Robert Miller
It’s March 2017 and the month is slowly drawing to an end. However, for us Arsenal fans this is only the beginning of another saga within a far bigger story that has no end in sight. We’re sixth in the league, our performances are poor and our fan-base is torn. Meanwhile, like a rich man amongst the peasants, Wenger sits high atop his throne peering down with a burning gaze. What must he think to himself - probably something along the lines of ‘How dare they judge ME?’ While I am a sweet ‘Wenger Child’, I know that my football father’s reign must come to an end. He is all I have known for Arsenal, and in my 20s I now feel I want to know someone else, because the frustration which led to anger, and then to confusion, has now become pure apathy.
You cannot dispute his history nor can you shake your head at what he’s meant for British football, and in turn, world football. However, the past is the past and that applies to our once-believed ‘footie king’. Wenger’s fall from grace has been astounding and what’s been far scarier is the speed of the current unravelling. If this was the ‘olde’ times in the murky streets of London or the pristine, upper-class, land of debauchery à la late 1700s France, then our mad king would have been overthrown or slain. Well, thankfully mankind has progressed and instead of anything remotely violent, the fans - his loyalists - are approaching it the right way, peacefully.
First, let’s dispel the myth that protesting ‘hurts’ anyone apart from the intended. We live in a world where our speech is free (supposedly) and if a group of fans (no matter how small or large) wishes to voice its opinions in a respectful way - then let it. You get the individuals who, like Wenger and the board, sit up high on their thrones of nothingness (I am looking at you, social media goons). For they are many, and they spit upon those who fight for their cause. Frankly, who cares what the bitter sections of Twitter have to say. Let them be the people who follow the ideal that freedom of speech exists but only when it fits in with their worldview, or should I say, Twitter-verse. If anything, be grateful they’re trying to act and help stop this saga from spiralling into a constant sadness. These protests are for all the fans; they’re for everyone. Why? It’s an act of rebellion that’ll benefit everyone. They march, they hold banners for you, so you don’t have to. Although all you devout men and women who support Arsenal claim blasphemy at the sight of trying to force change, you should join them. You should protest however you can, and show heart if you love the club and are able.
Regardless of what the naysayers spew, Wenger is not the man to lead us forward; there are countless facts and statistics to support this. I am not going to list them to support my argument or my reasons. It’s known already that the man is not who he once was. There are gaping holes in Arsenal and even an armchair, non-elite fan can see that. Those who claim otherwise are in denial or simply don’t care enough that their club is suffering because, let me tell you, our club isn’t in a healthy state. It hasn’t been for a number of years and it’ll only continue with Wenger at the helm. Of course the board needs to be reshuffled, everyone needs to be held accountable, but right now, the man who holds himself accountable for every man on the pitch, and for every man and woman that surrounds him, needs to take the fall. For too long we have been classed as the underdogs in competitions in which we should be competing. We’re the should-have-beens, could-have beens and would-have-beens. If only we signed x player, if only we had x amount of money and if only our manager wasn’t a stubborn fool.
No man can take on so much and not make mistakes, it isn’t possible. Arsène Wenger has become more than a manager and he’s taken on more than a manager and it’s undoubtedly reflected on his career in the later years. His failures continue and they’re the same. We’re fed the ‘Top 4’ achievement, hooray! We’re fed ‘finishing above Tottenham’ hooray! We’re fed ‘qualifying for Champions League’, hooray! We’re fed that we’ve finally ‘escaped financial austerity’ and the most crucial, we were fed ‘the Bayern comparison’. None of those things is an achievement, bar relieving the financial constraints, and we’ve not reached the level of Bayern, as our past encounters show. This current saga is only the wound re-opening and perhaps - this time - the blinded, the faithful and even the fearful will see it’s time for change.
‘Be careful what you wish for’ they mutter on the internet, that’s true, we have to be careful. However, I’d rather take the risk than be a hostage to a man whose own power and ego has consumed him. As Arsenal supporters, we’re all too complacent, all too afraid of risk because let’s face it, our club is the poster-boy for the same s**t, different day. We have no reason to fear and there is no real risk because, for some strange reason, we’ve known that no matter what, we shall achieve what we always do. That lack of fear and risk has left Arsenal weak. Now, when the fear of not reaching our club’s ‘goals’ is a likelihood, we as fans don’t know what to do. There has never been the risk and fear surrounding any success in the last few years, all the ‘success’ has been comfortable (except the FA Cup final against Hull, oh joyous memories). So, because the club hasn’t tasted positivity from fear, we’re numb to it, numb to the situation. When fear comes from probable failure, well, Arsenal seem to do it in a spectacular fashion. How many games can we possibly not perform in? How many games can the players truly play in that shirt with pride when you have young, old and everything in-between paying their hard-earned money to watch ghosts on the pitch? Why should anyone have to suffer that? There’s the response that you can ‘stop going’, ‘get a life’ or ‘get a grip’. To some people, football is their life, it’s in their blood and it’s about family to them. They have every right to live and breathe it just as a music fan or fan of film etc. You have the cowards in sheep’s clothing hark and choke with laughter at ArsenalFanTV, proclaiming it’s all their fault, and that they’re the embarrassing ones. Please.
Really?
We have people on Twitter pretending to be ITK, and a bunch of fans expressing their opinions are embarrassing? We have people on Twitter with a somewhat high follower count and age to match, thinking their opinion is more valued than an ‘AFTV idiot’. That in itself isn’t embarrassing? You have the match-going fans who hurl abuse at people simply expressing their opinions and again, the latter are embarrassing, when in reality the embarrassing ones are those who cast the stones time after time, the ones who are nasty and violent, the ones who have nothing to say at all because they’re spineless or the ones who are gassed up but can’t string together a sentence? The embarrassment derives from those who act embarrassingly, the hypocrites who dub these people embarrassing by being embarrassing while doing so. Whatever happened to diplomatic disagreement? You don’t like it, you don’t agree with it - fine, say your reasons why and leave it there in an intelligent manner. I am bored of people going for each other; it’s tedious and quite sad. Arsenal fans should be uniting and respecting one another. Again, this is a fight we’re all in together, regardless of whether you wish to acknowledge that.
Currently, our future as a club is bleak. The rumours are swirling about our manager staying for longer. That our board helps to fly planes but remains voiceless to those who matter is a joke. The journalists are feeding the fires that we fans have lit, and the whispers of players being unsettled and looking for a way out adds to the vitriol. In times of need, a person in charge has to come forward and take control but with Arsenal, unless Wenger takes control, there is no sound. It’s deafening silence. Lately, when he does speak, he only winds up the fans and he knows it. This is a man who is in control of his future and in no way should that be the case. Anyone who can argue against that is living back in the glory days. What we’ve consistently failed to do on a competitive level is a sackable offence. I don’t care if he got us through the tough times, and I appreciate what he did but he’s had long enough and I hold no loyalty to an individual who holds no loyalty to the fans. If he truly cared, he would see what’s happening and he would fall on his sword. Not all stories end how you want them to, no matter how much you try to change or control that, and Wenger isn’t an exception. He is human and he will fail, and his reign will come to an end. He cannot stay on a year, and then another in hope of having a glorious ending; he should see, like we see, based on history and the present situation, that he cannot and will not have that glory. Perhaps that is what drives him mad, his own failure.
A true lover of the game and of our club would step down, so we could have that glory once again. Even if takes a season or two, put the things in place and let us be ruled by someone else. Wenger will be remembered, he will always be thanked and he will go down in history, but - as the old men down the pub say - ‘every dog has its day’. The era of Wenger is over, the revolution is here and if the fans fail, the sadness will never end.
The Protest Group behind the marches and the plane over West Brom have set up a Twitter account@NoNewContract and more actions are planned, for which further funding is needed. You can donate here if you wish to help out, and keep an eye on their Twitter feed if you want to get involved with future plans, both in person and online.
