It’s never easy supporting anything at all. Be it a cause, human rights, or a football club. Because being a supporter has to do with passion. By this, please distinguish a “fan”. Cos fans are only there when the going’s good. I tell those friends of mine who are Man Utd fans that Arsenal supporters never shut up. If Arsenal lose a game, we don’t run and hide. We step right up to you. So what if you beat us? Try shutting us up. It can never happen. We go toe-to-toe with clubs with 100 times our annual budget, and hold our own. It infuriates them that this “tiny” club can dare to nuture such stars, and compete with the best of them. Take those Man Utd fans for example. If Man Utd happen to be losing a game at Old Trafford (which seems to happen a little more often these days) the fans begin to walk out. Even when my friends are watching a Man Utd game on t.v., if they’re losing, they don’t stick around, they leave. Like they’re saying “To hell with it. Let’s go grab a beer.”
They would like to be called supporters, but that attitude is all wrong. Not that all Man Utd fans walk out on the team in bad times. They do happen to have some supporters in their ranks (poor misguided souls) but that image of fans walking out is a bad one. Where it happens, it can be said that if the fans are gutless, so is the team. And all too often, that turns out to be the case.
In Nigeria, my country of which I am proud, when the national team, The Super Eagles, are playing a match badly, they get booed when they touch the ball. Their opponents get cheered. The result on the pitch is unbelievable. They actually begin to play better. Most times, that’s actually when they score, and the fans return home. Nobody leaves the stadium. It’s impossible. Call it what you like, but if we spring 300 bucks for a ticket, the players had better damn well play!!
At Highbury, I’ve never watched a match on television and seen images of Arsenal supporters walking out when we’re losing. And I tell those friends of mine who are Man Utd fans that it shows our CHARACTER. We don’t leave our boys in the lurch, even when they are disappointing us. We sit down to the bitter end. When we lost 4-2 to Man U at Highbury, nobody left the stadium. Even when O’Shea scored that goal from a clearly offside position in the dying moments. The Arsenal supporters stayed. Some people would say that makes us masochists.
I say that makes us the stubbornest s.o.b.s who ever supported a football club. We dont know the meaning of the word quit. Sure we slag off our players when they disappoint us. We call for some heads to roll. We even say it’s time some people quit the game totally. But deep down inside, we want them all to stay. Cos once a player pulls on that Arsenal kit, there’s an instant bond between him and the supporters. Forget about t.v. revenue. If the fans don’t turn up for games, which station will show an empty stadium? They’ll all move to a place where there’s no spare seat, and the fans sing louder when it rains. That’s Highbury.
You have to LOVE a club, LOVE its players, LOVE the coach, LOVE its stadium, in fact, you have to LOVE everything about that club before you can be a supporter. That takes GUTS. I LOVE ARSENAL. I love each and every player (including Cygan, for all his faults), the physios, the coach. I’d like to give them my daughters to marry, but I don’t have any. I’m grateful every day that that night in 1995, my dad tuned to the Zaragoza vs. Arsenal Cup Winners’ Cup final. I believe that Arsenal players are the best in the world. I believe that Arsenal has the best manager in the world. Even our physios have been called to help out in other sports.
If I walk in on a match on television, and the home fans are walking out cos the home team is losing, I know that it’s not at Highbury.
We’re mean. We’re tough. We can take a hit and keep on coming. We don’t know the meaning of the word quit. We go down with the ship, and rise with the life boats. We never say die. And we’ll always be there.
WE ARE ARSENAL SUPPORTERS. HEAR US ROAR!!!
10 Responses to “On Loving Arsenal”
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March 28th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Great, passionate post! Yes, we are not fairweathers, withholding the love when the times get tough. When you don’t see things going the way you like them, that’s the time to step up, not step out. Only cowards do that (take note, some of you Mankers!).
Arsenal supporters have heart, just like our team. If we could just be a littel more vocal at the matches I think that would translate our faitht to the players even more. You shoudl hear the wife and I.
March 28th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Ok, I won’t be exactly handing my daughter [if i have one in the future] to our players to marry to like u said, but you surely have a wonderful and passioned post here!! Something very refreshing and positive!! Two thumbs up!!
March 28th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
Great post. However, the Arsenal also has its fair-weather or band-wagon fans . . . people love to be associated with a winner. Our job is to get those fair-weather fans to become supporters so we can all support the Arsenal, during the good times and bad. I must say though that I think that Highbury has become a library lately. I just don’t hear the fans on tv . . . I love hearing chants on the tele.
March 28th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
Ref the highbury library!
many of us are wondering what the atmousphere will be like in the new stadium as it is very hard to get the cowd going nowadays. But my friends the singing lives on in away games and european trips, I’m sure with some careful seating arrangements the club will get enough supporters who want to sing in the same area to reproduce the great atmousphere that we had in the earl 1970’s
March 29th, 2005 at 2:45 am
Well done. At last, a positive note, and a good one at that. I think there are many of us who feel the same way– passionate about the club that we love. These feelings may come across as malcontent, but they are rooted in the purest love for the team, the players, the game. When there is injustice, we cry out. Where there is flaw, we stay awake at night devising possible strategies to overcome it. Where there is perceived weakness or complacency, we are ready to replace said players with those of stout heart and resolve. This is truly the best club in the world, and we shudder when it is not in it’s purest, most spectacular form!
March 29th, 2005 at 5:47 am
very nice post…..yeah i do agree……liking arsenal is all about character…
we are a tough club which competes or let’s say succeds aganist clubs way bigger then us.but i do not want to think about it.
i just want to believe that when arsenal players walk on the pitch,they believe that they are the best in the world and they are here to give there all.
March 29th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Feeling a bit lazy and I am taking a short cut. The following sums up the gist of what I have to say, read it please:
http://217.204.41.132/cgi/NGoto/2/89875336?1206
Food for thought? Or some more coming from y’all?
March 29th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Good read to point out, ivanmwpoon. We’ve come a long way, and its hard not to expect more. In fact, everyone, even the players, do. I guess that’s what makes a great team.
We’ve had another season of incredible moments and joy, and sometimes that needs to be enough. In fact, I’ve run about like a fool at every goal…and scared my cat under the bed when things didn’t go our way.
But it almost surprises me when I choose what I believe to be the highest moment thus far for me and my club and that was the penalty shoot out during the replay against Sheffield United. There were elements to that game that no one could have ever predicted at the start of the season, and explains at least partially why I’m burning for that most historical of all cups. The memory of Almunia’s face as he was embraced by the team pretty much summed it up for me.
Regardless of where we finish and what we win, if its about the journey like they say, I’d say it was one heck of season.
March 29th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Couldn’t agree with you more.
1996 doesn’t seem that long ago, yet we had the modern equivalent of Bolton/Villa/Borough type of ambition….frightening!
I understand that once we have accomplished what we had done last term, the expectations are sky high. And to end up fighting to be second in the league this time round is indeed frustrating.
Obviously we can’t say that just because we were mediocre less than a decade ago and that we have since come a long way, we should therefore not try to improve the team. But just try to step back a moment and appreciate what we have now. and not what we don’t have. The bitterness somehow disappears.
March 29th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
A very comforting,uplifting post,especially at this time when there is a very poisonous ambience in gooner fan forums.
As true,loyal fans we have to be behind the manager and his players 110%.We cannot forget last season’s terrific run.Injuries aside,I believe we are still a force iin England and it will be comfirmed next season.
We are all waiting to see new faces come next season,but I think that is wishful thinking.Wenger has his way of doing things and when he says it is one or two ’star signings’ ,he is damn serious.
If it werent for his policy of giving young,talented players a chance,we would have never witnessed the phenomenon that is Henry! Food for thought!