The Little Man Fights Back Arsenal Fans Are Revolting
Full house
By Celine Dion
May 16 2011
Two years ago a return bus fare to the next town cost £3.50. But being the only bus company in town, the bus company stuck the fare up 40p. Then less than a year later, it did it again. They are a monopoly you see, they can do they like. The train to London, on the other hand, costs me £15.60 for a travel card. It’s just gone up two pounds. Due to the extreme logistical difficulties the people of my town would have in building their own railway line to London, the train company can do what it likes as well.In my local supermarket, a small packet of cashew nuts costs £2. Cashew nuts! A bag of toilet rolls and a Mars bar costs the best part of a fiver. That is just under an hours’ pay for a very significant proportion of the British public – if they can find a job.
Growth of the Super Corp
Why is the price of everything going up, except peoples’ wages? Well, the country needs economic stability and growth you see. Why is half the country on temporary contracts, why are people working unpaid overtime and working their annual leave? It’s to protect our future, you see, and our economic growth. Anyone who can’t see that the future of humanity depends on everybody working 6 days a week and paying half their wages in tax so that the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland can give himself a 2 million pound bonus is a wrong thinking COMMUNIST as far as I am concerned.
Of course, there is very little about much of this that the little man (or
woman. Ed) can do. You have to pay your taxes, or they put you in prison. You
have to go on the bus or train, unless you want to stay in the same place all
the time.
As corporations merge into super corporations, they become more powerful than government, and trying to boycott one in favour of another becomes meaningless. The Corporation act means that a company has a legal duty to provide MAXIMUM RETURN for its shareholders. As monopoly increases, this becomes easier and easier to do. Make no mistake, we are entering the era of a new feudalism if this carries on.
Sightseeing
and Marching
I couldn’t go on the march yesterday, because I was meeting some people who
support another club, but strangely enough I had to take a (rather expensive)
bus through North London to Finsbury Park. The bus route turned out to be a bit
of a sightseeing tour of the Arsenal pubs. The Highbury Barn, the Bank of
Friendship, the Gunners, the Twelve Pins. Outside each one there were men and
women enjoying the ritual of a home game. Even though the game was largely
meaningless, there were generations of Arsenal fans enjoying the sunshine,
pints of lager, a quick trip to the Arsenal fish bar, standing on street
corners, smoking, talking about the (decidedly average) team. This is what
Arsenal fans do, they were doing it fifty years ago and I hope they will be
doing it fifty years from now. You need it every two weeks, given the general
b*llocks we have to put up with in every other walk of life.
Fans are revolting
We all know what happened yesterday. For some reason, a combination of the BSM March, the 6% seat price rise and the disgraceful silver membership increases, beer, and Marcus Bent banging in two quick goals (he’s a 25 million pound striker, that’s what they do), and the whole house of cards came crashing down. The whole carefully constructed veneer of a happy successful football club following a noble project fully supported by rapturous and adoring fans came peeling off rather quickly. By the end of the game, in front of a live Sky TV audience, the natives were revolting. The ‘6%’ your having a larf song was ringing round the ground.
So immensely cr*p was our performance, that I abandoned my seat for much of the first half and some of the second, and wandered the concourses, talking to several fans who had decided to drown their sorrows. The story was the same from all of them – people who had followed the club for years, had hoped to bring their kids, but who were having to cut down, give up memberships, were thinking about stopping going. There was a feeling of great sadness around the ground. And although some of it was about the team, and their propensity to play so very badly every April and May, it was about far more than that.
Some of it, I think, was sadness for Wenger. There are very few people that
don’t have some kind of respect or admiration for the man. He’s made a few c*ck
ups, put too much faith into his project, and I have a suspicion that yesterday
may just have broken him.
I am fully aware of the horror with which the AKB’s would have viewed
yesterday. The sanctimonious patronising stuff you get on the internet. ‘Glory
hunters’, ‘If you don’t like it don’t go’. All staple AKB retorts designed to
belittle and embarrass fans, a lot of us from years back, who have, at last, found
their voice. There also seem to be another breed of fan, the ‘BKBs, or ‘Board
knows best’s. People, no doubt, who bow down to the spectre of ‘economic
growth’ in their everyday lives.
Well, yesterday was a big kick in the nuts for the lot of you. It’s not about Wenger anyway, he’s just a front man. Nor is it about the players. I make no excuse for the fact that I spent the second half agitating against the board, apologies if I upset anyone near me. The 6% song was sung long and loud, and when the club read out the attendance, everyone just dissolved into laughter.
There’s nothing that sums up the banal happy clappy everything’s just great plastic corporate world of modern day Arsenal, than pretending that 60,000 people have turned up when they patently haven’t. Yes, we are all well aware of the argument that the club are just saying how many tickets were sold. Whatever. Why not just say how many people are in the ground. That’s what any normal club would do.
Actually my favourite bit was something that has gone largely unnoticed. Chamakh,
in his first meaningful piece of action since Christmas, stuck the ball in the
net, and suddenly these bloody great flags sprung up at the front. Then the
goal was ruled offside and they had to be put away again. Here’s an idea
Arsenal, stop spending money on silly gimmicks to boost atmosphere. Stick a
better team out, avoid extortionate price rises, and the fans will do that for
you.
Anyway, at the end, I came down and clapped the players. I don’t have anything
against them. Some are too young, some have been overworked due to lack of
cover, some shouldn’t be at such a big club, and some are very very good. And
Squillaci is @#$%&. I’m not going to have a go at them any more than I
would get onto a bus and punch the bus driver for putting the seat prices up.
I’m not one of those people who purport to be able to do their job better than
Arsene Wenger. Money gives you options, and despite all the bluster about this
being the best squad ever, this is a squad short of top class options. But I do
know this, we’re paying more for our cheaper season ticket than Man United’s
most expensive one. And their lap of honour will include the premier league
trophy.
Look, I don’t personally care whether the Arsenal find the level of the 1980’s.
Or 1960’s. You still get your day out; you still get to take your kids. You
will still have your heroes. You can still go to the Highbury Barn and the
Gunners. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of not going, or maybe going
less, or watching a conference side.
Like many people I have not had a pay rise in 4 years and could be made redundant at any minute. But then I thought, no, why should I pack it in, I was here first, before any of these money skimming liars took over. I know when I am being mugged off, and yesterday was the day that about 40,000 other Gooners woke up to it as well. It was a glorious blow to the super-capitalist elite, live on their own TV channel. And if the club doesn’t get more honest about its objectives, its financial capabilities, stop passing failure off as success, moving goalposts, and stop fleecing fans, then I’m going to carry on, just the same, because yesterday was the beginning, not the end.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011:05:22:19:16:30 by Padre Pio.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
I know two people who didnt go and didnt have time to reorganise selling tickets. So that was two paid for, but empty seats. Some people are suspicious of that they think the club is lying.
What has to be asked is why dont people believe the club? Is it because most of what comes out of the club is lies?
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
unlike in other eras when we had lean times there was no mass media, no internet, no every tom dick and harry with a keyboard giving there opinions on who is to blame and who is lying, who is fleecing us, who is the answer etc,
25 years ago here in Ireland I often had to wait till the saturday or sunday to see if we had won a midweek game, no match result or report in the papers, no mention of it on radio or tv, even sometimes like in 79 when result of fac 3rd round replay was wrongly given as they printed score at time of going to press, or in GG time here when a game than ended 7-1 to arsenal over sheffield wednesday was given as 1-1 as no update was sent over the wires and it was not till five hours later I got to see we had won. I think it made us keener, we actually talked face to face more about the game, we watched every game in tv no matter who is was and we learned more understanding of the game when this was combined with how also we would read everything about any game of our club we could and anything on any big game.
Now everything is either fantastic or a disaster, everything has to be yesterday, we can all voice our opinions and we are sure to find others who will agree, that makes us feel better, smarter, important, jeez the truth is even in some cases when you come across someone with total opposite opinion it can have an uplifting effect on you, as their stupidity and lack of knowledge on what they talk about proves you are superior, its the x factor generation thing, now now now.
The little things are made as important as the big things, yesterdays march should have been more concerned about the big things like ticket prices, and the club improving and not have bothered with things like the petty squabble the have with Hill-Wood, partly cos of that kind of culture we find ourselves talking about tickets sold compared to bums on seats, instead of the bloody disgrace it is that tickets have gone up 6.5%
but I will once again take you to task on your "arsenal.com bubble", this is again detracting from the real issue, why do we get this go at Arsenal.com, its not like anyone else does it different, I've never seen any clubs website do anything different, no club looks at the down, positives have to be found, now i have not checked it out but I'd be pretty sure even the west ham website have some positives on there today, probably along the lines of a new manager will now have the chance to rebuild us in an easier league and bring us back to the top even stronger, and with our new olympic stadium coming on line soon the future is looking better"
i can remember longs periods withot trophies - 1953 t0 1970.
But people didnt think the club was lying, but they were lied to, usually the crowd was underestimated, that way round and no other 70,000 was always 63,000, and when only 4000 turned up they didnt lie. But not the spin we get now - best squad ever! Come on - if its the best squad ever you expect at least one pot?
This is the worst squad ever under Wenger because the points and goals conceded will be the poorest.
Nor have prices been as high as this historically. The kids I teach cannot go the match, they cant have season tickets.
Yes I can afford it, but most locals cant. But hey who cares the demographic is 48 years old and rising, because youngster s cant afford. But who cares you can watch it on telly, watch it in the pub. But one day you will be watching an empty stadium.
It will look as souless a serie A
Are those people who chanted against the board all wrong - they are wrong and the board is right. A bunch of cowboys who have asset stripped the club and inflated their share values. Oh yes lets go with the board, the fans have to be wrong
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Again I stress the big issues need to be addressed and stupid little asides like is it bums on seats or seats sold, and hill-wood has to go cos he said we were stupid to question wenger on football matters, oh how precious we are,
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Arsenal are probably no different to anyone else in the spin and positive announcments,but people will only buy a poor product so many times.
HaHaHaHa
Since the end of WW1, 1919, when the FA restarted its 4 tier football league, with Arsenal fc in the 1st div, there’s only ever been one club to have never been relegated from Div 1/ EPL.
Arsenal fc
Let’s keep making history
Same was you keep saying 'well thats only what other football clubs would do'. Yes indeed mate, its not just Arsenal thats been hijacked by a load of c*nts, its everywhere else too. But here we talk about Arsenal. Same as the ground announcements. Dont pretend you are so daft that you dont know the reason why Arsenal announce the attenandce as tickets sold. Everybody knows a full ground is concurrent with a succesful team and an empty one, not so much. Yes indeed, there are plenty of reasons why you might announce the overall sales price. But do you think the punters in the ground want to know that figure? No, of course they dont, they want to know how many c*nts turned up, like the olden days. Theres a way of spinning everything mate, same way George Bushes official casualty figures for the iraq war didnt include people killed in explosions (check it). Its the world we live in, if your big and powerful you just make up the rules as you go along.
People who say ' this bit doesnt matter, that bit doesnt matter' are missing the point. Its an overall portrait of a greedy football club that in the space of less than 20 years have gone from a pretty decent humble family outfit with great tradition, to a w*nky faceless spin-engine whose corportate integrity is pretty much on a par with British Gas/RyanAir or whoever.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
I think that perspectives on the club are dictated by age and its true that The Grove is beautiful but I miss Highbury and not just because I could afford it but because what it lacked in beauty it more than made up for in charm and in those days it felt like our club, it felt like home.....................at The Grove I feel like an unwanted guest, like a working man at a rich mans party being followed around by security to see if I'm stealing the family silver on the sly when it was me who built the f'uking house...........................I give up !
1 most people paid cash on the gate (tax fiddle)
2 Policing is worked out to amount of attendance less crowd meant estimations for similar fixtures were lower and less police employed so money saved, I can only assume these figures are more accurate now with more season tickets and online bookings. Giving the attendance as that and not tickets sold is ridiculous though and open to ridicule it is yet another part of the modern game that is completely stupid
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:05:19:22:51:38 by Padre Pio.
So much for the much vaunted (aka spun) self sustaining model??
So how is this different from the Glazers at Man Utd. They are actually winning the odd pot as well as making tonnes of money.
What would have been wrong with an Abu Dhabi sheikh who has so much money he does not care about profit just winning. Man City?
No we are programmed to look down on all that as not up to our noble standards. Time to wake up fellas.