Date: October 2007

Seattle/Tacoma Gooners Unite!

Oct 25, 2007 by

Hello, my name is Tim and I’m a Gooner. Actually, I’m a northwest Gooner. Ok, full disclosure; I’m the Seattle/Tacoma rep for Arsenal America and I live in Tacoma.

Yesterday I received an email from some fellow Seattle/Tacoma Arsenal fans, which means that there are more than one of us up here! Well, how many are there? I don’t know, but I’m hoping this article will help me find out.

What I’d like to do is have a first ever Seattle/Tacoma Arsenal America mixer. We can get together, brag about how many times we’ve been to Highbury/Emirates (twice for me!), show off our kits, plan future parties, and generally geek out over Arsenal.

But I cannot do it alone. I need you: I need you Pacific North West Gooners to send me an email saying “hey I want to go!” That way I can add you to my mailing list and plan a really great party.

Interested?

Drop me a line at seattle@arsenalamerica.com

Should an ex-Gunner become the next boss?

Oct 25, 2007 by

It’s a tempting thought to have an ex-player managing Arsenal. But on second thought, perhaps it’s not such a good idea at all.

I mean, football manager can be a very demanding task. Fans in general are not as patient today as before. We have seen and heard people jump onto Wenger’s back on more than one occasion (in fact, plenty of occasions). This is a coach who has won us a “Double” twice!

Bergkamp, Vieira, Adams, or even Henry, et al have all left an almost perfect image in fans’ mind. They are the Arsenal legends. Perhaps it’s better for them to be remembered this way.

I look at Glenn Hoddle’s case with Spurs. As a player, he was God for the Spurs’ fans. After his spell as Spurs manager, I think he had run out his welcome there.

Same thing happened to Graeme Souness at Liverpool.

I imagine should Bergkamp or Vieira or Adams take charge of Arsenal one day, Arsene Wenger’s shoes would prove just too HUGE for any one of them to fill.

Fans have gotten used to watching great football with Arsenal, we may have taken it for granted now, yet one day if the team no longer plays the one-touch passing game, people will certainly appreciate even more the type of football we are playing right now. Whoever takes over from Wenger would almost certainly find himself in a lose-lose situation. Not only they have to get results, but also to get their team playing good football. To achieve one of those goals is hard enough, let alone both.

If it didn’t work out, it would destroy that Arsenal legend’s image in fans’ heart.

One thing about the relationship between fans and players is once a player becomes manager, before long fans tend to forget how the manager used to be as a player. So whatever good work a player had done as a player for the club, if he fails as a manager, it would all count for nothing.

Take David O’Leary, though he never managed Arsenal, since he became manager for Leeds and later Aston Villa, he started to get some stick from fans when leading his teams back to Highbury. Yet O’Leary is probably Arsenal’s most loyal player ever, and the longest servicing Arsenal player ever.