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Arsenal in Paris, The Game, Attendances & Hull Away

Arsenal in Paris

Well that was a fun trip wasn’t it? A 2.30am start on Tuesday to get to Luton. Few beers in the airport. Board the plane. Few more beers on the plane. Get to Paris at 9.20am. Get to hotel. Can’t check in. Have few beers in the hotel. Check in at Noon. Go straight to pub. It’s hot. Too hot. Have a lot of beers in pub. Have a panini. Head to stadium. Police escort. Watch game. 1-1. Poor away following. Get held in. Get released. Go pub. Few beers. Head back to hotel. Few more beers. 2am. Bed. Wake up. Check out at noon. Beer in hotel. Head to pub. Few beers. Train to airport. Get to airport. Few beers. Board the plane. Few more beers on the plane. Land in Luton. Train back to Kings Cross. Underground back to Walthamstow. Order curry. Watch Spurs. Laugh. Bed.

A lot has been made over the last few days of some fans on a train having a sing and a dance. More videos will come out over the next week of fans in the main square, or under the Eiffel Tower, having a song and a dance, throwing a few beers in the air, and generally making a fool of themselves.

Whilst I think this behaviour is a bit cringey, especially when you see middle aged men involved, if this is how fans wish to support their club abroad then fair enough.

Often over the last few years we have heard ”I have spent £1000 on my season ticket, I can show my support how I wish, even if I boo the team”. Well it is the same in this scenario.

The trip cost me, flights, hotels, trains and spending money, around £300. And we got dirt cheap flights due to my quick reactions to the draw. Others would have spent well over £500.

Spending that money gives you the right to act a knob abroad if that is your choice.

And we have all done it. I remember doing it in my 20s. At AC Milan away. Going into their main square. Heading to Lidl to buy cheap beer. Throwing a few cans in the air. Fulham away around a similar time. A good sing song on the train at other passengers expense. It is harmless fun.

Obviously I grew out of it. Now my idea of an enjoyable away trip is to find a nice bar and have a few beers in the sun. Bit of peace and quiet. Relaxing abroad. I am sure when I am even older, I might even be interested in a bit of sight seeing. But that’s unlikely, considering I spent 3 weeks in Australia a few years back and just saw the inside of a couple of bars and the inside of the MCG & SCG. Three weeks in Australia and we spent 3 hours on a beach.

Where I do have an issue with fans behaviour is when it comes to the attention seeking. The self promotion. When I had a laugh in Milan, I had no interest of being on camera. Let alone getting my own camera phone out, videoing myself acting like a knob, then uploading it to YouTube so that the world can see I am a bit of a knob. Just for hits. Just for attention.

Most of those behaving in this manner are kids. Students. Youngsters. They know no better. I was the same at their age. Eventually they will grow out of it, as I did.

But the ‘older lot’ do make me wonder. Leading a bunch of kids, like they are The Pied Piper of Hamelin. They are the ones who do it for the attention. I do wonder what line of work they are in. I would probably get the sack if my match day antics ever appeared on YouTube. Acting a knob abroad would lose me respect in my office, respect of my management, respect of my clients. I guess if you are on minimum wage stacking shelves in a warehouse, no one will notice. No one will care.

We all saw the damage a bit a “banter” did for Chelsea fans. Why record ourselves misbehaving and stick it up online ourselves? Grassing ourselves up?

The attention seeking nature of some of our fans will get eventually get them into trouble. Whether at work, at home, or with other fans. If you record yourself, you only have yourself to blame when it go’s wrong.

It is the modern era we live in. Not just football, but life. A celebrity culture where people become famous for being famous. Graffiti artist Plastic Jesus summed it up well with his stop making stupid people famous piece. It is the era we live in. Kids grow up idolising some idiot from TOWIE, a slag from Geordie Shore, a knob from ArsenalFan TV. It is up to parents to teach their children better. To educate them to find a real role model. To not idolise a pillock.

This behaviour has been in celebrity culture for a few decades now. It is now filtering into football. With Twitter and other forms of social media, people now become a face due to shouting at a TV recording themselves. Idiots with a phone who do not go to games becoming famous. It is part of modern culture. And what happened in Paris on the train, with attention seekers seeking attention is part of that. Arsenal have lot’s of them. Other clubs might mock, but their fans are starting to go the same way.

My second issue is with the self promotion as “this is how the real Arsenal fans behave”. You are not the real Arsenal fans.

There is no generalist real Arsenal fan. There were about 1,500 in France. Some went into a square and threw beer. Others made noise on a train. Others sat in a bar. Others saw some sites. They are all real Arsenal fans. They do not represent each other. One group of fans doing one thing is no more real than another group of fans doing another thing.

Let’s stop this one upmanship. Let people show their support of the team how they wish. Call people a knob if they are a knob, and ultimately come judgment day we will all be judged.

I had a cracking trip. Chilled out. Met some new people. Met people who I would certainly class is proper Arsenal fans. None of which we singing and dancing on a train. It was a top trip. Even if our end was a little sparse and did look a bit like a college trip.

The Game

So I spoke a bit about the actually trip. What about the actual game?

It wasn’t that great to be honest. European aways often are not. By the time the game kicks off, tiredness is kicking in, as the alcohol.

A 1-1 draw is a decent result in the hardest away game of the group. The team we put out was surprising. Why drop Petr Cech? – Although David Ospina was easily man of the match. Why still no Granit Xhaka? – He was class when he came on (I think he came on?). Why not start with Olivier Giroud up top? – Maybe we wanted to play on the counter attack with pace up top.

The Giroud red card was a joke. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has had the run in the team everyone wanted and has shown he is not good enough for Arsenal.

We should qualify from this group.

With home games against Basel and Ludogorets coming up, we should be 7 points from 9.

It was a good in Paris and leaves us top of the group

Attendances

Spurs are a joke.

Celebrating getting the highest home attendance in English football history whilst losing 2-1 shows how insignificant they are.

Well done. 85,011 is the largest amount of fans who have seen their team lose a game in England. Good job.

It is a bit like boasting about sleeping with hundreds of women, when infact you only have sex with prostitutes. Renting a stadium and breaking an attendance record, then boasting about it, shows that Spurs fans suffer from little man syndrome.

A bit like building a stadium with 100 seats more than Arsenal. Well done, you have a few more seats. But you have not won the league since 1961.

13 league titles, you’ve only won two.

They mock us for the Top 4 Trophy. Yet for them, top 4’s their everything.

Over 20 years of finishing below The Arsenal. They clearly do not have much to hang on to. They laugh at us for losing a Champions League final, but they’ve never made one. They mock us for being knocked out of the Champions League, yet they were not in it at the time.

They say it shows they are bigger than Arsenal, forgetting that Arsenal were playing at Wembley nearly 20 years ago.

Dare mention that we get bigger weekly attendances, they are quick to point out its not their fault they play in a smaller stadium. Yet mention that when Arsenal played at Wembley, capacity was capped at 74,000 (and we had attendances of 73,000+ at 5 of the 6 games), they disregard their own ‘smaller stadium’ argument.

The fact is, at £25 a ticket, Spurs still struggled to sell out. If Arsenal played a home game at Wembley, they would sell out 100,000+. And still have people moan that they did not get a ticket.

So well done to the 85,011 who went to Wembley. I am sure in years to come, you will be telling your grandkids that “you were there in 2016”. But just don’t mention the result.

Hull away

And finally, Hull away. We have shuffled the pack well over the last couple of games. A win against Watford and a draw in Paris. Now it is important we back this up with a victory against Hull.

Three points is important.

It will be the first game of the season I am missing (Frankie Boyle at the Pleasance Theatre on Caledonian Road were bought in the summer).

So to all those travelling. Enjoy yourself. Support the team how you wish. But don’t make a knob of yourself and stick it up online.

Have a good day

Keenos
Follow @KeenosAFC

Would you support a FC United of Arsenal?

3 Replies

The globalisation of football is killing the game for the local fans.

I have long held the above opinion. What this means in my eyes is that clubs, associations, organisations, are more interesting in growing their product abroad to increase revenues rather than looking after local fans.

What this results in is lucrative friendlies post & pre-season in America, Thailand, Singapore, Dubai, Qatar & Australia. Clubs bringing out 3 shirts a year to increase revenues. Clubs caring more about fans abroad and how they can market the club at foreign fans, than fans at home, looking after local fans.

The club would rather sell tickets to holiday companies in China, in America, and even here in the UK, at extortionate prices, than make more tickets available for local fans.

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In the past there has been talk of Arsenal selling thousands of tickets to Chinese tour companies to Arsenal v Manchester United. Of hundreds of tickets for Spurs v Arsenal, Liverpool v Arsenal & Manchester United v Arsenal going to tour operators.

Whilst big games sell out at 35 credits, and loyal, local fans can go home and away are unable to get a ticket, tickets are legally sold by the club to foreign fans through these our operators at 10 times the cost to people who have never been to a game.

And don’t get me started on the recent proposals by the Premier League of a 39^th game.

So what brings on this mornings rant?

Well once again we have talk about the future of football.

The discussion happens once every few years. A break away European Super League. It is usually around the time European clubs are unhappy with UEFA. They use their power making it clear they are the product, not Champions League football, and threaten to pull out of UEFA competitions and set up their own, independent, franchised European Super League. UEFA usually buckle and give the clubs what they want.

This time however the story is a little different. They are now talking about a World Super League.

Jacco Swart, director of the European Professional Football Leagues, said: “We will see a worldwide football competition in a few years. That is a development which nobody can stop anymore.”

“It will be an exclusive party for the happy few — for the biggest football brands in the world.”

The European Professional Football League is the organisation created to protect the interests of domestic leagues.

The article go’s on to say that a World Super League will see the top sides from Europe, America, China, South Africa, Australia & Brazil create their own league, playing home and away through the world. It will be taking the game to the citizens of the world, but away from local fans.

A breakaway league will happen in my lifetime. It is inevitable. The question is, how do you respond?

As someone who go’s home and away, do I continue doing that? Spend even more money travelling the world following The Arsenal – it is hard enough and expensive enough doing it just in the UK. Or do I give up on away games, just go to home matches – which will become more expensive, and just do the odd away games. Paris, Madrid, Barcelona.

The 3^rd option is I give up on Arsenal Football Club as we know it all together. To support a phoenix club that will surely be set up due to the frustrations and anger of local fans. An Arsenal version of FC United of Manchester. FC United of Arsenal? The Arsenal?

A phoenix club would have to start at the bottom, like FCUM and AFC Wimbledon would have done, and would have to rise through the leagues. AFC Wimbledon have done it successfully, now in League One and looking to move into a new stadium, back to the club’s home in Plough Lane.

FCUM have stalled. After 3 successive promotions, they spent 7 seasons in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. Attendances dwindling from an average of 3,059 in their first season to as low as 1,849 in 2012/13. In 2014/15 they were promoted to the National League North where they finished 13^th including a run of 7 straight defeats (19 league defeats in total). Average crowds back up to 3,394, it is the 6^th tier of league football. Promotion gets them to the National League (formally the Conference).

It would not be easy starting a phoenix club. But Arsenal does have the loyal following. A few thousand have stopped going in recent years due to unhappiness with where football is going. Would they return? Add in those who still go, but if the game pushed them a bit further, with a European or World Super League, there is no reason a phoenix Arsenal club could not see crowds of 5,000.

Of course, they would need the stadium. A brief look shows that other than the Emirates Stadium, there are no other stadiums in Islington that we could “share” (a local might tell me different?). That would probably see us have to move out to get a stadium. With Borehamwood’s current links with the club, it would be an option, but I imagine Arsenal would block that.

The most logical bet would be to team up with Barnet. Creating a ground share similar to what AFC Wimbledon have with Kingstonian. No longer at Underhill, Barnet now play at The Hive, a 5,176 capacity stadium. It would be the best option for Arsenal.

More reasonable match day tickets, the cannon facing the right way, a return to a proper stadium where we can stand (drink and smoke). Swear as much as we want, no grasses, no attention seekers. A return to proper football in a proper ground following a proper team.

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The future beyond that would be unclear. The new club would not be short of wannabe investors. And I ma sure it would rise through the leagues at a similar pace as AFC Wimbledon. The problem would be returning to Wimbledon.

It cost Arsenal £400,000,000 to build the Emirates Stadium. Now the phoenixed club, when ready to return, would probably not need a stadium as big as the current souless bowl. But it would probably need a 20,000 seater with the ability to expand (like what AFC Wimbledon are planning). To build this in Islington you are probably looking at £150-200m. A vast sum for a club which will be run by the fans for the fans.

The question is simple.

If an FC United of Arsenal phoenixed due to the creation of a Super League, who would you spend your hard earned money going to see week in week out?

Keenos

Follow @KeenosAFC