Could it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time re-written every line?

 

Imagine if you will that Arsenal was just a football club. Those munitions workers who clubbed together 125 years ago envisioned that their humble idea would grow and a football club would form and thrive with the Corinthian spirit and togetherness at its heart. Let's further imagine that Herbert Chapman believed that you couldn't stop progress and that he would ensure that Arsenal were at the forefront but still do things in the Arsenal way. Let's assume that after the war the Arsenal supporter that attended games week in week out during fallow times was happy and saw things for what they were content that the club they followed was real to them. Is it a stretch to imagine that in the seventies and eighties Arsenal were up and down but retained the Arsenal way and had players that supporters could still relate to.
The Graham era; could it be that we all loved the bloody mindedness and the notoriety. Could that time have been a period where Arsenal’s fortunes fluctuated but with trophies in the mix and some heroes that behaved badly from time to rime.
Didn’t we all think that the Wenger glory years were the start of a new Arsenal? Traditions in place and a spirit of joie de vivre along with real men in red and white.

And here we are now and virtually all those things we imagined seem just that; figments. But they weren't, they were true. Is it because football itself has become an avaricious behemoth? Is it because of SKY, EUFA, FIFA and market forces? Hard to say but one thing is evident at Arsenal Football Club, never have so many of the people that make a Football Club live and breath been so disenfranchised. Those people are of course the supporters.

Fact is right here right now that past reflected upon seems a million miles away.



Arsenal Time capsule placed 28/10/04