Tag Archives: Arsenal

Are attitudes changing towards foreigners in the English Game?

4 Replies

Over the year’s, Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have been criticised for a whole range of reason’s. Whether it was the disciplinary record of his early time in charge, the lack of trophies in his later time, or the foreign legion he bought in during his mid-time in charge. He has been derided throughout his time in English football. At times, I have felt it was borderline xenophobia, as he got criticised whilst other managers did not.

One of the most frustrating criticism’s was the lack of Englishmen in the squad.

On February 14th 2005, Arsenal became the 1st team to field a 16-man squad (as it was back then) of foreign players. Wenger was criticised by all and sundry for not carrying for the English game, being a disgrace, and showing a lack of respect for the country which employed him. Arsene Wenger’s response was simple:

“I don’t look at the passport of people, I look at their quality and their attitude.”

At the time, I vehemently defending the manager, as any fan of the club should do when taking unfair criticism from the likes of TalkSport, The Sun & Spurs fans. My point at the time was the reasoning behind the criticism. That Arsene Wenger was not helping the English game. At the time I looked around other teams throughout the Premier League and who they had developed for the England National Team.

My research highlighted that, in 2005, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea & Spurs had all failed to develop an England REGULAR in the new millennium. Yet it was only Arsenal (and occasionally Chelsea) who were getting the criticism. At this point, out of England’s regular starting XI, the man from these 5 clubs who had made his club debut most recent was Ashley Cole. So much for England’s failure being Arsenal’s fault!

This criticism of Arsenal came to a head a year later when Arsenal knocked out Real Madrid of the Champions League, and Alan Pardew commented:

“I saw a headline saying Arsenal are flying the flag for Britain. I kind of wondered where that British involvement actually was when I looked at their team. It’s important that top clubs don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s the English Premier League and English players should be involved.”

Last night, Newcastle lost 3-1 to Everton, Newcastle – Managed by Alan Pardew – lined up as follows:

Krul
Debuchy Coloccini Yanga-M’Biwa Santon
Sissoko Tiote Anita
Ben Arfa Remy Gouffran

Not a single Englishman amongst them. And also, not a single criticism of this ‘foreign legion’ by the English press. Meanwhile, in Arsenal’s strongest 11, we have 3 Englishmen and a Welshman. Where is the praise? Why is the press not going OTT about us being the saviour of the English Football Team?

My only thought is that attitudes to foreigners in our game have changed. Why else would Pardew change his philosophy so quickly? And it is not just Newcastle. Let’s look at Stoke City.

When they played Arsenal last weekend, they had 1 Englishman on the field. And I would happily question if Ryan Shawcross was born in England, or found in a sewer in some god forsaken corner of the earth. Infact, they had 10 different nationalities on the pitch. It would be 11 if Marc Wilson did not decide to turn his back on Northern Ireland and play for Republic of Ireland.

But where once again, where was the criticism? The column inches? The hours of radio coverage? Have attitudes really changed, or does the media just not care when it does not involve Arsenal?

Another example of this is choice of managers. The top sides (Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool & Chelsea) were often heavily criticised for not giving a British manager a chance, with Ferguson (up to a couple of years ago) being the only British manager managing one of England’s top 6 sides. The criticism was heavy. But again, have opinions changed?

The 3 favourites for the Sunderland are currently Gianfranco Zola, Robert Di Matteo & Gustavo Poyet, with Rene Meulensteen also in the frame. Now I might be being thick (and some would so yes due to the state of my spelling and grammar), none of these are English (or British). Where is the criticism of Sunderland? And Everton replaced David Moyes with a Spaniard in Roberto Martinez. Where is their criticism.

I can only come up with 2 possible outcomes:

1) The attitudes of foreigners in the English game has changed or;
2) The press only care about the amount of foreigners in the English game when it sells papers

All I know is I agree with what Arsene Wenger said at the beginning. The passport does not matter. I care about Arsenal, and want the best to play for Arsenal. If that best are not born in The Wittingham Hospital, then so be it. But let’s have some fair criticism shared around yeh?

Keenos

The Arsenal and Me – Nordi’s Story

2 Replies

“It’s life, and every emotion you go through, I have gone through with The Arsenal”

First love

Lived on the Avenell Road it was the first real thing I saw as a kid people horses stadium songs lights, the colours the noise so it was that and my metal tonka truck.

Trouble

I first fell in trouble loving my club aged 9 and my brother aged 6 in a shared garden on Riversdale road off the Blackstock Road , the neighbours knocked on my mums door and told her to go and listen to your kids and she did, both of us copying the north bank “YOUR GONNA GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD KICKED IN” and “Your’e going home in funny ambulance” and the classic “The manky Tottenham Hotspur went home to the dope and this is FUCK OFF” – we didn’t get the right words till a few year later when Mum had enough and let me make the short journey on my own.

Happy

My two kids birth come first, well not quite true. First was the 1987 season and at the shit hole after years of following arsenal was pure ecstasy and 89 was LSD, ecstasy, hash, blow job’s and Samantha Fox’s tits on my face all at the same time. I could not make Anfield, one of the few games I missed in the 80s, but when that goal went in I ran around the pool table in the pub like a headless chicken onto Essex Road and dropped to my knees stopping the traffic.

Sadness

The passing of Rocky upset me big time. It was like losing a few school pals that passed away. Also losing Denton was extremely upsetting. MR Arsenal. If it was not for him and many others who ran with him, my dad would never have gone into the ground as football back then had many racists and I was the good looking son of a foreigner.

Learning

How to conduct yourself? I honestly can say hand on heart I learned more from the North Bank than I did at school or mucking about on the streets. You see the local schools and streets had the same Herbert’s where as the North Bank would have lads from Enfield, Essex, Burnt Oak, Surrey even fucking loyals from Telford. The music, the clothes, the jokes clubs, the girls and even a bit of politics, not much mind. Also travelling the country seeing at first hand the destruction of Liverpool in the early 80s and then the destruction of mining communities, no internet or mobile phones back then so all the learning was done through the eyes and actual experience so thank you Arsenal.

Religion/Cult

It was Arsenal and it was my job to recruit/encourage as many Gooners to come in to the holy ground from Highbury Grove School. Another memory that I will take to the grave is when we took 50 odd to Brighton and nearly 80 of us met for a home game against West Ham and similar numbers for Liverpool, marching off from Highbury Corner. The jokes the laughs.

Addiction

Aged 12 or 13 I made enough money to buy a ticket for West Brom away. Train, fare, can of coke and a packet of biscuits. Off I went without telling my parents, came back at 9 at night to massive slap from the old man and banned from going. Yeah right! I did not miss a home game for years after. Like many of us, I was such a sweet boy until arsenal came along.

I could go on and on but it’s everything and still is, my love has let me down big time, changing the badge, fucking about with the kits, pricing out fans and then driving out passionate fans through their Gestapo stewarding. The horrible grassing service,the sit down brigade, and then the killer – moving to the concrete bowl hurt more than I can describe. I joined the BSM in 2009 and through this passionate group, I felt like we have a voice again. I don’t want to hurt the club, but I feel like kicking them in the bollox every now and then “say wake up”. Don’t turn into a day tripper tourist venue or you will break many hearts and in the long term you will regret it.

Like the late 70s and early 80s I’m dreaming and looking forward to Dortmund where an old School turn out will be drinking and singing in praise of the Arsenal. You are my arsenal

Nordi

If you would like to tell your Arsenal story, click here

Time for train companies to be fair to football fans

2 Replies

Firstly allow me to start this blog off with an apology. Yesterday was the first day since the new site went up that their was not a blog. I blame National Rail for it as no trains back to London from Swansea after 7.30 meant The Arsenal away support had to spend the night in Wales. And what a night it was.

Millions of football fans travel up and down the country each week for football. Whether it is Arsenal fans using the London Underground to Finsbury Park, Manchester United fans getting a Virgin train out of Euston to go to Old Trafford, or the loyal away fans of every club getting a train from which far fetched corner of the country they live to whichever far fetched country they are going to. Football fans are hugely reliant on public transport.

The private companies running the trains also benefit big time from football fans. Were it not for football fans, there trains would be nearly empty of a weekend. I would estimate that football fans put over £100 million into the pockets of these train companies. We are key customers for them.

Therefore, I am questioning why we are treated so badly by the train companies. I will not mention the awful British Transport Police, as we all know they create more problems than they solve. It is the train companies themselves who get right up my goat.

The last 2 away days have been to Sunderland and Swansea. And what a nightmare they have been for the travelling fans. At Sunderland, you have to get the train from Newcastle to get back to London. East Coast trains decided to schedule their last train out of Newcastle to London at 5.50pm. This gave fans less than an hour to get out of the stadium, walk to either Sunderland or St Peters Station, do the 20 minute tram to Newcastle, walk to Newcastle station, buy beer and find the train. Talking to a few supporters, they were leaving the game 10 minutes early to ensure they got this train. Failure to do so would have resulted in a 5 hour 3 train journey taking you via Sheffield & Loughborough before getting into London at midnight.

It would have been very easy for the train companies to put on 1 more train at around 6.15, just to ease the pressure. Make life a little easier. But they did not.I bet if One Direction were playing in the Gateshead Arena they would have done, or if the athletics was on there would have been an extra train, but when it comes to football fans…no chance. The Sunderland train ticket cost us nearly £100 – more on this later.

This was not a unique experience. As mentioned, we had to stay in Swansea due to the lack of public transport after the game. The last train out of Swansea was at 19.32. Impossible to get unless you left early. All that was needed was a train 15-20 minutes later and everyone would have been all right.

But no, the train companies do not treat football fans like human beings. They clearly have a ‘stuff you’ attitude. Knowing that fans will attempt to get to the game not matter what, they become inflexible and do not do anything to help a fan out.

Then we come to the cost. The average away game outside of London costs £50-£100 to get to. When you take into the rising cost of ticket prices, you are looking at an away day now costing between £150-£200 once you add in food and a couple of drinks. I went to Benidorm for a week, all inclusive, including flights, for £250 a few years back.

And flights is another thing. Easy Jet, Ryan Air, British Airways, and more, all hyke the price of a flight up when it comes to away fans. Return tickets for Dortmund were north of £200 within minutes of the scheduling being announced. If you went another random mid-week, it would cost £50. How can they justify this? If it was not football fans, the European Commission would be getting involved and telling these companies that they can not fix prices like this.

And again, the airline operators should be grateful. If it was not for football, they would not sell any flights to Naples on a Tuesday from London. Rather then be happy with a few extra bob made from a football game, they have become greedy, knowing some fans will pay whatever just to go to the game. It is unfair.

Luckily we live in London, so can get nearly anywhere without too many changes. I do feel for fans over other clubs who often have to come into London just to get elsewhere. Adding to the cost and time.

Train companies, stop scheduling non-essential engineering works on match days. Put on later trains. And everyone stop putting up prices and screwing every penny out of football fans.

It is time the train companies helped the football fans out. Continually screwing them over is not good for anyone. They need us. We need them.

Keenos

Ps: the ironic thing is I’ve written this whilst my train has been delayed by 30 minutes due to overrunning engineering works between Clapham Junction and Twickenham.