At the moment no real football fan can see the end of Chelsea’s dominance. True it has only been a season and half but the putrid fare served up by this impersonation of a typical ‘93-94 George Graham team makes it seem like 10 years, as they are slowly strangling real competition out of the Premiership. Football was starting to move on with slick passing and some teams trying to copy Arsene’s thoroughbreds, however we are at present entering a “dark era”. What set me off on this matter was another goal by Frank “deflection” Lampard. How much more luck can this team glean from football? Deflection is the leading goalscorer for Sloane Rangers but if you can stay with me I will give you an encouraging glimpse of the future.

One day a young vibrant Arsenal team full of the “right stuff” will arrive in West London and inflict a defeat on CFC that will kick out a foundation stone from that South Sea bubble. How do I know? The history of AFC tells me so; the following are examples of our real role in British football.

Before Arsenal rose to the citadel in the 1930’s football was a “cloth cap” game like rugby league, parochial and dominated by northern teams who won all the top division titles. Football needed restructuring and “The Arsenal” did just that - every modern day feature of football came from Arsenal (you know the list: numbers on shirts, 45 minute clocks, physio equipment etc. etc).

Every successful team from that point on modelled themselves on Arsenal, it was a rebranding of the game far above anything Sky or the Taylor report ever did. We changed it forever, more importantly we made football a national game allowing other southern teams to properly challenge northern dominance. Having brought evenness back into the game we stood back to allow others to partake in the wonderful “golden era” of the fifties, then we awoke from our slumbers in the sixties as Leeds were introducing a sinister side to football that had to be removed and AFC were instrumental in ending their period of dominance, unfortunately only to let in Liverpool. We all know what happened in 1989 - the Liverpool invincibility was exposed, as a team of lions drove the whole Liverpool eleven back into their own penalty area in those wonderful last 20 minutes in which John Barnes was playing centre half. Watch the whole 90 minutes again and you will understand our real role in football. True they won it again in1990 but humiliation is not in our remit, Liverpool’s demise then let in Man U, cue Arsene, first came ‘98, then again on another northern ground, the battling performance of 2002. A title given up in 2003 was more of a severance to Sir Alex (Our remit is not to humiliate), 2004 was just game set and match and the cup final win was the letter informing Mr Ferguson that his time was up and there will be no more titles for him or Man U. In ending Man U’s period of dominance we have unfortunately given Chelsea a clear run for the next few years.

However if Arsenal can break up dynasties of correctly run clubs like Liverpool and Man U, the Chelsea situation, where immoral millions are paid every month in salaries to players with money stripped from a people whose life expectancy is in the mid 60’s, money that should be spent on health, housing, better education and raising the standards so that a hard pressed people can join the wider world communities, the bringing down of this regime is “tailor made” for a Arsenal team fully aware of its role in football.

We are the “barometer” for football, like Britain is to Europe and Cromwell was to Parliament. We have no peers or equals, we stand to the side of football, viewing and observing and coming to correct any excesses. So when the day comes and Chelsea are put back in their box and as sure as God made little apples they will be, we will probably allow in another team as we are never the main benefactors of our exploits. It seems it is as the protectors and regulators of the game we are meant to be.