Ian Tanner
First to our spiritual home. “Our supporters have been fantastic this season and more than 100,000 fans bought tickets for our third and fourth round games against Shrewsbury [Town] and Bolton Wanderers.” So said Ivan Gazidis Wednesday as Arsenal’s much-to-be-admired-but-never-to-be-repeated-at-Sh*te-Hart-Lane Carling Cup ticket policy was extended for the visit of Northern paupers Manchester Citeh, whose fans once derided their near-neighbours, in part because of their vastly superior resources – inverted snobbery, anyone? - but now apparently suffer collectively from amnesia.
Now I admire Ivan, but his terrible (geddit ?) statement is unworthy of him, though sadly not of the Club in recent times. It’s spin typical of any low-life politico of the last decade and counting. Ivan has aggregated the official “tickets sold” for the two games, including the 14,000 or so pertaining to Club Level that are included automatically by dint of Club Level entitlement to attend all first team games without further charge. If one repeats a lie often enough, does one eventually believe it true? So it would appear. I sat in Club Level for “Town” – disconcertingly recognising the voice of Esteemed Ed immediately behind me before turning up my collar and donning a hat to avoid detection - and it was far from bursting. That the ground was more than half full was thanks, in no small measure, to the travelling and noisy hordes from Shropshire, who may have come to see The Arsenal, as the Alex Song goes, but cannot be described as “our supporters”. Officially 46,539 worshippers were reported as present and correct but, mercifully, not declared on the night, as is the new policy (after much pleading from supporter groups) to stop embarrassed guffaws.
So we have Ivan at one extreme and the doom-merchants at the other who unfairly criticise the club for not selling out against limited but spirited lower-league opponents during an economic recession. The glass half-empty or, in this case, ground half-empty brigade, wantonly spurn a more positive approach: ours was the best attended 3rd round match; Tottnum attracted 24,058 for a Europa League match recently … A sense of balance and perspective would be nice, folks – i.e. cut out the insulting-our-intelligence spin but simultaneously the unwarranted Arsenal-bashing with its I-told-you-so undertones.
Time for another quote: “My father was a miner and he worked down a mine.” So said Kevin Keegan and he’s never lived it down. Did you know that Saul, who later became Saint Paul, was a tentmaker and he made tents? I wonder what he’d make of the 200 or so examples of his craft currently adorning the Cathedral that bears his name.
