I'm still pissed off about Wednesday night but I'm starting to calm down now... it was a bizarre day and night and the whole thing is going to take a while to settle in. I meant every word I said – that was the anger I felt immediately after the match. I live 3 minutes from my seat so I got the laptop out the second I got home and vented it.
This is, in a way, is the pain of supporting Arsenal... although this was a new type of pain to me.
I know that Wenger has done a lot for our club and I understand and have to accept the way he works... although part and parcel of that is that Wenger is in it entirely for himself – this is no bad thing as his motivations are for the good of the club – he wants to play the best football, he want's to keep the club economically viable and he wants the team and the club to win trophies... above all, it seems, he want's to change the face of football, not for us – for him and Arsenal is his symbiotic vehicle. This is diametrically opposed to the parasitic type of 'self motivation' that can be laid at the feet of Harry Redknapp and his style of football management.
For this reason Arsené is a living Arsenal legend up there with the likes of Chapman and he deserves his bronze bust and future pubs in and around the area to be named after him.
What I have heard from many supporters of the club over the last few days is the desperate need to rationalise and deny the events of Wednesday night... a popular and recurring theme is that foreign players do not recognise the importance of a derby match. This is not true... Henry, for instance, absolutely knew the importance of the games against Tottenham – one of my favourite pictures if of him sliding on his knees at the Tottenham crowd, his face exploding with adrenaline; giving each and every one of them the eyeball. Despite the fact that he was one man and they were the epitome of the 'angry mob' (and the Tottenham mob isn't shy do dish out a bit of violence) – he shone out with invincibility and they all knew that they were beaten. It was real and happening. You can see in the picture that some of them, grown men, are crying... this is the beauty of tragedy – his brilliance was undeniable and in the face of it the mob were left mute, atomised and powerless to touch him.
That's what the north London derby means to the fans – and this is the tribal nature of football. This is the soul of our game and this point of crossover from our animal instinct to our human reason is the essence of enlightened competition. This is something that anyone can understand regardless of their nationality or upbringing. I work with English, Nigerian, French and Chinese Arsenal fans and English, American, Israeli Tottenham fans and they all understand and subscribe to the importance of the derby. These are the people we work with, the people we see every day and when the season ends these are the people that we have to rationalise, compare and brag about the relative merits of our game. If we win nothing this season then at least we can say that we gave Tottenham hiding that they were due (and vice versa)... although sadly – these days I seem to work with as many Manchester United and Liverpool fans as I do Tottenham and Arsenal... strangely – not many Chelsea fans though as they all seem to drive white vans and taxi cabs for a living.
I had a dream Wednesday night, a strange dream; I dreamt that I took two new born babies out of my freezer to thaw – they were twins and one was stillborn and resigned to death while the other became animated and returned to life as I poured warm water over him – he had a strength that wouldn't die and wanted to live to be with me.
I don't know what that means... but I know it means something.
Before the game I met up with PieFace and various members of the Intelligentsia group in the Herbert Chapman for some beer and singing. The place was alive and heaving; the bouncers were checking everyone for colours (something that they don't normally do in the Chapman on match day as it's so deep in Arsenal territory), I was greeted with:
"Are you To… I, Err - Are you Arsenal? Show me your shirt!"
The Bouncer, and enormous skinhead form somewhere Eastern Europe, realised that he nearly accused me of being 'Tottenham' but, besides towering over me (and I'm 6 foot & 14 stone) and having 3 geezers as backup stood behind him; he looked appologetic, nervous and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the potential incendiary of a faux pas, that was thankfully caught in his throat, in what was the 'tinderbox' atmosphere of the Chapman that night.
A firm was in and nobody was going to fuck with those boys... I've never seen them before but ColonelDecker told me that he saw them at the West Ham match they tried so start a fight with the Hammers lot and when that didn't work they went for the police, Decker saw one of them (the ringleader it seemed) nick a pair of hand cuffs off a policeman, maybe it's a trophy or something - the gooners, the herd; I don't know who they were, maybe a new lot? I think we'll be seeing a renascence in hooliganism and violence on 'what were' the terraces over the next few years... times have changed and people are getting angry.
Personally, unlike a proper riot, I think that hooliganism is all a bit homo-erotic... grown men struggling to come to terms with their sexuality and masculinity need an outlet that gives them that man-on-man contact that they so desperately crave... It wouldn't take much for a pre-arranged fight between two firms to turn into a gay orgy – just throw in some KY and poppers. Would that be so obscene? Would it be more obscene than them kicking the shit out of each other? And what would the riot police do to break them up – there wouldn't be anything in the training manual, that's for sure?! Afterwards they could compare fashion tips and the relative merits of Stone Island cardigans verses Aquascutum overcoats in a bundle. Hey – maybe that's what the handcuffs were for – a proper kinky cuffed up man love session post match!
Of course - I'm not going to tell them that, no sir – they are big, angry and proper scary geezers and I'd end up in the Wittington eating soup through a straw.
We left the Chapman at a bad time – it had pretty much cleared out as everyone was making their way to the stadium, we emerged to quite a bizarre scene. I was on the pavement on the Holloway road that I have trodden a thousand times before... except I was surrounded by the aforementioned firm singing some anti-Semitic Tottenham song. There were many police mulling around trying to shepherd them off towards the stadium for kick-off. Suddenly – it all did kick off. These boys knew the route that the Tottenham fans were taking on the way to the stadium and it was right past the Chapman, that's why they were here – and I swear that I have never seen the away fans come this way before as the away supporters pub is the other side of the stadium, Drayton Park way... I think this lot were marching down from Seven Sisters and they were led and followed by riot police vans and flanked by coppers.
On cue – the Arsenal lot went mental and attacked them with a stash of glass bottles that had been gathered from outside the off licence and bins. Bemused and fascinated I just stood there and watched – the energy was amazing... and it's always fun to see a riot copper take a half empty bottle of WKD blue to the face – after all, nobody becomes a riot policeman for a quiet night out and they seemed to love it as much as the two groups of opposing fans... the Tottenham lot looked a little concerned – but they had a plan and moved to flank the pub to cut us off. I turned around to see PieFace and the rest of the ASI doing what can only be described as 'getting the fuck out of there' – at that precise point all the cops who were mulling about organised themselves in a rear guard line behind the trouble and whipped out their extendable batons, holding them aloft in a 'I'm going to fucking twat you with this' gesture... they had a little metal bobble on the end and I was in no doubt that they would proper fucking caine if you were struck with one. Fascinating and addictive as it was from a socio/animal, and indeed, military perspective, reason kicked in and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stuck my back to the shop window of 'Franchi Locks and Tools' and snaked my way around the corner past the coppers and shuffled off towards the stadium... It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognise danger when it is close upon you.
That's what the north London derby means to the fans.
So – what happened next on that Wednesday night was well... a bit of a let down to be honest. We gave it up and let them draw and it seemed that key members in the team were in on it. The jury is out on RvP and Walcott as they seemed to have been taken off for trying too hard. But as for Almunia, Gallas, Fabregas and Adebayor... well – I know what I saw and there had better be a good reason. Wenger must have given the orders... after all – this wasn't a case of a rouge agent, at the end of their career dropping the ball accidentally on purpose two matches in a row before being dropped for the rest of the season and sold on... Lehman.
At the end of the game Gallas and Almunia might as well have stood either side of Lennon and held his hands before swinging him '1, 2, 3 - wheeee' toddler style at the ball to give Tottenham the equaliser. It was clear that nobody cared, and nobody was trying – it was a bit of a jog around goal fest in which nobody gets hurt... fucking theatre – the trouble outside the Chapman was the only competition I saw that evening; I might as well have stayed home and watched East Enders... at least the acting would have been slightly more convincing.
Now – I can take an agreed draw under certain circumstances i.e. if we are in the group stages of a cup competition such as the Champions League and both teams only require a point to go through to the knockout stages. It makes sense to save your energy for the league; it's a dead game so if everyone is in agreement get the draw and keep something in the tank - like when we played Porto in the CL 2006 giving CSKA Moscow the Wafer cup spot... but in the league, well – one wonders what we were promised in return for making 'Arry an instant fucking hero with the deluded mug scum at our expense... one of the only up-sides to that game was that all but 3 of the Tottenham supporters in the away end had fucked off home in the 85th minute so they couldn't really rub it in. It is a busy schedule, yes, and we have Stoke away with Rob Styles officiating next which may be a physical and bent match... so I would guess a training session (with a spectacular goal count to give everyone a 'good show') for 1 guaranteed point here, in return for 3 in the return match at the Lane, might be the logical and long term route to the title?
We play Tottenham away at an interesting point in the season (see some previous post regarding Chinese New Year) so, I suppose, mathematically it would make sense with regards to a title challenge.
But that is not the point – the point is that the game on Wednesday night, regardless of winning trophies, is one of the matches that we all look forward to and it was reduced to the level of Pantomime...
...Wenger had better have a fucking plan up his sleeve to erase the memories of that game from my mind. This kind of corruption, however well intended is a slippery slope on which the idealism in the young players and fans disappears – it's seeds like this that can grow in a their minds throughout their adulthood and bloom into something ugly.
If this is the game that we are now playing then, quite frankly, the pretty football just isn't enough... the reason has overbalanced the instinct at the expense of the competition.
If this is the way we are going to play it, I want to see actual results or I'm leaving... and even if we do win something this way – the taste of victory will be a bitter/sweet moment.
