Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
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supergeorgegraham
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by supergeorgegraham »

highburyJD wrote:end of GG's reign and under Stewart Houston we were much worse
the darkest hour is just before dawn - I'm still hoping Kroenke sees we simply have to do something
What a load of shite, We had Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams, Keown, Merson, Wright, Parlour and Alan Smith. We got to a major European Final and the very next season we got David Platt and somebody called Dennis Bergkamp.
Ian Wright alone is better than all our forwards

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northbank123
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by northbank123 »

supergeorgegraham wrote:
highburyJD wrote:end of GG's reign and under Stewart Houston we were much worse
the darkest hour is just before dawn - I'm still hoping Kroenke sees we simply have to do something
What a load of shite, We had Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams, Keown, Merson, Wright, Parlour and Alan Smith. We got to a major European Final and the very next season we got David Platt and somebody called Dennis Bergkamp.
Ian Wright alone is better than all our forwards
It's not necessarily the calibre of the players because at the end of the day we were far more hopeless then than we are now. It's the fact that every single one of those players proved themselves to be AFC through and through and every one (with the exception of Platt) can rightly stake a claim to be an Arsenal legend, and you knew that they would fight to turn it round. How many of our current players do you think will be remember in 20 years as legends? The vast majority would happily fuck off if we finish 5th, and that's the problem.

Clash
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by Clash »

I was more disillusioned than ever a couple of years back but I’m beyond that now. We are now so far from being a proper football club that I feel like I don’t really have a club to support anymore. This current lot are imposters. The real Arsenal was buried in the rubble at Highbury.

I think permanent damage has been done not temporary damage. That’s why comparisons to the past are totally irrelevant. In the past, the problems were always just temporary and we were always aware of that. Now many of us cannot see a way the club ever returning to a club we can support 100%.

The bastards we trusted to run our club the right way sold our soul for their own personal gain. They destroyed everything good about our club. As a competitive football club on the pitch I fear its over for us! As a club with style and integrity, it is definitely over. I challenge anyone to name something good about the current Arsenal that sets us apart from the rest? Something we can be proud of. There is nothing is there?!

I don’t even see a lot of our supporters as people I can identify with anymore. There have been disagreeements in the past but never such a divide as now. There are too many who accept what are getting just because they are told (mainly by Wenger) that it is acceptable. They truly believe unquestioning support is our role. Our duty. I didnt sign up for that.

It is depressing to read some of the stuff that gets said by those always backing the club no matter how they treat us. Its easy to be derogatory to anyone who dares to be critical but it is damaging to be like that. The overreaction to Eboue being booed a couple of years back was laughable! It was long overdue and yet dissent of any kind is not permitted however much someone shames the club with their antics. Instead of getting that prick out the club the do-gooders turned him into a cult hero and we got stuck with the imbicile.

For me Wenger has turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to our club. Yes of course we all really loved those first 8 seasons ... but the price we have paid for his ego and reputation swelling to such monstrous proportions has ultimately proved to be too big in my opinion.

It shouldn’t have been that way, we should have built on what the club achieved under him. But instead Wenger became a tyrant and abused the trust and power he was given. Wenger now attracts the wrong kind of players and the wrong kind of people to the club. Himself, Kroenke and Gazidis are the trio from hell. The problem is that even when they’re gone their successors will be cut from the same cloth. That is the set up now and there is nothing we can do about it. These things have been put in place.

As far as Im concerned there is no hope anymore. We wont ever employ a manager like Moyes who would ensure his team was organised, always gave 100% and were able to up the tempo when needed. We wont ever get an established manager who wants every penny available spent on improving the team he is in charge of because he demands nothing less than a winning team.

Wenger has made himself the blueprint. His influence will last forever. He pays lips service to club traditions and the legend of Chapman but he has wiped out everything Chapman and his succesors instilled. Even when Wenger has snuffed it, the club will only be looking for people who share his vision and philosophy. That is the way Wenger has manilpulated things to be. He wanted to leave a legacy and create a new culture. He has said this himself. He didn’t care if it pissed all over Arsenals real traditions because he is a selfish, vain and arrogant man.

Wenger has slowlty destroyed England’s finesst football club. He is a complete (why is the one word used to describe him best banned on here?)

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highburyJD
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by highburyJD »

supergeorgegraham wrote:
highburyJD wrote:end of GG's reign and under Stewart Houston we were much worse
the darkest hour is just before dawn - I'm still hoping Kroenke sees we simply have to do something
What a load of shite
94/95 we came 12th
failed to win in 15 of our home games

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highburyJD
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by highburyJD »

I can understand people are upset with out poor form
and our recent inability to translate challenges into trophies
but lines like
Clash wrote:For me Wenger has turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to our club.
are laughable
Clash wrote:he has wiped out everything Chapman and his succesors instilled.
is also a pretty bizarre claim.

Personally I think we have as good a chance as anyone of winning a trophy this season.
We're on bad form but we have good players to come back and money in the bank, we will sign a striker in Jan,
hopefully win something in May,
then all in the garden will be rosey...

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northbank123
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by northbank123 »

highburyJD wrote:I can understand people are upset with out poor form
and our recent inability to translate challenges into trophies
but lines like
Clash wrote:For me Wenger has turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to our club.
are laughable
Clash wrote:he has wiped out everything Chapman and his succesors instilled.
is also a pretty bizarre claim.

Personally I think we have as good a chance as anyone of winning a trophy this season.
We're on bad form but we have good players to come back and money in the bank, we will sign a striker in Jan,
hopefully win something in May,
then all in the garden will be rosey...
I can only presume that you're including the Markus Liebherr Memorial Trophy in that. Otherwise you should be sectioned.

Clash
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by Clash »

hugh jardon wrote:The new stadium is a big source of discontent to me - does anyone actually enjoy going there? I know I don't. They really fucked up the basics to begin with - coloured quadrants rather than NB, CE, ES, & WS and no home 'end', just an undecorated identikit soulless concrete bowl. This demonstrates the club's incredible lack of relationship with it's own fans who they expect to fill their new stadium!

The 'arsenalisation' has improved things but the atmosphere is generally absolute shite. They play dreadful pop music at full blast before the game so any chance of the crowd singing is drowned out before the game has even kicked off. At Highbury the North Bank would chant players names whilst they warmed up or start singing at the opposition fans to create atmosphere, which is the thing people really went for. So sad that this culture has all but died out now at Arsenal.

Ticket prices are frankly insulting. But whilst the stadium continually sells out despite the crap atmosphere they will only go up. The food and drink prices inside are also appalling but again people must be happy to pay them. The club is able to sell a large number of tickets to overseas fans or tourists on a once in a lifetime trip. These fans are desirable as they will also spend their money in the club shops but only add to the woeful atmosphere, whereas the average local fan might not even buy a programme but is a genuine lifetime supporter and more likely to want to sing.

The move to the new stadium was sold to the fans as being necessary to enable the club to compete with the best in Europe. Instead since we have seen a huge decline in playing staff and thus trophies won.

The stadium debt was behind the doomed youth experiment that saw us fall behind the rest and has finally been ditched in favour of signing more experienced B-List players, in he hope Arsene can develop them into world class talent. However the squad remains bloated with average players on big wages: Fabianski, Mannone, Arshavin, Diaby, Djourou, Squillaci, Gervinho, Chamack and Eastmond, Denilson, Bendtner, Park all out on loan with their Arsenal careers all but over. This deadwood is disheartening.

A large part of being a football fan is having heroes - players who you idolise and you hope will stay at your club forever. At Arsenal us fans no longer enjoy this. Recent seasons have seen us sell countless players to our main rivals including all of our captains! No doubt Theo is the next to be moved on (replacement 17 year old Serge Gnabry!) and so we cannot even enjoy building relationships with our own players as we no longer trust them or the club's ambitons to want to stay at Arsenal. Does anyone even dare dream Jack Wilshere or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain might stay forever? No, because it is now expected that our top players will leave and join our biggest rivals... A right mess!

There is so much wrong with the club at the moment and today's AGM has only made things worse. PHW and Gazidis have made themselves look ridiculous. I usually stick up for Wenger but he should never call 4th place "a trophy" (an "acheivement" is more accurate) as that just invites ridicule from other club's fans.

And I don't trust Usmanov either so fuck knows what the future will bring!
Great post mate!

You're right about not enjoying going to the Emirates. It is a complete contrast to Highbury - where even on the darkest of days we knew we were in a special place. I have just never taken to this new stadium we had forced on us. It’s a tough place to watch football and feel part of a game because it is not a football stadium. It is a multi-purpose, corporate friendly arena where we are too detached from the action.

Highbury felt sacred. Like it was just for us. This Emirates monstrosity will never be like that. Brazil playing there regularly disturbs me. As does it being used for Coldplay and Blue concerts. It even gets used for X-Factor auditions. Why not just open a fcuking Tesco Express in the concourse and make more money from 8 till midnight every day of the week? It wouldn’t make it any more tacky and classless than it already is.

The statues and murals outside are grotesque. Even the two bridges lack class. What sort of club with such tradition names parts of their stadium after non-football people like executives and directors? A club too smug and pleased with itself? A club who like to pat themselves on the back a bit too much?. All the ‘Arsenalistation’ (hate that phrase) is done by people without a clue trying too hard to make something they know nothing about look traditional. Highbury just had natural charm and class. Even though the Clock End boxes weren’t the best looking addition, the overall feeling of the stadium was that it was a cathedral like.

Moving from Highbury was the worst thing the club ever did and it cannot be undone. If we had no choice but to move (another club myth IMO) then at least build us something special. Something like Dortmund’s awesome stadium. Both intimate and massive. Intimdating for the opposition. All the club did was build themselves a stadium for their benefit. Like everything they do nowadays, it was all done for the wrong reasons.

Clash
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by Clash »

highburyJD wrote:I can understand people are upset with out poor form
and our recent inability to translate challenges into trophies
but lines like
Clash wrote:For me Wenger has turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to our club.
are laughable
Clash wrote:he has wiped out everything Chapman and his succesors instilled.
is also a pretty bizarre claim.

Personally I think we have as good a chance as anyone of winning a trophy this season.
We're on bad form but we have good players to come back and money in the bank, we will sign a striker in Jan,
hopefully win something in May,
then all in the garden will be rosey...
The fact is that to thousands Arsenal were a BETTER club before Wenger arrived than we will be after he's gone. Why is that? Okay modern football is shite and thats not all down to Wenger.

But Wenger has done things that cannot be undone. Under him we have changed forever and not for the better. Without the success he had to begin with he wouldnt have been allowed to do those things he has changed about us.

Name me another individual who has done more permanent damage to Arsenal than Wenger and I will laugh with you at my ridiculous comment.

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QuartzGooner
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by QuartzGooner »

supergeorgegraham wrote:
highburyJD wrote:end of GG's reign and under Stewart Houston we were much worse
the darkest hour is just before dawn - I'm still hoping Kroenke sees we simply have to do something
What a load of shite, We had Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams, Keown, Merson, Wright, Parlour and Alan Smith. We got to a major European Final and the very next season we got David Platt and somebody called Dennis Bergkamp.
Ian Wright alone is better than all our forwards
No need to use that language.
It is all about opinion.
And it did feel grim in 1995, because in spite of our good defence and Wrighty (Parlour had yet to hit his top form, Merson was good but inconsistent) we were mid-table, playing very boring football, and a long way off winning a title.
Or maybe you ARE George Graham and take it very personally? :D

Clash

How has Wenger permanently damaged Arsenal?
To me the whole situation is transient.

- Clear out the deadwood.
- Spend more on new players.
- Let Bould (or another) sort out defensive troubles and pressing football - which we can do just not often enough.

The price of tickets etc is a football wide thing.

Highbury to new stadium was inevitable, too many fans wanted tickets and could not get them.
For all the great memories we have of Highbury, we make a lot more money from the new stadium.
The problem is what that money is spent on.

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franksav63
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by franksav63 »

Clash- some great posts above - agree with every word!

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StuartL
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by StuartL »

For many years Arsenal FC were the most important thing in my life, my whole social calender was built around the fixture list, friends parties, family events, all got missed as I was hooked on following my club around the country and abroad when I could afford it.

Since then they have bastardised our traditional stylish club crest to create a plastic, pale imitation, when unveiled it was met with chants of "what the fucking hell is that"

Our much loved and spiritual home has been turned into a yuppies weekend retreat while the Emirates was purposefully built so that the prawn sandwich income generated makes the rest of us plebs largely irrelevant.

Our greatest ever team was dismantled within a season and has been replaced with substandard hopefuls, who by and large are not up to challanging at the very top, but having pledge that they are 1 or 2 percent away Wenker has stuck by them despite them showing that season after season they are never going to make it.

Our "custodians" sold out for absolute fortunes to a prospecter who has no love of our club in his heart.

Our traditional kit, which is red with white sleeves for home and yellow and blue for away matches has been torn to bits with blue, white, and fucking purple for gods sake chosen to represent us.

On the football field, we live season after season in groundhog day as we have seen it all before, a couple of decent results and your hope starts to build only for Norwich / Blackburn / Wigan / Fulham / QPR / Bolton etc etc, to outplay us and show more committment and devotion to the cause than our overpaid and pampered prima donna's.

All the while we are told how lucky we are and how grateful we should be that it only costs a small fortune to watch a bunch of diving, heartless, no hopers struggle to achieve a meaningful shot on target over the course of two games.

MutleyGooner
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by MutleyGooner »

SteveO you need to find something else in your life to compensate for your disappointment with the Arse, I have been where you are and mate, the club ain't worth it, if Arsenal brings you this much frustration and grief, have a trial separation, go your own ways and see how things go. I'm not suggestion you find yourself another club, just that the old phrase of "absence makes the heart grow fonder" might be applicable in your case :barscarf: I am available for other life crisis advice, whether it be dead pets or STD's :barscarf:

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SteveO 35
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by SteveO 35 »

MutleyGooner wrote:SteveO you need to find something else in your life to compensate for your disappointment with the Arse, I have been where you are and mate, the club ain't worth it, if Arsenal brings you this much frustration and grief, have a trial separation, go your own ways and see how things go. I'm not suggestion you find yourself another club, just that the old phrase of "absence makes the heart grow fonder" might be applicable in your case :barscarf: I am available for other life crisis advice, whether it be dead pets or STD's :barscarf:
Mate, I'm already there. This is the second season where I wouldn't have bought a ticket for a single home match. Thankfully I've got a job that keeps me full on and two boys, one of whom lives and breathes football so I get more of a kick wathcing him play on a Sunday morning, than i do watching Wenger's weaklings tread on the same rake that's been laying in the garden for 7 years

I think the final step in the separation process though needs to be not watching the games when they are on TV.....but I haven't been able to do this yet. Even when I was sunning myself on holiday the temptation to sneak off to a bar and find the match is still there!

So the problem is that it still fucking winds me up and ruins my weekends when I see us perform like that. Its probably easier just to miss it altogether, but its tough to let go completely when something's been part of your life for over 30 years every weekend.

I don't miss the sterile atmosphere at the Bowl one little bit however, and my bank balance certainly looks better as a result

arseofacrow
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by arseofacrow »

SteveO - Mutley's advice, when not pet/disease related, is sound.

Last week's pile of crap didn't really upset me, more the disappointment of it. I had a great weekend nonetheless, whereas some years ago I would have been muttering on about it. Perhaps it's not living around it that helps? That's it, mate - move to another country - that'll do the trick.

I'm available for weddings, funerals, etc....

8) :wink:

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SteveO 35
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Re: Have you ever been so disillusioned ?

Post by SteveO 35 »

arseofacrow wrote:SteveO - Mutley's advice, when not pet/disease related, is sound.

Last week's pile of crap didn't really upset me, more the disappointment of it. I had a great weekend nonetheless, whereas some years ago I would have been muttering on about it. Perhaps it's not living around it that helps? That's it, mate - move to another country - that'll do the trick.

I'm available for weddings, funerals, etc....

8) :wink:
Cheers mate - I think if the Great Abou leaves then the trial separation will become divorce :wink:

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