Conrad Drykoningen
I have written this article as a way of coming to terms with how it’s become possible to fall in love with something (Arsenal) over a lifetime, only for that something to then turn on you, and how it is also possible to be treated so cynically by the current regime, which is only interested in you as a customer and whose every trick is used to obtain from you the only thing it now wants from you - money! Well Kroenke, Gazidis and Wenger, if you treat loyal fans like this, then guess what? Customers have a choice to shop elsewhere, as some have already done in the lower leagues, or, as I have done, to go into a form of hibernation until the Arsenal I grew up with returns, as it will one day - hopefully sooner rather than later. Please read beyond this first paragraph if you think this is yet another article about bashing the current state of affairs as it’s not, but rather a therapeutic way for me to come to terms with what’s currently happening and explain why my current feelings are so raw.
Ever since I first became an Arsenal supporter back in 1970 as a nine-year-old wide-eyed boy, the club has been an integral part of me and my life. The anticipation and excitement of looking forward to Saturday’s game or the following weekend’s fixtures, and trying to predict the scores (Arsenal were always a 100% cert to win in my mind, even at often unlikely destinations) and what it would subsequently mean in the tables in relation to the then arch-enemies of Leeds Utd, Liverpool and, to a lesser extent, Spurs, were what I lived for. I would study the results and tables for hours the following day, reading the sports pages of the Sunday papers and looking forward to giving fellow classmates stick if their team had lost or, worse, finding ways of avoiding them if Arsenal had lost! The playground was something either to look forward to immensely on a Monday morning or to dread with a feeling in the pit of your stomach as something be endured as payback for when you had last gloated excessively, which you now deeply regretted doing, as you knew what was coming! Luckily for me, it was mostly a pleasurable experience initially, as Arsenal were on the crest of a wave.
I was hooked, and I have a class-mate to thank for persuading me to choose Arsenal instead of Man U, Liverpool or, thank God, Leeds Utd. You see, I had just arrived in this country from Holland, and at that time I lived in Lytham St Annes and soon realized you had to support a football team, which strangely was not the case in my native country, or at least not as I remembered. Being “Oop North”, there were no Arsenal supporters around, and most were either Man Utd, Liverpool or Leeds Utd. Except for this one other boy in my class who worked on me tirelessly to persuade me that my choice of football team should be Arsenal. As I recall, he even gave me his pocket money and all the sweets he had on him on this particular day, and promised me he would be my slave for a whole week if I chose Arsenal! I think, looking back, he probably did it more for his own selfish reasons, as he was no doubt fed up being the only Gooner in the playground. I suspect he also did it because he knew I was an under-nine judo champion from Holland, and felt he needed the extra muscle in the playground to back up his Arsenal-supporting views; he himself was a rather weak specimen who would get bullied both verbally and sometimes physically whenever he voiced these pro-Arsenal views, as that was the normal way of retaliation in those days!
I knew even then that our stay “Oop North” was temporary, and that within a year or two we would be moving down South, and even at that tender age I realized that what my class-mate was urging me to do made sense, as I would have a much better chance of actually going to see my chosen team sometime in the future if the team was in the vicinity of where ultimately I was going to be living. Take note all you southern-based Man U and Liverpool supporters. My parents were not remotely interested in football, and they would never ever have gone within a ten-mile radius of any football ground if at all possible even to this day, let alone take me to a game, so I knew it had to be Arsenal despite all the other boys telling me it should be one of Man Utd, Leeds Utd or Liverpool. This is how and why I became a Gooner.
Initially, things worked out brilliantly, as Arsenal won the 1970 Fairs Cup and the following season they won the double. My gloating in the playground had reached unimaginable levels, but I and Arsenal were heading for a fall. Firstly the 1972 FA Cup Final (in those days this competition was massive) defeat to Leeds which was bad enough, bearing in mind the vast quantity of Leeds fans around me, but worse was to follow the following season - the defeat to Sunderland (they were in the old second division at that time) in the same competition but at the semi-final stage. I was physically sick after that game, and I knew what I was in for in the playground the following Monday. I managed to feign illness that Monday, but the next day I couldn’t con my mum again, and I was sent into the bear-pit. Suffice to say, from that moment on I learned not to gloat so vociferously whenever Arsenal won, as I now knew it would come back to bite me big time in the bum, only it was ten times worse this time around, mainly because everyone knew I had avoided them the day before, and the entire school ganged up on me, and, as I was now at secondary school, you can imagine the numbers!
Once I had moved South, I was again lucky that my lifetime best friend was a Gooner whom I met at my new school, and without question this connection is what originally brought us together. It was with him that I did indeed start going to Highbury and I remember watching players like Armstrong, Rice, Nelson etc and later Brady, Stapleton, O’Leary, SuperMac etc then followed by the Rocastle, Davis, Adams etc era, and we have been to so many games together subsequently that I have lost count of the number of times. I vividly remember feeling incredibly low when, in the space of five days, we lost two cup finals in 1980. We both went to that Wembley FA cup game against WHU and then watched us on TV the following Wednesday in the Cup Winners Cup Final lose on penalties to Valencia (being in that tournament in the first place was because of my greatest “high” up to then, the last-minute Alan Sunderland goal, against Man U ironically, in the 1979 FA Cup Final). This was followed closely by both Brady and Stapleton leaving the club. At that time, I doubted anything could ever be as low again, but, as it’s turned out, I was wrong, as what’s currently happening breaks my heart completely.
When the Wenger era started, I, like most Gooners, wondered who the hell was Arsène Wenger? However, within a very short space of time, I was very pro this unheard-of guy because I had just witnessed the most complete midfield performance by a 21-year-old called Vieira, and instantly thought this manager clearly knew what he was doing. From memory, it was against Leeds Utd (again ironically), when we were three up after only 10 minutes and Vieira was head and shoulders better than anybody else in midfield. As we all know, that period up to 2006 was the best-ever time to be an Arsenal supporter. It wasn’t all roses, as the early signs of capitulation in title races (1999 and 2003) and Cup Finals (Liverpool and Galatasaray) were interspersed with the undoubted success Wenger brought to the club. I valued the success not just in terms of trophies, but in the style of play, having endured the dying days of Graham’s later dour phase, where 1-0 to the Arsenal was the order of the day. Looking back, to be fair, even during previous eras Cup Finals were lost that should have been won, but that’s football - you can’t win them all, no matter how much you want that to be the case, and if you don’t experience the downs, the ups like 1989 at Anfield would never have been as sweet! Please bear in mind my Dutch connection here, as I have witnessed my country lose three World Cup Finals, twice against host nations!
The subsequent years under Wenger now are well documented, including the introduction of Kroenke and Gazidis to the club. I am not going to rake over my feelings too much here about this era, as this is predominantly a nostalgic article. Suffice to say, however, it’s this last period, which we are still in, which has killed my love for the game. Going to a game is something I now refuse to do, as I deeply resent what has happened to my club, and I refuse to give the club a penny of my hard-earned money. Most of you who are regular contributors or readers will be more than aware of my feelings, as I submit my comments under the name of “Angry & Frustrated”, which in itself I think is self-explanatory. I realize that the face of football has changed dramatically with the numerous foreign owners throwing their money about, but at the same time I feel strongly that money itself is now our club’s only priority - this, coupled with a manager who has not, and will not change on a failed pet youth-project, be it with his tactics, personnel, coaching or indeed his total contempt for us, the fans. Football clubs are and were originally created as a way to help relieve people from the everyday, mundane grind of daily life, and something to look forward to, but sadly for me that is now no longer the case (although I never personally needed it as relief from everyday life).
On a more optimistic note, I hope one day to be able to sign myself in as “Happy & Optimistic” once the current regime has gone, and to be able to view everything again through my original wide-eyed innocent, enthusiastic boy’s eyes. I realise the money men have made this possibility not a very realistic outcome for me. However, I can but dream just like I once did. Hopefully, one day I can look forward to Arsenal again striving to compete by using all the available resources to them, and genuinely get the feeling back like we are all in this together, and be proud to support all of those privileged enough to put on an Arsenal shirt, who in turn give their all for the cause each and every time!
Here’s hoping.
