ARSENALISM©

Now that Man Utd have reached the Champions League final at wem-ber-ley the media is going Eng-er-land daft; Scholesy and Wazza, Rio and Carrick. The old Busy Babes chestnut comes out once again. ‘King’ Kenny and his Anfield revolution are also to the fore; next year they could really be back in the big time (apparently). No two clubs are as revered as Man Utd and Liverpool. Busby and Shankly, Paisley and Ferguson; all put on the pedestal of football myth. Post war these two clubs have dominated and had their share of tragedy (and yes they are real tragedies) that has unified sympathy and created an air of myth. This is the modern football landscape that the great and the good refer to when eulogising. The architects of the English game. Before these two clubs, before the Scottish ‘legends’ there was a club that were the greatest in the world. A club adored by Kings and the good and the great. The Bank of England club. The innovators. The cream of the crop. That club was Arsenal Fo...

George Graham bequeathed to Arsene Wenger a handful of giants but he also delivered unto us a truly mundane recollection of wet weekends against Wednesday and cold afternoons against Coventry. The wonder years when I actually attended a lot of away games was during the 0-0 era of Grahams tenure. ah, just to see these faces and the white badged adidas shirts is a reminder of the good old grey days. For every tut and groan heard at the emirates there should be a shrug and smile and the simple comment " You should have been watching Arsenal when..."