. Anything beyond that was a bonus he felt.

While I never rated him I did like the fact he was more eclectic than your average footballer and am happy that whenever it comes to listing Arsenal's worst ever keepers Arsene Wenger has provided me with a number of alternatives to push Wood the Birdman down the list.

Over Land & Sea. And Leicester.

So here we are  on the first day of a new season and we are hosting Leicester City on a Friday night. Golly, hasn't football changed? Forty plus years ago who'd a thought we would have seen Leicester crowned champions, play in the European Cup and Arsenal fans celebrate a victory over them like it was we who were champions.

Leicester do appear once or twice in the annals of 'memorable if not not classic' games over the years. First and foremost they were our first opponents at Highbury more than a century ago. And let us not forget there was the day we beat Leicester at the old Highbury in the last game of the season to be crowned champions ourselves at the end of our unbeaten season

Yep, things change and how Leicester are perceived but for me a game with Leicester City always brings to mind an old chant you used to hear on the North Bank and at away games.

We will follow the Arsenal

Over land and sea (and Leicester)

We will follow the Arsenal

On to victory

(All together now)

Supporters at other clubs used to sing something similar but I don't recall whether they added the Leicester bit to their version. But we did. Why would that be?

Some people have suggested it may have been because the M1 motorway would have signposts which would give distances and say things like The North followed by Leicester but I'm not convinced football fans even noticed road signs on the way to and from games. No, what football fans remember are games and places visited and for some reason we used to visit Leicester quite a lot.

Take, for example the 1974/75 season. In  that season, best forgotten really, we played the Foxes home and away in the league as you would expect. We started the season playing them away and we started well, Brian Kidd netting on his debut for the club to give us a 1-0 win. We also drew them in the League Cup being held to a 1-1 draw at Highbury before going to Filbert Street and getting beat 2-1. 

A couple of weeks before Christmas and we met them at Highbury for our second league meeting and with both teams in the bottom five of the table it was the Foxes who had the most to cheer heading back up the M1 with a point from a 0-0 draw. 

While we may have been pants in the league we were struggling but winning in the FA Cup. We were held 1-1 at home by York City in the third round but a Brian Kidd hat trick in the replay saw us earn a trip to Coventry as a reward. We drew, of course, brought them down to Highbury and thrashed them 3-0 (in that season 3-0 was a thrashing).

Our reward for beating Coventry? Leicester at home. The first game was a repeat of our league encounter at Highbury back in December, a 0-0 draw, so we were back up to the East Midlands for a replay. That ended blank after 90 minutes, we went to extra time and ended up drawing 1-1. Back in those days there were no penalty shoot outs, we had a second replay and teams would toss a coin for the venue. We lost and had to return to Filbert Street five days later to try again. This time we won thanks to a John Radford screamer meaning for this particular season we would not be returning to Leicester. 

Division One 17/08 - Leicester City (A) 0-1 Brian Kidd 

League Cup   10/09 - Leicester City (H) 1-1 Brian Kidd

League Cup   18/09 - Leicester City (A) 1-0 Liam Brady

Division One 14/12 - Leicester City (H) 0-0

FA Cup          15/02 - Leicester City (H) 0-0

FA Cup          19/02 - Leicester City (A) 1-1 John Radford

FA Cup          24/02 - Leicester City (A) 0-1 John Radford

We weren't finished with trips to Leicester though. In 1978/79 we were involved in an FA Cup marathon with Sheffield Wednesday which saw us play at Highbury, Hillsborough, Filbert Street, Filbert Street and Filbert Street. By then the chant was a staple on our terraces and perhaps it had started life with some terrace wit adding Leicester to the original as a recognition of those tiring treks north up the M1.

Its worth bearing in mind the organic development of a chant like this when you hear of clubs trying to force feed supporters a song or an anthem like the Arsenal did with The Wonder of You. Terrace culture isn't developed in a board room with a bunch of suits looking at flow charts, drinking from expensive bottles of water. It comes from the terraces but in this modern era clubs are scared of fans. Clubs are reluctant to even use the word fan, they want to turn us into consumers  and control the whole matchday experience and they may be earning bucket loads of cash from Sky but at the end of the day football without the fans is nothing and the sooner the corporates realise this the better the matchday experience will be for the players on the field, the fans in the stands and yes, even the viewers on TV.

Brisbane & A Long Distance Phone Call

It's not right is it? A new season kicking off on a Friday night. It's bollocks but it's to be expected. Football sold its soul so long ago I struggle to recall when it still had one. If a Friday night kick off keeps the bean counters happy then so be it and as for the fans who have to make nightmare arrangements to get to North London, people in football stopped caring about them yonks ago.

But for all the faffing around imposed by the TV companies there is still something special about the first game of the season. The excitement of seeing any new signings, what will the new season's programme be like, meet your mates again in the usual places, perhaps even the smell of paint lingering on the crash barriers. And of course the game was played on an immaculate pitch swathed in sunshine as Match of the Day faithfully recorded. Oh yes, and we were unbeaten of course What was not to love. Up and down the country there were people setting out for the first game with the same thoughts whether they were Arsenal, Hartlepool or Plymouth fans. The season returns.

In 1987 I missed all that much like I am missing all that in 2017. But 1987 was my first year away and, I thought at the time, my only year away. Exciting things were afoot at the Arsenal with George Graham delivering a trophy in his first season and the promise of better things around the corner. New players were coming in like Alan Smith, Nigel Winterburn and Perry Groves while youngsters like Tony Adams, Martin Hayes and David Rocastle were coming through the ranks and making their mark. Why would anyone want to leave the country?

Fact is I had had this urge to visit Australia for several years and I knew if I didn't do it in my early 20s I would never do. When the company I worked for in Guildford decided they wanted to relocate to the west country, offering staff like myself favourable mortgage rates, this seemed the best time. Early 20s, what the fuck did I want a mortgage for and why the hell did I wanna live out there in Wurzel land?

So I left in June 1987 and after a month in South East Asia landed in Sydney wondering how the hell I would be able to keep up with the football from back home. No internet you see and we used pigeons to send letters around the world and a mobile phone was a landline you threw at someone. Luckily there was this wonderful little weekly newspaper called British Soccer Weekly that would prove a lifeline to me and no doubt thousands of other homesick pommies pining for the round ball game in a land of tight shorts and Midnight Oil. The problem was BSW came out on a Monday if I was in Sydney. It could take a few more days if I was further north and come the first game of the 1987/88 season I was in Brisbane and we were playing Liverpool at Highbury.

It promised to be a massive game. We had fucked Rushie's record up at Wembley in April thanks to Bonnie Prince Charlie and like I said we were buzzing about a new era at the Arsenal. Liverpool weren't bad either, manager Kenny Dalglish had signed Peter Beardsley, John Barnes and John Aldridge. In the run up to the game I wondered more than once whether I had made the right decision to leave but I was stuck working at a department store the centre of Brisbane developing a taste for getting pissed even more often than I had in England. Nope, I was stuck and I had to get used to it.

Come the first day of the season and there were more than 57,000 descending on Highbury including my match going mates. Fans were climbing in walls to get a decent view some even on the roof of the North Bank. With a nine hour time difference between London and Brisbane the game kicked off midnight our time. No internet, no world service, no pub showing the game, me and a Liverpool fan who had tagged along were in the dark about events thousands of miles away. What the fuck was going on? We drunk quickly and drunk nervously. We had to, beer was served in oversized thimbles which may have been good for inner city Aussies but no use to the generation which had invented binge drinking to get us through lunch time before returning to the office.

The game finished before two am our time and we staggered home wondering how the fuck we would find out the score. Finally Liverpool fan had a wheeze, found a few coins and rang home. I forget the names but remember the conversation which went something like this;

Brisbane - Hey sister is mam there? Mam?

Liverpool - 

Brisbane - Mam, mam, it's me, John. What was the score?

Liverpool - 

Brisbane - Yeay, thanks mam, bye.

Brisbane - Take that you cockney twat

I am now approaching my 31st season as an exiled Gooner. Thanks to the wall to wall coverage, the internet, cable TV, I am better informed now about my club than I was when I lived in England and used to go to the games. But spare a though eh as you head out on Friday to the game, as you go for that pre game pint, buy your programme and fanzine, moan about Wenger during the game and call the ref a wanker when we lose and face a long journey home with nothing to show but some betting slips and the makings of a hangover. I will probably wake up five minutes before the game starts, swear at an empty house before venting my rage on Twitter and going to bed before the ref's pea has barely finished rolling around his whistle unable to sleep as I rerun the game in my mind. All the while I will be wishing I was inside the stadium.

Memories Of Brighton Rock

The new season kicks off this Friday for the Arsenal and a new season means promoted teams. Newcastle bounce up and down so often it isn't really news when they are promoted again but the other two teams I am genuinely excited about seeing in the top flight again.

Huddersfield Town and Brighton and Hove Albion. Huddersfield, the Terriers. I loved their old stadium with its large terrace down one side and of course they were the first team to win the title three years on the spin, Herbert Chapman and all that. And Brighton? They may lack the history of the team from West Yorkshire but they've lived their own roller coaster ride in different seasons and I don't think many fans outside of Selhurst Park is going to begrudge them their first campaign in the Premier League.

Without looking I can tell you when the Seagulls first played in the top flight back in 1979 their first home game was against us and we mullared them 4-0 and no, I wasn't there but I did go to the FA Cup tie at Highbury later in the season when we beat them 2-0. The following season I saw us play them at Highbury again, this time in the League, and we won 2-0 again. I think this was the first time I sat in the Lower West and my only other memory was yelling 'don't shoot' at Graham Rix...as he drove forward looking to shoot. He shot, he scored and I didn't return to the Lower West for a few years!

The Goldstone Ground was where I watched my first ever football match back in 1973 when Brian Clough was still in charge and it was second ground where I got slapped. I had taken my younger brother down to see Brighton v Nottingham Forest and Gary Williams had scored a last minute scream to earn the home side the points. My brother was a bit of a Forest fan so I turned and, as most brothers do, laughed at him. He punched me and ran off! I spent the next several hours walking between the stadium and the station trying to find this errant 12 year old to no avail so I was forced to go home by myself wondering how I was going to explain to may parents how I had lost their number four son. All that nervousness, all the alibis, all the lies I tried to create were for nothing...he was sat at home watching TV wondering where I had got to!

For much of the 1982/83 season I was working Saturdays and still clinging to the belief that punk rock would make a come back much like an AKB faithfully clinging to the belief Wenger was lost during the move from Highbury and he will  be found wrapped in bubble wrap in a store room deep inside the bowels of the bowl and is waiting to be found and lead us once more to glory. My weekend work, in a record shop, meant I couldn't of course get to as many games as I would have liked, Sky hadn't invented modern football yet, so I was stuck with mid week games when I could skip college knowing no once there gave a toss about my academic efforts anyway. 

I parked my motorbike in the car park at Guildford station and made my way to Brighton via Redhill. We were shit in those days, we had lost two and drawn one of our first three games, and if a good team has a good spine we had George Wood, Chris Whyte and John Hawley. True, Terry Neill had splashed the cash pre season and brought in Tony Woodcock and Lee Chapman but we were still useless and the table didn't lie. 

18 - Arsenal 3 0 1 2 2-5 1

19 - Norwich 3 0 1 2 2-6 1

20 - Birmingham 3 0 1 2 1-7 1

21 - Brighton 3 0 1 2 1-10 1

22 - Aston Villa 3 0 0 3 1-9

Brighton had a couple of familiar names in their line up with Gary Stevens later coaching in Thailand and Steve Gatting returning to Arsenal in a coaching capacity in 2007 and we of course had nothing and probably deserved to lose 1-0.

When I got back to Guildford station to collect my motorbike some bastard had cut the spark plug and me being a useless prick with anything mechanical I sat there like a twat wondering what to do next. I mentioned the old punk rock thing earlier. It was around this time my mohican had fallen off and I was sporting a number one. Along with my DMs, bleached jeans (thanks mum), and green bomber jacket I would often have nice policemen stop me on the streets and wonder what I was doing out so late at night. In the car park at Guildford station around midnight with me kneeling by my bike for once I was grateful to be seen by a local plod and once he ascertained I wasn't some car thief on the prowl he helped me on my way.

There was no such guardian angel for the Arsenal that season. We reached the semi finals of both the League Cup and the FA Cup, losing to Manchester United on both occasions. Me working weekends meant I could go to our League Cup games and FA Cup replays but ultimately to was to no avail. We were done twice by Ron Atkinson and his United team which included bruisers like Whiteside, Hughes, Robson, Moses and of course the first Judas, Stapleton.

Ten years later and we reached two semi finals again. This time we won them, reached the League Cup and FA Cup Finals and won them. Sadly, I had moved on to Germany and I celebrated Andy Linighan's last minute winner on the side of Germany's highest mountain. Brighton's journey has been just as interesting. They were forced out of the Goldstone Ground, played home games in Gillingham for a few years but now are back with what looks like a lovely stadium. Not sure if I will be able to get there this season but when I do it won't be with a motorbike!

Oi Theo, Where's Charlie?

I've never been one for hanging out with footballers. Maybe it's my punk rock roots but footballers, to me at least, or just normal guys doing a job I would kill for but that is no reason to put them on a pedestal despite what players, agents and the media would like. Of course in this I realise I am part of an ever shrinking minority. Where once I saw a badge and a profile in the matchday programme now people see social media profiles and selfie opportunities.

I'll never forget the first time I met a real life professional footballer. Glen Johnson his name was and he was the goalkeeper for my local team at the time Aldershot. I was 13 and a half years old and he had come to my school for some kind of event or other so I shyly approached him and asked if he would autograph the programme from the last game I had seen, Aldershot v Doncaster in 1978. If any programme collectors have come across this particular programme autogtaphed it is mine and I want it back!

I probably only asked for Johnson's autograph because he once played for the Arsenal. Actually, he was on the books of the Arsenal, he never played in the first team but he was my first autograph and so will have a special place in my football memories.

I didn't rub shoulders with the great and good in football until about eight years later. Arsenal played a couple of friendlies in the Republic of Ireland so I gave up  my summer hols to go over the Irish Sea for the first time. I took the train to somewhere near Swansea and caught the ferry across to somewhere near Waterford and then hitched north along the east coast of the Republic.

The scenery was beautiful and I stayed in some lovely old youth hostels as I did my best to keep my expenditure low. George Graham had just taken over the Arsenal after the debacle at the end of last season when Don Howe quit after it was revealed the club had been sounding out Terry Venables to take his place. In had come Graham, a legend as a player with the club who had been doing a fine job with Millwall and suddenly supporters were feeling optimistic about the new season.

I stayed a couple of days in Dublin at a youth hostel which wasn't too far from Shamrock Rovers' home stadium of Milltown. So close in fact I could walk between the two and arrived just as the bus was disgorging the Arsenal team. While I was excited about the arrival of Graham I was unsure what it meant for Charlie Nicholas, a cult hero on the terraces who never quite fulfilled his talent on the field but scored often against Spurs which was good enough for many of us in those straightened times.

The players got off the bus and made their way to the main entrance, stopping along the way for the odd photograph with supporters. I felt that was beneath me so plucking up my energy approached our new assistant manager Theo Foley. 'Oi Theo,' says I, 'where's Charlie?' He blew me out. He wouldn't even acknowledge my presence and headed straight for the dressing room. Fuck you thinks me, I've come all this way to see the Arsenal, my Arsenal and you who have only just arrived, can't even be bothered to acknowledge me. Fuck you.

We won that game 2-0 and with the next friendly in Waterford I bid farewell to Dublin's fair city and hitched south west through Naas for the second friendly. I'd learnt my lesson though and when I arrived there I just ignored the players when I saw them outside the stadium.

The next time I came close to the Arsenal team was two years later on the other side of the world. At the end of George Graham's season I decided to go to Australia for 12 months and was happily beavering away in Sydney when I heard the Arsenal would be playing in a 6 a side competition in Brisbane in the middle of 1988. I did what any self respecting Arsenal would do, quit my job and moved north to a city I had lived in for three months at the start of my time in Australia.

Arsenal were in Brisbane with Manchester City and Nottingham Forest along with three state teams and I went to each of their games at some arena in the city. Soon after the competition had finished I got sacked from my job and kicked out of my accommodation and thought sod it, I'll go back to England. A travel agent booked my on a British Airways flight to Singapore and the next day I caught a bus out to Brisbane airport.  I checked in and soon found out I was in the same departure lounge as the three English teams and indeed the same flight. So there I am milling around the lounge with the Arsenal players looking smart in their suits. Most of the players were sat in small groups talking among themselves or listening to their walkmans. One player I noticed was by himself. Gus Caeser. Hah, I had seen your debut pal at Old Trafford. I had also seen him live on TV in the League Cup Final against Luton Town, the bugger deserved to be on his own.

I remembered by encounter, or lack thereof, with Theo in Dublin and didn't want to be blown out again so I made no effort to talk to any of the players. Inside I was hoping to be sat in the same row on the plane but that wasn't to be. Instead I was sat next to some whiney backpacker who whined all the way to Singapore. I remember thinking sitting next to Caeser would have been an improvement!

Now of course there are more choreographed opportunities to meet the players on highly choreographed public events and of course they don't appeal to me. Players come, players go. Theo has gone but I am still here supporting the Arsenal from near or far. I may not have seen the likes of Thierry Henry or Robert Pires play for the Arsenal but I did see Dessie Gorman in the red shirt and no one, not even Theo, can take that away from me!

For The Arsenal, Charity Begins At Home

With the Arsenal no doubt counting their coffers after a highly lucrative pre season tour of Australia and China now seems a good time to look back at a tour from a different age and what happened to those proceeds. 

For Arsenal fans in the late 1950s we were no longer the power we had once been and we were in a trophy drought that would extend right through to 1970 when we lifted the Fairs Cup on that famous night at Highbury against Anderlecht. But while we may not have been challenging for trophies our exploits in the pre war years meant Arsenal was still a name to be reckoned with in Europe and most years saw us heading across the channel, none of this private, branded aircraft.

In 1959, for the second year running, we spent part of the pre season in the Netherlands where we played a couple of friendlies against local opposition before beginning our league campaign with a home loss against Sheffield Wednesday. 

8 August v Sparta Rotterdam 2-2 (Danny Clapton, Gerry Ward)

12 August v ADO Hague 7-0 (David Herd 3, Danny Clapton, John Barnwell, Joe Haverty, OG)

Nearly GBP 1,000 was raised on the tour and the above image shows how the money was spread around a number of charities with a fair whack going to military and police charities as well as schools, youth clubs and churches. 

Nowadays of course the Arsenal have their own charity foundation with its work being felt far beyond North London with club ambassador Ray Parlour recently in Indonesia opening an all weather pitch in North Jakarta but it's good to know the Arsenal have a fine, long tradition of giving back to local communities. Indeed just last week the football club hosted a number of fireman who had been kept busy in the recent Grenfell Tower fire.

Bloody Technology

Nothing new with technology or people's reactions to it. How many times have you been to a game and been surrounded by people filming, snapchatting, vlogging or whatever. A whole generation growing up focused as much on their gadgets nestling in their palm as the action, if there is any, on the pitch.

It seems like football clubs have conceded the terraces, ok the stands, to the corporates and the techies and the rest of us, that is those who actually wanna watch the ebb and flow of the game and even create a bit of atmosphere come way down the list of priorities. Gripe against the modern game over. For now.

Back in 1962/63 it seems people were less tolerant of the latest technology invading their terraces. Some supporters it seems had the temerity to take their transistor not only into the stadium but also listen to the damned thing. For those who think the 60s were people who voted for Theresa May the transistor radio was a small portable tinny sounding radio people would press against their ears to keep up with the latest news. Or, on match day, the results from around the country.

In the days before ear plugs the noise could be quite annoying and I imagine older fans would tut-tut at the uncouth youth with their trannies and moan about the young generation, hence the request in the programme, this clip comes from Wolverhampton Wanderers on 27/10/62. 

One wonders how they moaners would view the selfie generation. Scratch that. How would the trannie holders view the selfie mob?

To be fair fans had good reason to have their minds elsewhere while watching the Arsenal. We had won the first two games of the season before embarking on a hapless run of one win in 12 games. How bad were we? We had even lost at home to Sheffield Wednesday. We haven't lost at home to them since.

For the Wolves game the programme is considering the FA Cup and opines 'There is an equally strong view that never again will a second division team win the Cup.' Shut up!

Elsewhere in the programme a special mention goes to the Chief Honourary Steward Claud Stevens who had recently celebrated his golden wedding anniversary meaning he had got married back in 1912. A marriage that had survived two world wars plus god knows what else. I wonder how he felt about transistor radios/ 

I'll close with one of the Do You Know questions that were a feature of those pre Google days

'Father and son who followed each other in the same paid position with a football league club had 82 years of aggregate service with the club. Can you name them?