Adrian Wagenaar
It is very difficult to voice an opinion about Arsenal Football Club without being attacked by one of the two groups that currently dominate the Gooner Blog sites, so, in the words of “Rafa”, here are some “facts” about the period I love best about my Arsenal. When Frank McLintock trudged back to the dressing room with that haunted look on his face after the Swindon defeat in 1969, it seemed that the managerial changes (three) since the start of the decade had amounted to nothing. The functional, but occasionally expansive, Arsenal team were humiliated by a Swindon side that was inspired by Don Rogers and goalkeeper Greg Downsborough, plus being helped by playing a 'flu-stricken Arsenal side on what was a ploughed field called Wembley.
Don Howe had recently been appointed coach, and the home-grown players like Radford, Simpson, Armstrong and Storey had established themselves in an improving team that was, that season, to go on to gain a Fairs Cup place for the 1969-70 season, ironically by finishing fourth!
By the evening of March 15th, 1969 all those plans seemed in ruins. However it is that game that is often mentioned by the players, Bob Wilson in particular, as the catalyst for the 1971 double-winning team.
During the late '60s three things had happened to Arsenal that were to lay the foundations for a team that became exceptionally hard to beat and eventually saw them emerge once again “on top of the pile” -
1. The appointment of Don Howe as coach
2. Moving Frank McLintock to centre-half
3. The shame after the Swindon Town League Cup Final defeat.
Fast forward to May 3rd, 1971 and Arsenal win the First Division Championship for a record eighth time, one more than Liverpool, Everton and Man Utd. True, the Mancs had brilliantly won the European Cup in 1968 but domestically we were top dog, as we had been when had won the title for the seventh time in 1953.
After winning “The Double” six months later, we broke the British transfer record (once again) and signed Alan Ball from 1970 League Champions Everton. OK, the wheels came off pretty quickly after that with Don Howe leaving and Bertie Mee selling Frank McLintock to QPR. Liverpool made it eight titles in '72-'73 and we nearly got relegated in 1975, but for that short time we were number one and it wasn’t until 1997 that Man U finally overtook us with their tenth title.
What I am trying to lay down to some of my fellow supporters is that what Liverpool and Manchester United have achieved has been to knock us from our top spot. We were not chasing them but they chased us and yes, they both made a very good job of overhauling our achievements, but history shows we had won seven First Division titles before Chelsea had even won one!
Arsenal Football Club have sat on top of the pile more than just once and the idea that we should be bashful about spending big or accepting that Man U, Citeh and Chelsea are beyond our reach is laughable, lacking ambition and an insult to people like me who were there when we made history that night at White Hart Lane.
Since our move to the Em*rates, we have destroyed the most iconic club badge in football history and replaced it with something that looks like a “DC Comics” Super Hero emblem. We have changed our breathtaking counter-attacking football to “tippy tappy” football that angers and frustrates in equal measure and we have signed over a dozen players who clearly not good enough.
In Bernard Joy’s brilliant book “Forward Arsenal”, the bible on the ethos of the club, he describes the painstaking process in the vetting of a player before being signed by Arsenal. Do they have the moral fibre to become a player for a club that sets such high standards? Are they good enough? “Are they Arsenal”? Clearly some the players who hold the current jerseys are not.
We are currently third in the league title-list behind Liverpool and Utd respectively. So Arsène and Ivan, inspire us this close season; let’s get the sh*t out of our lungs and get this wonderful club fighting for honours again - that means league titles, League Cups, FA Cup and any cup we enter, Em*rates Cup excepting.
It might be too late for me to see us top of the pile again but my sons or my grandsons might just make it if we start now.
