We always knew the time would come. The day when the sun would set on the reign of Arsene
Wenger, thus bringing to an end the most bitter of
Islington Civil Wars. The club have attempted, as best they can, to present
an image of consensus to usher in an era of unity, although tell-tale signs
indicate this had been anything but amicable.
Final proof will arrive in the form of Wenger reappearing in another
dugout, a defiant gesture that this is a man who felt he had unfinished
business. Yet whether you were “IAWT” or “Wenger Out”,
nobody took pleasure from the way the fans had become so bitterly divided. We are now left to survey the scenes of
devastation which depending on who you ask, marks the culmination of a battle
for the “soul of the club” which lasted 5, 10 or even as long as 12 years. I can remember some fans as far back as 2006
calling for his head, following our Champions League defeat during that cruel night in
Paris.
Visitors to my blog will know I am somebody who will
never tolerate hypocrisy. I have more
respect for people who stand by their beliefs, than those who surf upon bandwagons
attempting to ride a wave of populism.
It’s why I texted Stafford Scott recently and described him as a weather
barometer. Rain or shine, you know where
you stand. It’s why I have an awful lot
of time for him; the world needs more like his type. It’s also why I find myself unable to contain
my contempt for people like Lammy who has spent the past nine months attempting
to reinvent himself as some kind of tribute act to Bernie Grant, despite
spending the previous seventeen years doing everything he possibly could to
represent the polar opposite of everything he stood for. Lammy will always come to represent more a
child of Thatcher than Bernie, hence the reason I am able to swiftly dismiss
his recent biblical conversion
from Saul to Paul.
I appreciate the fact that those who wanted Wenger gone
will feel elements of vindication, especially as the story becomes clearer and
it does look like the parting of the ways had been forced by the board. I don’t want them now to cry crocodile tears
and pretend they appreciated the past 22 years.
However I also feel that you can feel triumphant without treating such a
day like the club has won a trophy. It’s
a fine line, a delicate balancing act, but having surveyed reactions from many
fans since that momentous announcement, it can and must be done.
One such fan, a close friend, I had to spend time
reading the riot act to. I explained that in my life as an Arsenal fan which
began in 1985, this is the fourth occasion I have experienced a changing of the
guard. The one that stood out the most prior to this week had been the end
of George Graham. I can remember exactly
where I was when I heard, a ‘JFK moment’ of my childhood as a Gooner. It was half term and I had
spent the afternoon with my cousins swimming at Leyton Leisure Lagoon. I was getting changed and speakers inside the
changing rooms relayed Capital Radio who had their hourly bulletin
announcing the news. It stunned my 14
year old self. The criminal, this crook,
a thief who stole from our club, fired for being caught with his hand in the
till, so to speak. Sacked in disgrace
and later given a worldwide ban from the game.
But I couldn’t do any fist pumps or perform a merry dance. Frightened, I looked to the future with a
sense of trepidation. It had been a
miserable season. The ‘house that George
built’ was falling down all around us, ITV’s London Tonight were running
features on Arsenal falling out of the top flight for the first time since 1919
and bookies were taking odds on the club being relegated. Yet I never wanted Graham fired, I thought
his six trophies in nine years earned him the right to turn it around. I’m a loyal person; it probably marked out
the characteristics which would make the classic ‘apostle of Wenger’
all those years later. I still feel
emotion recalling the day, a chapter closing and a sense of sadness which never
has nor never will leave me.
Similarly when Rioch found himself fired
on the eve of the 1996/97 season after just a year in the job, his running battles
with our then best player (Ian Wright) had raised the unthinkable prospect of
our star striker leaving, I do not look back at the day as one for celebration
or joy. Staring at an uncertain future,
I feared the direction this club of mine were heading. Rioch for all his faults, had taken us back
into Europe again, restoring our status as a club with a profile which in my
eyes deserved to be broader than just a quest for north London supremacy.
As the page turned in the journey of my life as an
Arsenal fan, a chapter commenced and the end of Wenger’s time represents the
end of that special period. We are such
a different club from what we were then with different aspirations and ambitions. I guess looking around now, I wonder if it is
the club I recognise anymore. We have an
enormous fan base today, one that stretches far beyond the M25, but I ask myself, 'at what price?' I loved
Highbury and of course I think the Emirates Stadium is wonderful, a bold
statement of our intentions to become one of the biggest clubs in the
world. Although that old adage of bigger
not always being better, does gnaw away today.
The club I started supporting as a five year old is one
that feels part of me, a personal connection, through my childhood, my years at
school, especially that privilege of attending St Joan of Arc. Epitomised by experiencing “Arsenal in the
Community”, where the club would send staff members to our school to oversee
our Physical Education afternoons. This wasn’t
a club I adopted from hundreds or thousands of miles away, this is a club that
was part of my community and in turn became an extension of me. When the club would be happy, I felt joy too. Such as watching
‘Anfield 89’ on ITV as a nine year old from deep behind enemy lines growing up
down the road in Tottenham. Winding up
next door neighbours, living and breathing every peak and trough the club
encountered.
When the club mourned, I shared that pain too, emphasised
by my earlier accounts of the end of Graham and Rioch. The concept of fans who selected a club over
their local side hundreds of miles away to adopt another, like selecting a
horse in a grand national with a pin, is an alien concept to me, one which will
I never begin to understand. Nor do I attempt to. Furthermore, I don’t even want to.
I watch those fans rejoice as the club grieves, I
politely shake my head in despair when all I want to do is scream from the top
of the Cornerhouse in my
adopted city of Nottingham, a chant which became such a poisonous battle cry of
those who for years wanted Wenger dismissed from his role: I WANT MY CLUB BACK!
I think what is needed now is a period of prolonged
decline, an era of mediocrity. Of
course, I am not talking about European competitions, with a nod to those at
the forefront of the “Wenger Out” movement with their view that “4th
place is not a trophy”. I am talking real mediocrity, barren years, and
an extended chasm where the club can shed its skin. As fondly as I look back on this Wenger reign,
we have attracted a vast number of fair-weather fans down the years. Ones who assume we have a right to be at the
top, always in the mix for trophies and when it hasn’t happened, it has been
comparable to a national scandal.
I valued the Arsenal that I grew up around, where
trophies were treasured, where title races were valued and fantastic seasons
adored and not viewed upon as almost as being “par for the course”. I was 13 years old before we won the FA Cup for the
first time in my life, when I went school the next day, there were celebrations
which accurately reflected the magical experience. I can still see my history teacher, fellow
Gooner Mrs Rimmer, responding to me when I had been sluggish in my answer to a
question, that I’m “day dreaming about the cup win the previous night”. We all shared the joy, a community united in
happiness. I could never imagine then
that a manager would later be fired for winning that competition three times in
his final five years. Graham was sacked
having won the competition two years earlier, but criminal activities aside, this
was not in any way a reflection of what had happened on the pitch, even if we weren’t
having a great season as referenced earlier.
If we can experience some difficult years, not just one
or two, but a prolonged period where we effectively find ourselves again, it
may become a blessing in disguise as the “pin-dropping” fans who have no
community based connection to the club, can find someone else to adopt. It may even become a welcome boost for local
teams in the cities they actually grow up in.
Because they’ll be able to establish a deep-rooted link to a club which
is something they live, breathe and feel.
One day they’ll look back at my response to all of this and understand
why I found their reactions so incomprehensible.
They’ll know what it’s like to mourn when the club is
weeping and sing when the club is winning.
