John Hilditch
Following the YouTube video of Arsene getting booed and Joel Campbell being advised to get out before it’s not too late and various punch –ups in and outside grounds, it feels like the Gunners support is the least Concordia it has been in a long time. There have been times before when the club has felt at a cross-roads, the six months when Gorgeous George got nabbed pilfering the till and coneman Stewart Houston and then Pat Rice took temporary charge stick out for me. We seemed to get a new manager every other month but from memory, I don’t remember fans fighting and bickering like now. People talk about last May’s FA Cup papering over the cracks but that’s crack covering in a different league from getting to the European Cup Winners Cup final in 1995 when we finished 12th on 51 points in the league. Is this first real crossroads for the club that most fans have experienced?
Things with fans off the pitch were a bit more harmonious then. Maybe The George Graham feisty style of ‘us against the world’ still resonated with fans and acted as a glue to make sure we stuck together, epitomised by the song “We’ll Win Because We’re Arsenal”. A stubborn togetherness. If Arsenal fans had a punch-up, it was against other mobs, not against our own. Maybe Arsene’s identity for the club is too genteel for the current mood, it has required too much patience in an increasingly inpatient world.
The team was in real decline before Bruce Rioch took over but Arsenal fans seemed to have reasoned debate with each other about the state of the team. We tried to persuade each other of our argument instead of just call the other a c*** if they didn’t agree with us. Maybe that’s the problem. The team are not and haven’t been in serious decline for 10 years. It might feel stale, always finishing 4th, last 16 of the Champions League but it hasn’t been in serous decline. Nobody appreciated finishing 12th, or playing in front of 18,000 and a mural. Everyone knew it was rubbish. The thing now is that only half the people think it’s currently rubbish. There’s a real split and it feels nasty. People who celebrated the FA Cup together In May are seriously at odds with each other in December.
Anyway, back to the Youtube video. It was only up for a few minutes but sparked a whole raft of talk and disagreement in the papers, on the radio, on the web. Twitter went mental. Never mind Kim Kardashian’s arse breaking the web, ‘get out before it’s too late Joel’ nearly broke it. Everyone had something to say about it in 140 characters or less. And that’s perhaps the problem. 140 characters probably isn’t enough to put an opinion across. More than 140 characters and people’s concentration is gone. Have a fairly complex opinion and it’s not valid because I can’t compute all that information in an instant or it muddies my own opinion. Everyone must have an opinion and it must be firmly in one camp. It must be instant and extreme. Wenger In, you’re a tw*t / Wenger Out – you’re a w*nker! Disagree with my opinion and you’re a f***ing stupid c***. It’s toe to toe action on a keyboard.
Club politics was always around and always will be whether it’s North Bank bonds or the vetted AGM questions. It used to be that people would take their anger at the result / club politics out on opposing fans in the parks and pubs and transport hubs surrounding the ground. Now that anger is taken out on the keyboard and downloaded by iPhone. It’s a lot safer for angry teenagers who won’t get duffed up as a foot soldier and the angry elders who won’t get nicked as easily with banning orders. It creates a lot of conflict and resentment and feuding and bashing over the head in 140 character rage. It’s like Twitter is the new hooliganism.
Finally, was that fella telling Joel Campbell to get out of Stoke before it’s too late? That’s good advice that can be tweeted.
