Gooner_Sam wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:02 am
Not been around here an awful lot, but just had to express my current concern with the absolute guff that is going on at the club. Wenger was an absolute hero of mine growing up, I was born in 1992 so only really remember him as the manager of Arsenal. Unlike many others on the forum I didn't have the luxury of seeing us on the old North Bank terraces, watching Rocky or seeing us win the League at Anfield with George Graham. Although I've never seen Sp*rs win anything other than a couple of Milk Cups and a
put the pressure on trophy so that's a softener.
I do remember us vaguely winning the league in 1998, it began my love affair with the club. That beautiful yellow and blue JVC away shirt was my first love as a child. My family are all Arsenal, my great grandfather saw the first ever game at Highbury in 1913, my grandad went home and away every week for 40 years, my uncle did the same, my mum stood on the clock end in the 80's.
I grew up in Highbury Barn, Arsenal was my life. I never knew any other way of life, it was a passion that I could never see abstaining, it was wonderful. I loved Highbury, its beautiful art deco East Stand, walking through the dark tunnel so see the daunting lights of the West Stand beam at you. Peering from the top of Avenell Road to the masses of fans below, whilst your nostrils were invaded by the beautiful smell of burgers & sweet onions. What a time to have experienced, a truly brilliant time to be an Arsenal fan. I miss those days of Highbury. The Emirates, it goes without saying, just isn't the same.
I grew up and started to be left to go to go games alone or with friends, usually the same personal friend I've been attending with for 9 years now. I've been fortunate to go everywhere, I've scaled the country from Reading to Newcastle, to Old Trafford, Anfield, SHL, Stamford Bridge et al. I've been to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Croatia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Germany etc to see us play. I've been to FA Cup finals. I don't regret any of it. Even when my flight to Munich away got cancelled, I booked a 14 hour Megabus to Cologne and a 4 hour train on to Munich to make it, only to see us get
pumped 5-1. Its a memory, at least.
I lost my grandfather and great Uncle within a six week period, in 2015. The two men who brought me up on Arsenal and took me to games, rang me after a big win, injected that enthusiasm and love for Arsenal into me had died. So maybe thats why a huge chunk of my enthusiasm for the club has gone. Although, there is a huge problem with Wenger and the board. Arsene, a man who hasn't changed his way, albeit some tactics in 20 years of management, is still here whilst the game in England has evolved. Propped up by a board who simply don't care.
We have a team of average players, whom of which currently earn well over £100,000 a week. A goalkeeper for starters who has the speed of a tortoise with a broken leg, a defender who is retiring at the end of the campaign, an ill disciplined midfield but a genuinely decent forward line that has two players in it who desperately want to leave.
We've got a manager now that commits average players to wages they simply do not deserve, you only have to look at Theo Walcott to see that is an absolute abomination. A CEO who has no say in the club
at all, a chairman who doesn't give a flying f
uck and an owner who tends to his syrup with more enthusiasm than the club he owns. Meanwhile, fans are being fleeced left, right and centre. I grew up into this club with the understanding that everyone involved were pushing towards a common goal, from board level to fans. We all simply just wanted to win. We had no muppet fans who filmed themselves during games, we just had people who were brought up on the same values that the club had inflicted on them. To follow our side no matter what.
I loved Arsene when I was younger, he felt like an unofficial second father. Even when we lost, I knew that he felt the same way I did. Pure agony, so it was okay. He had done enough in those years to have the odd defeat. He'd given me two doubles, an unbeaten season, a few FA Cups. Its now no longer enough, the man who I idolised looks unwell, grey and old. The torment has gone on too long. I have never wanted to us to lose or for him to fail just to see him go, because it doesn't work.
The club died when we left Highbury, we have had a few laughs along the way but we have been dead since then. The board made a mistake in leaving, commercial reasons don't really cut it with me. Its not something as a football fan I really care about. I hope somewhere along the way that I can pick up on the story that so enchanted me as a young kid, but I think its unlikely and its gone forever.
Sorry for the rant.
GS
as in Circumstances are special to wenker.
