Don McMahon
Being an Arsenaloholic
Season after season, week after week, month after month, Cup after Cup, run-in after run-in I stay glued to the TV or computer alternately surmounted by euphoria or equally often pummeled into an abyss of despair. Where does this Gooner addiction come from and what are its consequences?
Take right now for example…I can’t decide whether Clichy sauntering over to our Northern reserve club for a mere 7M sterling , is a good thing or a bad thing. Is it possible that its both? I mean everything about the Arsenal lately is ambiguous, debatable, uncertain, fluid, like quicksand. With this dichotomy comes a certain instability and loss of focus….I am losing touch with the Arsenal reality and like a bi-polar individual, feeling moments of etheral bliss and the next moment plumbing depths even the most ardent Gloomy-doomy Gooners fail to reach.
Let me give you a perfect example; watching the Arsenal overcome a clearly superior Barcelona team at the Emirates last season was the equivalent of a perfect hit for a meth addict or better still, like a night out with Pamela Anderson with no holds barred(if you’re reading this and are a female Gooner-choose your dream date or gender) but watching the Barcodes, with the able assistance of the referee, come back in a game they should have been out of after 45 minutes, was the equivalent of swallowing a gallon of petrol , shoving a lit match up your nose and sneezing (please do NOT try this at home)!
I have come to the forlorn conclusion that I am an Arsenaloholic, the definition of which is as follows. A deluded and often shambolic individual, of either gender and undefined age (but must be over 6months ), with minimal ambition (other than AFC winning silverware), no fixed address (since I troll from pub to my mates’ sofas and am rarely home), little to recommend him or her other than a new Gunners kit every year and a pathetic, ceaseless hope that the light at the end of the tunnel (the one leading to the Emirates) isn’t another runaway train!
I can’t get enough of the Club, the history, the potential glory, the moments of sheer delirium like our humbling of Real and AC Milan and the aforementioned finger we gave Barca, the killing ground that most blogs have become, the elegance of everything Arsenal, the media scum dissing our Club everywhere and anywhere they can, the three-ring circus that is the Barca-Cesc saga every year, the groans coming from La Cantera (Barca) as we sweep another under 17 talent from their doorstep, the divine one-touch Football, the Spuds Derbies, the MOTD morons, and so on.
This dependence on my Arsenal fix, currently being met by pseudo-intelligent rumours and spurious speculations of summer madness, like Methadone supposedly alleviates a coke addict’s need, is maintaining my mental equilibrium just marginally. THANK God that in an other week I’ll get to see the boys in Red & White amble onto the steppes and rice paddies of Asia to confront their hosts best 11. Frankly I’d be satisfied if they toured Cheltenham wearing busker costumes and kicking a recently decapitated Spuds skull around against a pickup team of retired Aussie cricketers….cricketers, what a dreadful thought!
My spouse, who long ago abandoned any hope of a cure for my affliction, has (perhaps sarcastically?) suggested that I find a real hobby like gardening, swimming and/or lawn-bowling. I did once try all of these but the lifeguard wouldn’t let me take my trowel and bowls into the pool.
Such is life, but on a brighter note, my shrink tells me that her husband is a Spuds fan and that, with significant medication, regular shock treatments and the employment of elephant sized suppositories, she has been able to, on occasion, actually recognize his speech as English and increase his IQ to match his age (45)! There but for the grace of Wenger and Gazidis, go I!
Thankfully and mercifully I have joined a self-help group sponsored by the EPL and the Septic Blatter Foundation for severely disturbed Football fans where we watch videos of Platini and Jack Warner performing unspeakable acts on wax figures of our current FA Board-members, all the while screaming out phrases like Fairplay and Corruption…what Corruption? This therapy, commonly known as bizarre rehabilitation and turgid supplication (BRATS) seems to be having some effect. My wife tells me, in my few moments of lucidity, that I now no longer wake up screaming ¨Buy,Buy you French fop¨ or ¨ Oh Foot ,oh Ball I hear thy call¨ and that at work, my mates have noticed a marked decline in my tendency to wear an arsenal shirt with a tie.
There is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel, now if I could only figure out how I got into this tunnel in the first place?????
Don McMahon
The left back situation: maybe Arsene doesn’t need to buy
The statistical analysis: What would be the best option: Samba or Cahill?
Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal
On the history site: all the Arsenal players who are now coaches or managers
Whats happening the scum (sun) claiming Nasri has signed for Man shitty.
Hi everyone! My name is Odai and I’m an Arsenaloholic!
Nice
Don, I suspect you may be describing more than a few souls. I don’t know if the condition eases or gets worse come August. I’m quite sure however it is incurable, although, as you prove controlable, just.
I think the more uncomfortable symptoms are due mainly to a lack of minerals in the diet. Something an increased intake of silver would certainly help with. Hopefully a supply will be made available by the end of next season. Meanwhile keep taking the tablets.
Great read feel u my friend and @ jayj sun says manc city mirror says he staying and star say chelski all paper talk i believe it when i see it officially
I think everyone is a fan. Tho overly crtical but to be honest can u blame them?
@leeroysgooners
Hope your brother I’m sick to death of all this anti arsenal shit. Not one day passes by that some twat on the radio or paper bashes my beloved arsenal.
FUKING MEDIA.
****1/2
that’s not abuse, it’s stars out of 5.
@dr kox:
I would hesitate to believe that Nasri actually said what you quoted him as saying…Do you have it on video? 🙂
@Don:
LOL.
@dr kox,
it is hard to believe that you are not a doom and gloomier, if your assessment is to be taken seriously then it is certainly a cure for optimism-
you ask for change, any suggestions?
you compare us with the truly too big to fail clubs of Europe without mentioning the real differences, don’t you think that it is significant that Barcelona aren’t paying off debt on a big stadium, or that united are the wrong side of half abillion i debt with no real hope of paying it off? or why united were outclassed by Barcelona despite their winning mentality?
the reason a lot of us come back everyday to untold is because they uphold the integrity that real success demands, patience and a firm adherence to principles. there is nothing the club have done in the last 15 years with which i disagree substantially.
and your point about clichy being sold off, much as i love him we have to grow up and accept that as long as the club continues to survive players will come and go but as long as we stick to our ethos of playing entertaining attacking football the trophies will come, it worked for Barcelona , Spain, Holland and Brazil, it will work for us.
keep the faith, man and trust in the man that brought it to you- remember boring boring arsenal, it can come back you know!
Dr Kox is now on the Comment Black list for plagiarism, posting comments irrelevant to the post…
…And posting the usual AAA, BSM, AFC!PLC bile under several different accounts.
One of these was ‘Terry’, the Manchester United supporter – remember him?
So, yup – I’ve caught another one… or was it more of the same one – TBH it’s hard to tell!
😉
Anyway – please don’t be dragged into the troll agenda and do the authour the respect of staying vaguely on topic… if a seperate discussion forms from that then so be it – these articles are here to promote discussion – what they are not here to do is promote an individual agenda.
Many thanks,
Dec…….I tried taking silver supplements but there were none to be had. I almost got some in Birmingham but by the time I got to the stadium, it was stolen by a load of idiots who got themselves kicked out of the EPL! That said, there is a sort of surcease from watching AFC’s one-touch excitement as we humbled Manure, Cheatski, Barcelona this season. It isn’t a replacement for silverware but it did feel soooooooooo Good!
Thanks everyone for your great responses!
Nasri will stay!!!
Superb Article!!!! Keep it up!!!!…..such articles are a joy to read!! 🙂
Damn!
i love being an arsenalholic, although i must admit the social benefits are rather thin these days, i mean how do you answer some of the negative cretinism that passes for journalism these days? christ, these days most gunners are being panicked into stupidity by the media i must say the only answer is football and boy i cannot wait for the games to begin. then ofcourse another type of arsenal bashing begins but at least we have some evidence to udge against!
@DogFace:
Well done 🙂
A series of posts that have nothing to do with the article have been removed – if yours didn’t appear here that’s probably why.
Which is a shame because this is such a good topic; the way that the club eats into your heart and soul. The way that it can dominate how you behave of an evening, or the next day. I think I was at my worst in my 40s, now having mellowed a little I can take it a little more easily – but not that easily. Maybe it is just the fact that I can remember so clearly being at the Arsenal Leicester game at the end of the Unbeaten season, and being 1-0 down at half time, and shivering uncontrollably. The thought of the crowing that would go on everywhere if we lost the last game. And then to win 2-1 and actually to have gone the season unbeaten, and to have been there at the final moment to see it…
Yes, I think that moment allowed me to retreat just a little from being an utter Arsenalholic. The club still dominates much of my life, but since that moment there has been just that little chink of light that allows me to take the bad times without screaming abuse at the guy who cuts me up in the car on the way to work.
That one memory out of all the others, the tears rolling down my face, as the final whistle went and we were unbeaten all season in the league. I cling to that moment when there is darkness.
Brilliant article to help us forget about all the silly transfer speculations, this article is about our passion for our beloved Arsenal, thank you for this article, there are so many people who are like Don McMahon, I’m not ashamed to be one of them, once a Gooner , always a Gooner !!! Cheers !
Dom,
I remember the Arsenal-Barcelona match also very well. The tension, the intensity, the…. well you know was that much that night. I sat in the bedroom of my Gooner-son watching on his TV so my wife and daughter could see some other silly movie. We were so intense supporting our Gunners that we didn’t realized that we were sweating like the players on the field. And after we scored the winner and made as much noise that we saw all the neighbors coming out of their houses looking who was being murdered my wife also came checking what was the matter with us.
She entered the room, saw our happy faces but then her face turned from relief for us being still alive to disgust: What’s that smell she asked. You smell like pigs. Please go and wash before you come to bed. And then to think that just before the game started I had taken a shower.
So yes I think I am an addict or an arsenaloholic as you name it. I hate the time between two seasons, not only for the rumours but for the fact that we have no games from Arsenal. There is something missing in these dreadful weeks. And yes bring it on, bring on the new season. Who ever will be there to play for us: I will be behind them.
Thank god we are going to Cologne on July 23. And thank God for the internet and Arsenal Tv, sorry Arsenal Player so we can watch the game next week in Asia. That is only a week. And thank God for our sports channel as they will bring the Emirates cup live on TV.
Oh the happy playing days are almost back…
Indeed, those summer months are depressing. No football and then all those rumours to incite the fans. And yet I keep reading that nonsense because of a lack of anything else. Even these days I still spend a considerable amount of (work)time reading about Arsenal. Arsenal is a big part of my life and then I am not even watching all the matches as not that many are broadcast on Chinese tv and getting a good working stream is often a nightmare (amazing that the clubs or the EPL do not offer live streams for all matches actually; there is big money there). On top of, I pass on most CL matches as it is in the middle of the night for me and I will have to work again the next day. Still, I follow Arsenal more closely now than when I was still living in Holland.
Hic!
I for one will not let a Septic Bladder (See what I did there!) or his cronies spoil this bitter sweet obsession I have held with Arsenal over 40 years.
If the great referee in the sky doesn’t red card me any time soon, I expect to be enjoying the agonies and ecstacies for another 40
hibelftashwiki,
i’m saying me prayers (as you read) that the great referee in the sky is not named dowd or webb or walton and we’ll both be enjoying the ride.
Arsenaloholics NEVER need to justify their passion, so if we take stick from friends and coworkers because AFC have bottled a game or the media are wiping their collective posteriors with the latest Arsenal-targeting yellow tabloids then know that you can hold your head high, as no other team seems to be singled out for such intense scrutiny. This is the red badge of courage for us Gooners and a proud symbol of our Invincible love for all things Arsenal!
I think arsenal drive me insane. More so in the last five years. The fact that we can get so close to winning and not win. Aaarrgh
I swear you have described my situation!! good one!!
I’m an Arsenalholic and an Arsenist. A fatal combination.
@Dom,
See what you have started? There is a long queue of gooners shuffling about on the pavement,kicking pebble outside this AA meeting, come in boys it is cathartic- purge your souls of this obsession, and you’ll feel cleansed before we dive in again.
Ahem, confession – i hate it when we don’t have mid week games, even if i think that fighting on all fronts as we do, the players suffer severe burnout and could do with a rest but i want the arsenal so bad i wanna camp out outside the emirates until the next game! arsene forgive me, amen!
Hi All. First time on here. Must say I was impressed with the articles on here. Keep up the good work. Let’s hope it really isn’t all d and g as the media have painted out to be. Another day and nasri still hasn’t signed. The more I think about it the more I see that he will be offski. One can hope
NO place for mercenary types in AFC so Nasri must just p*** off. we`ve got aaron and jack and couple of exciting youngsters in midfield so lets take the profit
@Dom 4:31 – here! here! so beautifully put. Cheers.