Back at last…

Dear Tony and Untolders,

It has been a while since you heard from me.

Tony wrote a nice summary of our match against City and published it on the site. I really liked it.

As Tony said I was on the beach. Not the Arsenal beach where the subs are placed as we do like to call the substitute bench but this time a real beach. With sand and water. And a bright sun. And deep blue water from the Mediterranean.

I must say that in all my more than 35 years of following the Arsenal over land and sea I never had such an experience. And it made me think about it.

If 35 years ago on that cold but sunny afternoon in 1979 someone would have told me that I was going to be able to follow a match of Arsenal sitting on the beach with my feet in the water in the South of France I would have declared him crazy. How would that have been possible? By phone? You needed a long wire then.

But 35 years later on an English supporter would keep me updated about the match without a wire. Just two impressive i-phones or whatever the latest name for them is. They link me to the world from wherever you are. I must say that sitting on the beach waiting for the phone to buzz is more draining than sitting in the stadium. Because you really have no clue of what is going on. As Tony in his half time report announced that we were behind the nerves kept creeping in.

And my god it took an awful lot of time before Tony suddenly could text me we were 2-1 up. And then came the most nervous moments… would we keep the lead or not? At the end we couldn’t. But a 2-2 against a team that will be near the top when the title will be decided in May is not too bad. Mind you I still have to see the whole match. And the Leicester match to do my review.

Sitting on the beach meant of course I wasn’t able to do any reviews. But they will come. Don’t worry.

Thanks again for the reports Tony and your article.

When I came home Sunday evening I was determined to start a review on Monday morning. But alas life got in the way. The fact that we have a CL match in Dortmund playing a big part.

As chairman of the Arsenal Belgium supporters club I now have a bit more responsibility to fulfill. And I am grateful for my board members to arrange a lot when I was away. But as soon as I got back lots of decisions had to be made.
And sacrifices. Because we have to collect the tickets in Dortmund in person at a hotel between 2pm and 3pm.   I suddenly had to change my travelling plans and prepare to leave in the morning. Oh, the hard life of a chairman of a supporters club…

So I will be in Dortmund for the whole afternoon. I will try to attend a meeting of he German Gooners who are holding a party in the afternoon in Dortmund. So if anyone goes there you might join us. It is at the Ritterstrasse 20.
And then I will go to the stadium to wait for the other members who will arrive between 18-19 hours. They will need their tickets to get in of course. Tickets I will be holding in my pocket the whole afternoon.

I think I will have a lot of talking points when I get back after the match. You can expect a full match report of course. And a pre-match report. And a food report. I hope they have made sure that there will be enough Bratwurst for me as I feel hungry.

Being more than a week away from Untold was difficult. And the fact that the wifi at my residence was bad made it even worse. I was more off line than on line and after a while I had to stop because I got worked up about it as I couldn’t read the articles (I still have a lot of catching up to do) and that isn’t what it is supposed to be like on holiday.

So in case you missed me…I missed you to. All of you. Well not all of you to be honest. Looking at some recent comment sections. If you know what I mean. But most of you I did miss.

But I will try to make up for it in the next day’s whenever I can find the time.

So I will now have to stop my little letter to Tony and you as I have to prepare myself for the Dortmund match.

See you soon, or maybe even in Dortmund.

Kind regards

Walter Broeckx
Always on the road for the moment….

Next time out for a member of the Untold team: Tony’s going to Australia to see one of his daughters, in November.

• Back at last…
• Hey I’ve got to write about Arsenal. Quick, what’s the crisis?
• Five things we learned this weekend and a few we didn’t.
• Match fixing: for the threat to be faced it needs just one major footballing country to leave Fifa