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.
I originally offered this article to Gooner Ed (for the Fanzine) a few weeks ago when it looked like Cashley might not turn up through injury again. Gooner Ed rejected it as too libellous (and because it offered little new content on Cashley) which is fair enough.
Anyway, I've rewritten it slightly to encompass the fact that Judas actually turned up.
I also feel it is relevant now given RedAction's recent e-mail statement that we should ignore Cashley...
I'm posting it here because the chav$ki game is done and dusted. I'm hoping no one will get sued because it is just me expressing my opinion on an open forum...
all for money and nothing else,
i remember frank stapleton doing the same and he got tons of stick when he came back, and cashly will get it every time becos of his greed and not for the want to better himself which most fans would have understood
[quote="DB10GOONER"] Finally, a few questions for Cashley, now the dust has settled a little. I ask you; Why leave a club that you claim to be a lifelong fan of and join a team of mercenaries?
Why leave a club where you are on your way to Legend status to join a club where you were in or out of a team on the manager’s (Mourinho) latest egotistical whim and won’t be remembered ten years from now?
Why leave a club playing the most attractive football in the history of the English game, with truly talented players, coached by the best coach in the world for a club that specialises in serviceable, basic and unattractive football, populated with loathsome mercenaries like Fat Frankie Lumpard and managed by a man (Mourinho) who’s footballing ethos could best be described as “Throw enough shit at a wall and some of it will stick.â€
I respect Wenger for his positive comments about Cole, apart from anything it underlines how loyal he is to his players, even when they behave in such a shitty way as Cole did (levae, you self-regarding little motherfucker, but did you really have to do it like that?).
BUT the fans are different, we are the loyal-till-death mugs who fund the overblown lifestyles of these morons, and those who dick us over should never be forgiven, ever. I absolutely agree we should target the little twat whenever and wherever possible, at least until he recants and apologises.
All in all, good article.
And by the way, since truth is an absolute defence to an accusation of libel, I see no problem with your article on a legal level.
DB10 Gooner your article sums up exactly how the fans feel.Arsene has to say what he did to the press about Cashley but deep down he must have felt betrayed.All for £5,000.At least he is at the right club now with his fellow crunts Fat Frank and Iron Man(ha,ha)Terry
Gooners will never forgive the greedy crunt,Never
I don't think any of us care that Cashley left us. I don't think we really even care that he went to a rival (rival that is until the russian goes). I don't even think that we are that bothered about him being a greedy little *word censored*!
I think what we all hate about him is the underhand snide way that he went about it, and when he got caught tried to throw the shit in every direction but his own.
Imagine the scenario:-
Cashley sees a chance to earn some big bucks. He speaks to the club officials to tell them that he wants big bucks and they say 'NO'. So, he tells them openly that he is going to look elsewhere.
He then does the deal with Chavski and holds a press conference where he says, 'I asked Arsenal for more money and they said no. As a result I am leaving as I want to earn as much as I can, whilst I can'.
Would we still boo him like we do? I don't think so. At least he would have been honest.
Anyone following this anti-abuse story started by Sol Campbell and recently supported by our guru, Professor Wenger? With genuine respect to both Sol and AW, I'm beginning to get a bit pissed of by it. But there is a fundamental issue in all of this, something which suggests a real gap in understanding between players, managers and administrators on the one hand and fans on the other.
First, jeering, abusing, insulting and ridiculing players, managers and opposing fans is at the core of football as a spectator phenomenon. Football is watched by people who have deeply held identifcation with the clubs they support. A large part of the experience has little to do with football as a sport at all, which is why it can't really be compared to any other sport. Generally, we don't consider swapping supporting our team for following another team or swapping for another sport (though that can't be said of Chelsea).
For all the commercialisation and sanitisation of the English game in recent years, much of which I and others are comfortable with, it is still based on tribal and irrational feelings. In fact, it is precisely these aspects that enable the money-men buzzing around the game to generate such enormous revenues from and for the game. And one way in which the irrationality shows itself is in the abusive shouting and singing. Many people, me included, remember the awe of first seeing grown men shouting obscenities at far-off figures on the pitch (many playing in red and white). This is one of the key draws for youngsters.
Abuse of players and others is at the very heart of the game and has been for decades, so telling us to stop it goes against a core feature of the game. This might not be paletable to the administrators and marketing men, but it's true.
Secondly, in this age of the gross player salary, it's worth bearing in mind that we, the fans, have probably become more vitriolic in our dislike of many players. When you think of the likes of Jermaine Pennant, Kieron Dyer, Jonathan Woodgate, Lee Bowyer, Joey Barton, Rio and Anton Ferdinand, John Terry, Nicolas Anelka, Lee Hughes, Frank Lampard, Ronaldo and of course the one and only Ashley Cole, and their greed and various crashed high performance cars, prison sentences, drunken violent assaults, drug testing offences and sexual high jinks with any woman they can grope, as well as each other and mobile phones, is it any wonder they are detested so vehemently? We respect true pros (Henry, Cesc, Bergkamp, Roy Keane, Zola, Vieira, Klinsmann etc etc), but when we see the money we pay being used to fund outlandish lifestyles of those who, by some random act of god, have the skill to excel in this strangely lucrative sport, we become resentful.
In that context, who should be telling us whether we should or should not abuse a player?
I know it must be very hurtful to have 60,000 people laughing at you, insulting you, ridiculing your every mistake, but that is frankly tough. It goes with the territory, especially when a player like Campbell joins an arch enemy (pleased as I was that he did) or one like Cole shits all over the club and fans who nurtured him.
We are very lucky to have had Arsene Wenger at our club, but he is also lucky. He came to a big-ish club in the early years of the Permiership, and he used the money that gave him to build something special. It is special for us but it is also special for him, it allows him the chance to achieve something in his coaching career that he may not otherwise have been able to do. And one ingredient in all that is the passion we bring to bear on the game, which gets turned into money to buy and pay some of the best emerging talent in the world.
So, I would say, it may not be nice for fans to abuse players, but it is their right to do so. The day it ends, something of the game I fell in love with will have gone.
Cashley and the chavs - a match made in heaven.
