Ian Tanner
The year before we moved to North London, George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion. In My Fair Lady, the play’s musical version, Professor Henry Higgins set himself the seemingly impossible task of tutoring a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to speak correctly. After much exasperation, he unwisely tempted fate, declaring: “By [Charlie?] George, she’s got it!”, when Eliza indeed managed: “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain”, before later returning to her slovenly ways.
Watching a re-run of our somewhat fortuitous victory in Montpellier on Arsenal Media, I made a similar mistake: “By Santi, they’ve got it!”, when, at the fifth time of asking, our in-house TV company indeed managed to spell Cazorla correctly. Struggling with: “In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen,” Eliza was prone to drop her Hs. Arsenal Media roll their Rs, putting Cazorla’s “r” after the first “a”, rather than before the only “l” in each of Asenarl’s (geddit?) four opening league games. Perhaps, I wondered, Santi’s August Player of the Month award, with a staggering 72% of votes cast, had not escaped them, albeit belatedly. Wrong. At the £400 million Etihad Stadium – and that’s only the value of the naming rights! – it was 19. Santi Carzola yet again. Exasperation reigns in Spain.
While Cazorla has been grabbing the headlines and plaudits, his compatriot and our new vice captain, Mikel Arteta, has been going about his new, deeper role quietly but efficiently. Sad though I often am when our players move on, does anyone miss Song overly much? Arteta is performing the Song role as well as Alex ever did. Stating this will not be regarded as heresy, but the following question might: would we prefer Cesc (back) to having Cazorla? I’m just being inquisitive (geddit?), not provocative. If the Spaniards’ influence continues and grows, if they can impose themselves consistently, it won’t be long before some headline writer churns out: The Spanish Imposition. Remember where you heard it first.
The Gooner is oft criticised for being too negative. Esteemed Ed argues, not without merit, that, as a broad church, not a narrow doctrine, all views can be expressed and it’s up to us Gooners to provide cheer where it exists, or where we perceive it to exist; he can only publish what is written. Gooner Referendum No. 37 for September is interesting, not for its question but for its range of (four) permitted answers: “Where do you think Arsenal will finish in the league this season? 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th.” What happened to Europa League spots, to say nothing of mid-table mediocrity and relegation? Like the rain on the plain in Spain, the clouds over Gooner Towers seem to have lifted.
