Why should I be proud to be a gooner?

[goonersid]

Whilst being proud to be an Arsenal fan, the current situation embarrasses me to the point of shame. The worrying thing is that there is nothing to look forward to, who is to say that Kroenke won't still be around in 20 years time.
My real fear is I won't see the club win the league again in my lifetime, and you could quite easily add the fa cup to that time scale.
Memories are something to be proud of, but they can't sustain you forever, our achievements will be overtaken by some of our worst enemies, the chavs have already become the first london side to win the clge, who is to say they won't surpass every other trophy we have won.
What mouser would have believed 22 years ago that they would not win another title and in that time that utd would overtake them in league title wins.
The past may hold fond memories, the future I fear is a fucking nightmare.

[markyp]

The fuckers ruining our club will not always be here. The Board will grow old and either die off or (hopefully) sell out and fuck off before then, the manager WILL eventually change, the JCL mong twats that currently infest our stadium will lose interest in a team that provides no glory for their glory-hunting shit-tainted hearts and fuck back off to the cricket or the towel-flicking Homo-ball...

All this shit will eventually change and we will get our Arsenal back. How fucked and badly damaged that Arsenal will be by then is anyone’s guess but it will still be ours.

Think back to Tony Adams powering in that header against the scum in the cup semi in 93.
Think back to Chippy’s amazing screamer against the scum in 78.
Think back to Rocky crying when told he had to leave his beloved Arsenal.
Think back to how gutted you were when you heard Rocky had died.
Think back to the day we signed The Dennis and how that felt.
Think back to the old 70’s cannon, the club blazers, the Marble Halls, Highbury.
Think back to away trips on cold pissing rain Saturdays surrounded by the Gooner tribe and drinking and singing your heart out.
Think back to Anders Limpar slapping the kúnt McClair at old shatford.
Think back to winning more leagues at the Drain than the scum have.
Think back to being the only modern team to go a whole league season unbeaten.

Think back to all these things and you’ll remember why you are proud to be Arsenal, mate.

thats the problem,thinking back is all we have,the future is very scary for Arsenal under our fascist regime

[MK Gould]

having dark times every once in a while is a part of a football club's history. in a few years all those muppets will be gone and we'll still be there supporting the team.

Ditto

I long for a time when we go back to everyone hating us, the hangers on have been dropped and once again you know that anyone with an Arsenal shirt on is a true gooner....

[Natural Born Gooner]

I feel sorry for our fans with young kids, trying to keep up the tradition of their next generation following us at this moment in time.

Their heads are probably being turned by their schoolmates who support ManUre, Chelski, even Man Sheiky.

They'll see the shit being served like last night (and most of the last 4 seasons), get the pissed ripped out of them mercilessly next day at school as well as on Twatter and Fakebook) and think is it fucking worth it?

We weren't that great when I started supporting Arsenal, but at least then we didn't have the 24/7 sports news and radio along with the Internet shoving it all down our throats - along with the sky high ticket prices to even take them to games and the overpriced merchandise

Like others have said though, hopefully the hangers on/tourists fuck right off from "following" us.

[kiwomyaswetdream]

I let the dust settle before commenting on this thread.

When I grew up in Nth London even though we won things every now and then in the late 80's early 90's all my friends were either Sp*ds or Liverpool fans because we were 'boring' or not fashionable at the time. Those same tossers are chelski and manure and even citeh fans now......needless to say I fell out with them *word censored* 19 years ago.

Being Arsenal is not about fashion, style of football or glory.... Its about rising above the shit.. Being able to hold your head up high because no matter what the controversy - we deal with it the Arsenal.

Charlie Nicholas, Tony Adams, George Graham, Paul Merson, David Hillier, Ashley Cole

To glory hunters and twats they might just see names but to the rest of us we know what happened with each of these individuals.

We do things the right way. We dont try to buy history or class or status.

To tell the truth, if we dont win a thing for the rest of my life I dont care because I will still love my club and ive still seen enough history and great moments to last a lifetime.

We are lucky to be Arsenal fans.

Were you proud when Thomas scored the last kick of the game at Anfield?
Did you scream when Smith scored that volley against Parma?
Did you laugh and cry when Adams dropped Morrow?? ( I used to work with Morrows cousin and he even thought it was funny)
Did your jaw drop when Tony left foot volleyed us to the title thanks to a Bouldy chip pass over the top against Everton?
Did you love Keown for going monkey shit crazy at OT when they missed That penalty?
Did you love the fact that Lauren used to box in Cameroon and was a mean Mother Fucker?
.....Bobby Pires, Ray Parlour, Dennis Bergkamp, Freddie, Henry.......

Are you getting what im saying.... How lucky have we been?!!!

Im Arsenal Till I Die.......

[green gooner]

Going from a whole season unbeaten to Bradford shitting all over our first team.

Going from Henry, Wright and DB10 to forehead and gay camel.

Going from a team to be proud of to a team that shame us.

I love Arsenal, always have, always will but today I took some shit and when I checked my ammo box before returning heavy incoming fire, I found it was empty. Wenger had sold it all.

[Herd]

Going from a whole season unbeaten to Bradford shitting all over our first team.

Going from Henry, Wright and DB10 to forehead and gay camel.

Going from a team to be proud of to a team that shame us.

I love Arsenal, always have, always will but today I took some shit and when I checked my ammo box before returning heavy incoming fire, I found it was empty. Wenger had sold it all.

Ask Martin McGuinness he's got loads of ammo left over !

[SteveO 35]

I feel sorry for our fans with young kids, trying to keep up the tradition of their next generation following us at this moment in time.

Their heads are probably being turned by their schoolmates who support ManUre, Chelski, even Man Sheiky.

They'll see the shit being served like last night (and most of the last 4 seasons), get the pissed ripped out of them mercilessly next day at school as well as on Twatter and Fakebook) and think is it fucking worth it?

We weren't that great when I started supporting Arsenal, but at least then we didn't have the 24/7 sports news and radio along with the Internet shoving it all down our throats - along with the sky high ticket prices to even take them to games and the overpriced merchandise

Like others have said though, hopefully the hangers on/tourists fuck right off from "following" us.

I've got two young kids and keeping up the tradition of supporting the Gooners hasn't been a problem. Just as I grew up in the 70s and 80s surrounded by Souwf London oiks supporting Liverpool, kids these days have to suffer the taunts of the ManUre fans. My eldest is 12 and was in bits after the Bradford defeat but as far as I'm concerned that's part of supporting a team - one day when this owner, CEO and manager have fucked off we will rise again and he can look back at defeats like Bradford when we're winning trophies and it will feel much sweeter. We've all suffered shit defeats at some point or another - York, Walsall and Wrexham are all firmly in my memory bank, and I'm sure the older guys will look back at Swindon in the League Cup final as another major embarrassment. We were shit throughout most of my childhood and then thankfully when I was in my 'superfan' days GG came to the rescue - these things go in cycles

The thing that most concerns me now is that it just isn't as easy to go to football. My old fella used to decide on Saturday mornings if he was taking me along or not when I was a little kid, you'd pay at the gate and that was that. Now if I want to take the young lad I have to make sure its planned a couple of months in advance if we want decent seats (or family enclosure), the game invariably gets moved to Sunday afternoon, Saturday lunchtime or worse still Monday night. I feel guilty as well about my self imposed ban on all things Emirates because I know that its actually going to games that got me hooked as a kid - but I just can't bring myself to feed Kroenke Inc. with any of my money anymore. I'll probably have to end that exile from the ground for the sake of keeping the little 'uns interest up, but I despise this owner and management team.

Keep the faith, our time will come again. We just need the American to sell up to someone who is actually interested in running a competitive football club once more instead of an Islington property empire

[green gooner]

Going from a whole season unbeaten to Bradford shitting all over our first team.

Going from Henry, Wright and DB10 to forehead and gay camel.

Going from a team to be proud of to a team that shame us.

I love Arsenal, always have, always will but today I took some shit and when I checked my ammo box before returning heavy incoming fire, I found it was empty. Wenger had sold it all.

Ask Martin McGuinness he's got loads of ammo left over !

The war is over, the only thing that should be fired now is Wenger

[highburyJD]

some great points and great memories - particularly Herd and DB10
worth remembering our Champions team of '91 (1 away from invincible) went to Wrexham and lost
if losing to lower div opposition (normally a blip) is the worse thing ever - then Wenger has a pretty great record

it was a long drive home from Bradford

If our quality level drops enough then maybe younger, local, positive and loud fans
can replace those who feel disillusioned

that's a massive upside IMO
100% be proud to be a Gooner,
even if it's just a bout results and titles then compared to 99% of fans you're spectacularly lucky
and the Arsenal is about so much more than that

[I Hate Hleb]

Despite the understandable romanticism, the truth is No it's not. Certainly not any longer.

[supergeorgegraham]

Its all about the History and this team will not make any

[highburyJD]

Despite the understandable romanticism, the truth is No it's not. Certainly not any longer.

Arsenal is not about more than results 'any longer'...? Strange then that you (and others) only make that claim when results are poor

Its all about the History and this team will not make any

Can't remember the appropriate phrase, where somebody holds two contradictory ideas simultaneously
But that...
(Cognitive dissonance)

[augie]

Despite the understandable romanticism, the truth is No it's not. Certainly not any longer.

Arsenal is not about more than results 'any longer'...? Strange then that you (and others) only make that claim when results are poor

Its all about the History and this team will not make any

Can't remember the appropriate phrase, where somebody holds two contradictory ideas simultaneously
But that...
(Cognitive dissonance)

Years ago JD, our club had a style and sophistication that was totally detatched from our on pitch successes. Back in the early 80's (and I am only using that era cos of my age) we were having a dry spell when it came to trophies but the club still had an aura about it with the marble halls, the club blazers, the club being called THE Arsenal etc etc - what have we got left now ? These days there is no class from the players (unless tshirts,tracksuits and dr dre headphones are classy ), no class from the manager (constantly whining and making a total c**t of himself on the sidelines ) and there is no class from the club itself who openly disrespect shareholders at the AGM and whose chairman frequently speaks to one of the red tops (not exactly bastions of integrity ) purely cos one of their journo's is knobbing his daughter
Maybe we had it too good for too long (again not talking about trophies here) but we had style that no other club could match which makes the fall to where we currently stand seem that much harder. These days we have no identity and no self worth - money is our God and chasing it is our goal regardless of how it makes us look

[SteveO 35]

Surely a lot of it comes down to what it means to each individual. Why am I proud to be a Gooner:

a) its been in my family since the club was a South London club and passed on down the generations. The old fella who started it all has long since gone but the legacy remains and I've passed it down to my kids

b) always sticking with them despite being surrounded by glory hunting Mickeys and Mancs over the years. Amazing how in the 80s when United were going through "x" years without a league title all I ever saw was Mickey shirts, whilst the reverse is now true.

c) individual memories of great matches, players etc from years gone by

Sadly the (d) part has disappeared now i.e. it was always a club run by 'Arsenal men'. What anyone felt about the likes of Dein and Friar, and the generations of Hill-Woods previously, I always liked the fact that you'd open the club handbook and there'd be some proud Arsenal man on the board. No gimmicky businessmen like Knighton doing his ball juggling on the pitch whilst pretending to buy Man United, no Ridsdale killing the club slowly etc.

Sadly the sell out to Jimmy Krankee, the appointment of Chief Chump Gazidis and a bunch of corporate marketeers has killed a bit of the love......but never enough to overtake the other reasons to be proud. I'll still always stand up for my team to any Manc, Mickey, Chav or anyone else. When the American's reign of self interest is over and we're owned by someone interested in the long term good of the club I'm sure the pride will grow to its former levels......I live in hope