So it is official, The George is shutting down. Its last home match day will be the Burnley fixture.

For a few years now, The George has been my match day pub. It was, in my eyes, the best match day pub – although saying that makes me think of the Arsene Wenger quote of “everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home”.

It had it all. Decent beer, quick service, quality staff, TV screens and a jukebox.

Post game in The George was always an event. Once the one pinters had drunk up and left, the atmosphere in their was cracking.

Get the right tunes on the jukebox and it would go off.  I remember a game recently we stuck on Gold followed by Sweet Caroline. It was electric.

Going back a few years, the late night Chinese delivery was always a bonus.

Over the years, The George have supported this site. Whether that be through Peter giving GC help and advice with the She Wore Shop or being the place where Keenos wrote many of the post-game blogs. We owe a huge thank you to them.

 

There is no debate, Arsenal is losing one of its best pubs. And it continues a worrying trend of Holloway Road losing its decent boozers.

A few years back now, we lost the Herbet Chapman. I remember when that pub went down hill. It was taken over by new management. Some youngster student-types. They clearly had it in their mind what they wanted a pub to be. And that did not include football fans. Unfortunately they had bought the wrong pub in the wrong area.

They did not want fans to be there. Not even on a game day. And made it clear to us we were not wanted. I remember one game, it would have been a 3 o’clock kick off, and they decided to bleach the floors clean at about 6pm. It was their way of saying “we are shutting, please leave”. The pub died not too long after.

Then you had the Phibbers and Metro Bar.

We lost the Metro to the housing developers. The student accommodation is nearly build. The Phibbers has recently reopened as the Victoria Tavern. It advertises itself as “craft beer and awesome pizza”. It has a table football table and neon mini-golf course. It does not look like a proper football pub.

Most recently the Wig and Gown shut down and was then rebranded.

It shut down due to noise complaints. The neighbours who moved in above complained about the live music and bands that used to play. This was a big part of its Monday – Friday business. No longer being able to play live music drove away the clientele.

The Wig and Gown has since reopened as the House of Hammerton. Another craft beer pub.

And finally we have The Bailey.

I am sure many of you will remember when The Bailey ran out of beer. It seemed to happen often. And they went to the Tesco up the road, bought cans of beer and still had the cheek to sell them for a fiver!

The Bailey was a decent boozer, although the landlady certainly had her favourites when it came to serving people. It has now reopened as an upmarket chicken shop that also sells craft beer.

And now we have The George going. The best of the lot. Decent service, decent beer. The memories the stories.

So where does it leave Arsenal fans to drink in on a match day?

Holloway Road is becoming like Upper Street. Filled with craft beer pubs that sell over priced food. There really are not too many options left for the fan who just wants to have a beer and get away from the Barmies.

You still have the likes of the Tollington, Che Guevara, The Eaglet, The Horatio and The Lamb. Add in a few of the cafes and restaurants that have recently become popular with football fans. There are still places to drink, but they are not perfect for the likes of me.

They already have their atmosphere, their clientele. And if the displaced from The George began drinking there, it would be like when two schools merge into one. A recipe for disaster.

So what now? Perhaps a move further into the Cally? Or head back Finsbury Park way. The Twelve Pins, the Blackstock. Of even those old haunts up Blackstock Road. The Gunners, Bank of Friendship, Woodbine, T-Bird.

What is for sure, The George shutting is a sad day for football boozers down Holloway Road.

 

It’s happened again, it’s happened again,
Tottenham Hotspur, it’s happened again.

3712 days since Spurs last won a trophy.

I do not particularly want to “celebrate” Spurs losing against Manchester United at the weekend, because that in itself is a very Spursy thing to do.

For as long as I have known, Spurs fans have celebrated every Arsenal failure as if it was their own success. Every final lost, every time we were knocked out of the Champions League, or finished second in the Premier League, they celebrated.

This is down to them having no success of their own. They had nothing to celebrate themselves, so had to celebrate another clubs failures. They are the kid that laugh at the A* student for getting a B when them themselves got an E.

But then Spurs are the gift that keep giving.

The clubs motto is “The game is about glory”. Well, Saturdays defeat made in no trophies in 10 years. They really should be done for false advertising.

What has been funny about Tottenham’s defeat is the way the media have spun it. They would never let anything negative be written about the club the love, and the fall-out has been hilarious.

So according to Jonathan Wilson of The Guardian, Mauricio Pochettino’s time at Tottenham should not be defined by the trophies they do win.

Pochettino’s reign is that every time he has been set a problem he has responded Wilson says. Yet he has not solved the problem Spurs have win semi-finals. It is now 8.

He go’s on to speak a lot of gibberish, including this nugget: whichever club wins or loses it, this season’s FA Cup will be forgotten by the end of August. I imagine it will not be too hard to find articles from Wilson talking about how the “magic of the cup is being lost” and pointing out the managers who “disrespect” the competition.

But then when it comes to defending Tottenham’s lack of trophies, he is more than happy to disrespect it.

The reality is, most of us can name every single winner of the FA Cup in our memory. From 1987 (I was 2) to the present day, I can name every single winner. I can not, however, name every single side that finished 2^nd in the last 10 years – let alone in the last 30 years. And I could not tell you who finished 4^th for the last 5 seasons.

It is the winners who are remembered. The game is about the glory, unless it is Spurs.

That Mauricio Pochettino is emulating Arsene Wenger’s early Arsenal years is surely an April Fools Joke? People actually seem to forget that this is now Pochettino’s 4^th season with the club. His 4^th without a trophy.

In Arsene Wenger’s 2^nd season at the club (his first full season) he won the league and the FA Cup. In the 4 years, Arsenal finished 2^nd twice, 3^rd once. He made a League Cup Semi-Final, an FA Cup Semi-Final and the UEFA Cup Final. Pochettino has led Spurs to just the one final (League Cup), which they lost.

To try and compare the two is just silly. Wenger won trophies, Pochettino has not.

“”He’s got a young English side with a lot of talent and I think they’re going in the right direction. The way they’re playing at the moment, it’s similar to the way Wenger had been playing when he first went to Arsenal.”

This shows that Darren Bent did not have a clue what he was talking about.

Arsenal’s early success under Arsene Wenger was not built on a young English side. It was built on senior English players, like David Seaman, Lee Dixon and Tony Adams, and young foreign players in Patrick Vieira and Nicolas Anelka.

If you want to compare Spurs to Arsenal, compare them to the Arsenal side of 2006-2013. A lot of young, talented players who are failing to win trophies. Players who are underpaid in comparison to other clubs. Players who will leave the club sooner rather than later to seek success and more money elsewhere.

Another comparison is to Newcastle of the late 90s. Winning hearts and minds of neutral fans, but no trophies.

Going back to the comments made by Jonathan Wilson about no one really caring who wins the FA Cup. I pretty much guarantee that Newcastle fans wish they had have won the FA Cup, or any trophy, during that period of success. That just being competitive and showing progression meant nothing when they got relegated in the mid 2000s.

https://twitter.com/chrislaurie89/status/987977111880261632?s=21

And that is the truth.

Keenos

Follow @KeenosAFC