By Tony Attwood
I recently saw an article in the national press in which this sentence took me by surprise.
Among English clubs only Chelsea would refuse to swap places with them right now.
Not surprise because I don’t think it is true, but rather surprise because someone in the media actually wrote it. In a world fixated on one match at time and singling out the individual player rather than looking at how teams work, I wondered if at last someone in the media (it was actually Barney Ronay in the Guardian) had woken up to the notion of the club as a club, the team as a team, and the future as a work in progress.
I’m not sure how far Mr Ronay thought this through but there is something in his implication that things are set fair for Arsenal.
1. Most obviously, there is a new team emerging.
The team works, we don’t need multiple new purchases every summer, and the club has retained its historic tradition of stability, which was set aside after the Rioch interregnum.
All the stuff about needing a new defensive midfielder, a complete new defence, a new goalkeeper, a new centre forward – well basically a new team… one day one of the people who wrote all that stuff will admit it was gibberish.
Arsenal’s four pronged approach to putting a team together is a beautiful model and it works magnificently – indeed a lot of other clubs have spent a lot of time seeing if they can do it too (although it is harder than it looks).
It used to be simple: “Doing an Arsenal” meant bringing through a youth team, but now it means …
a) Buying a maestro each summer (Ozil, Alexis)
b) Buying brilliant young players who have started to develop from smaller clubs (Ramsey, the Ox, Theo)
c) Bringing through youngsters (Zelalem, Bellerin, Coquelin, Gibbs, Wilshere)
d) Making inspired buys just at the right time (from Koscielny to Santi Caz, including Giroud, Welbeck, Monreal)
2. As a result a new team is emerging and growing year by year.
I have no idea who we will buy this summer, but I can suggest that next season we might see the first sparkles from some, and development of others. Zelalem, Martinez, Debouchy, Akpom, Gnabry, Haydn, and Jon Toral (currently on loan at Brentford) should all be on our radar. They won’t all come through, but that is one hell of a line up of possibles.
Indeed there’s enough there to make us consider that this is one hell of a squad. And don’t forget Crowley and Maitland-Niles.
3. Arsenal is not using some devious tactic which could be outlawed by Fifa
We don’t have any strange land deals, we are not breaking Fifa or EU regulations on the import of children, we are not taking the loan system to such extremes and then selling players on at such ludicrous prices that someone is bound to ask questions sooner or later, and we are not part of an attempt to by-pass regulations by having a club on every continent.
Blimey, we haven’t even had to get the state to pay for our stadium in the style of Man City and West Ham. We’re not still waiting to start work (in the style of Tottenham) and we’re not desperately trying to shoe-horn a new stadium into an old site (as per Liverpool).
Dodgy dealings and state aid can work well for a while, but ultimately they fall over when someone asks questions. Building a new stadium on a new site is always the best option, and that’s what we got.
4. Arsenal have no plan B. Actually we do.
The notion that a man who as manager could be the only person in the last 125 years to take a top league club through a season unbeaten might be myopic when it came to tactics is so bizarre it doesn’t really need answering.
But just because I’m doing this list, the media’s recent preoccupation with possession statistics shows that Arsenal can play some games conceding possession, and others holding onto it.
Our possession stats have ranged from 65% down to 39%, and we change the team around to meet the moment. That’s what comes from having the squad that can do this.
Let me quote the Guardian on this:
Arsenal can pass long to Olivier Giroud, or play Danny Welbeck in behind. They can attack with that familiar blitz of diffuse sideways passes. They can win without the ball, as they have when Francis Coquelin has excelled this season. More significantly, Mesut Özil was excellent against Monaco, and excellent in a way he hasn’t always been excellent in the past, leading Arsenal’s attacks in the last 15 minutes and seeking out the ball as others tired.
5. We have seen off the negativists and this is a place that players like
Of course the nutters are still out there howling at the moon, that funny little kid who stands near Blacksheep occasionally, with his “enough is enough” t-shirt has wandered back to supporting Wimbledon, and anyway they were never more than five percent of the people in the stadium.
The media is licking their collective wounds and pretending that it wasn’t them that said anything, it was those other funny drunks in the other newspapers or on that other radio or TV station.
Most players know enough about football to recognise that you get the dregs of humanity claiming to be associated with every club, and that the nay-sayers really are just a tiny bunch who will wander off and be miserable somewhere else now.
7. We are on a great run
Around Christmas when the aaa and their allies in the media were all saying Arsenal were doomed for ever, and there were comments of the type we get each year saying, “what you refuse to recognise is that this is the year in which Arsenal sink to mid table obscurity” I printed a copy of the league table for the same point in the second Double season.
Now I wasn’t suggesting that we would win the League and Cup Double for a fourth time but was making the point that I thought this team could come together and do ever more great things.
Five wins in the last five league matches is just what I had in mind.
(I must say though that when the Independent copied the essence of the piece a couple of days later including printing the league table as Untold had done, it really did give me a smile).
13 wins in 15 – not bad.
8. Cup progression as a preliminary to more
The likely outcome of things (but of course never guaranteed) is that we will play Liverpool in the cup final – the two form teams playing each other. It would be wonderful to win it again and of course I hope we do, but moving along from that, this sort of experience is what lifts the whole club.
We are there playing the big games, and I suspect next season, for the first time in a while, even the dubious beings who contribute to our national press and TV debates will start to see Arsenal as true contenders for the title.
I know it always gets sniggers when I point out that if league titles were given for calender years not football seasons, we would have won the league in 2013, but it is a valid point because it shows the growth of the club. Where we are now is a continuation of that development.
9. We held our nerve
While others were screaming and shouting abuse against Wenger, while we had all that gibberish about this being the worst Arsenal start to a season in 30 years, all that stuff about “Arsenal depend on Giroud and he’s useless”, Arsenal as a club held its nerve and kept moving forwards.
I am sure there are some anti-Arsenal-Arsenal people who are about to claim that this was all down to them – that Wenger suddenly took notice of them and did something – but it is worth remembering just how recently it was that they were doing all that stuff about Arsenal being in terminal decline and Wenger should go.
I’m rather proud of Untold. We didn’t waver. Not once.
10. The referees are taking a step back.
But although we are constant, I really don’t go round thinking that football takes any notice of Untold. Of course not.
But just occasionally I see little trends. And I think that our remorseless exposure of refereeing in the Premier League has started to having just a tiny effect. Andrew’s previews are noted, Walter’s post-match analyses are read, and the totally untenable position of PGMO in refusing to publish any data is being questioned.
Hell, the press is actually mentioning PGMO which is a huge step forwards.
I have just read that Chelsea have published an analysis of their perceived lack of penalties this season, and I’ve no idea if they have a case or not. But they are now suggesting something is wrong, and I do think that we have done a lot to raise the profile of refereeing, to get away from the “it all evens out in the end” gibberish, and to put refereeing into the debate.
And from the point of view of Arsenal that can only be good.
So are we the envy of English football? New stadium built and largely paid for, good team getting better, production line youth system, money in the bank, no FFP issues, no dodgy dealings…
Maybe the others won’t admit it yet, but give it another year.
————–
Anniversary of the day (just to remind us how times change).
19 March 1904: Chesterfield 1 Arsenal 0. Despite only three wins out of the last nine from this match on, Arsenal had done enough earlier in the season to win promotion.
Make you right on all points. We are only going in one direction, (and by that, I am not referring to the rather poor band, the type of music Mark Clattenberg gets himself into trouble over) , on and off the field.
As you say, no idea who will sigh this summer, but sadly, think the new ruthless streak could see a departure or two of players I rate highly, but if so, needs must.
We are not there yet, but things are being ironed out.
Agree, next season, without players coming back from the World Cup, hopefully with improvements on injuries, new ways of playing, perhaps a signing or two, and we could well start a real challenge for the Skydamore League, the Champions league as well as the cups.
Somebody do a ref report for Chelsea quick! Check out the bull-crap they put up on their own website. Truly a club with no dignity.
Don’t get too complacent, though.
There are still dark forces about the Ems, willing (say) Usmanov or someone similar to take over and turn us into a lesser Chelski.
Come this summer n with the necessity to buy 3 quality players in the defensive midfielder, striker or the return of Wellington Silva to bolster the attack n a central defender!…. Arsenal will be contenders on all fronts…..EPL, Uefa CL, FA Cup!
Agree with all points except number 4, 1st paragraph.
AW has always depended on his team and not on tactics. The teams were usually good enough to do that. This team we have now were not at the early stages, but they are nearly there, many signs we can see of that.
But lately(end last and this season) he changed and applied tactical approaches, which is good because one who does not change becomes stagnant.
So i for one am real glad that AW is a dynamic and not a static manager, which in my opinion he was heading towards. I know many may dis-agree, but this is my perspective.
Shouldn’t the article be called “Nine reasons Arsenal are the envy of English football”
Never even noticed that #6 is missing. Ha.
In the words of Captain Mainwaring, “Yes I was wondering who would be the first to spot that”
Perhaps 6 was about the fact that FFP (with which we are totally in line) is beginning to have a noticeable effect on the way both Chelsea and Man City operate and those effects are not entirely positive for those two clubs. Relative to both of them we are getting a deal stronger.
10. Chelsea remind me of the classic ‘just when I think you couldn’t possibly be any dumber’ scene from Dumb and Dumber.
Something extremely strange about their behaviour of recent months is that- from Mourinho’s bingo calling, to going on tv for an hour’s campaigning, to interviews with Matic alongside pictures of the challenge he feared would cripple him, to the latest tactic of using social media to discredit pundits and now, finally, questioning penalty statistics on the official site- all of it mirrors legitimate complaints and grievances we have over the last decade.
The most pressing case ever for ‘bingo calling’ of terrible refereeing surely comes from game 50 (though there may be some other cases in the roll of dishonour)
The club who have been targeted by foul play much more than any other, is us.
The club who have actually seen players get their legs broken by horrific challenges, is us again
And the club who, over the last five season’s have a figure of -2 for penalties for and against, even though the are +5 for this season, is us. Chelsea, with 0 (2/2) for this season, remain on +20 over the total period. Who is it doing the complaining, in unprecedented fashion here and perhaps in any other country, not the -2 guys, who finished on minus for three of the five years, but the +20 club.
Feels a bit like the ultimate insult to see them making the protests and complaints we are entitled to make but, for reasons tactical, practical and, surely, moral (imagine if the game descended to every manager behaving like Mourinho, with every club being as unprofessional as to campaign directly about decisions. The game would collapse into chaos), don’t
Bizarro stuff. It is like watching a heinous bully, miscreant and monster of bullshit make perhaps the one move you don’t expect from them- which is to use every means at their disposal, every channel, to loudly insist they are being bullied and mistreated. The mind-boggles about the psyche of these people.
http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Premier_League_Penalty_Statistics.html
Watch this Guardian journalist, Tony. How long will he say nice things about Arsenal before he gets the nod to change his tune? We’ve seen it before …
The great thing is, unlike some other clubs, Arsenal pay no attention to the media. The board has confidence in the manager (rightly so) and lets him get on with his job as only he can.
I like Per Mertesacker’s second interview (on arsenal.com) since the Monaco match. He makes his positive position much clearer. Perhaps he realizes he was stitched up by the media for being too honest in his first post-match interview – and also possibly for using words in a way that was open to misinterpretation, being as English is not his first language.
Enjoyable article.
Interesting how many people have been saying how well Ozil played Tuesday – as B.Ronay does in the Guardian article. Puts the Manchester Worm [aka Scholes] and his Tuesday punditry into perspective.
We really need to stay in the TinPot Cup to the QFs at least next season, as it won’t be possible to give proper playing time to Hayden, Zelalem, Crowley, Akpom, A-N, BOO and others in any of the other competitions. If they don’t ‘kick on’ we may have to sell them on to stop them causing morale issues with the next level coming through…..
Derek, Would the ‘Worm’ say that his comment pushed Ozil into gear?
I agree with Pat. The experienced football hack Mr. Ronay as with his article attempting to defend the virtue of the PGMO officals is a little late to the party here in his belated praise for AFC:
If he genuinely genuinely cared about the integrity of the sport and the reputation of the officals he’d have been asking for Football refs to receive the same support and protection that their colleagues in other sport receive for a while, for years. Because as anyone with two football brain cells to rub together can understand there is no rational or reasonable explanation that can be given to explain the lack of aids in top flight modern Assc.Football, save for garbled illegal messages over the radio from the 4th offical that result in the wrong players being sent off.
Likewise with his efforts to not retain the scorn of AFC fans after his bogus report on a competent official not cowering under the Don’s shadow, for doing their job and knowing the rules, following last weeks FA Cup game. Which is all this article is an attempt at. After all, he needs to keep on appearing on all those podcasts!
John Gregory, former player and PL manager, lifelong Tottenham fan said it last summer:
“Arsenal Football Club represent the best in English Football”
(at the top of the game – i.e. they represent the Dario Gradi’s etc…)
And he’s not the first Tottenham fan I’ve heard say that. Or the last.
I’ve even heard a former owner of Tottenham agree publicly on the telly with this sentiment. People in football know the score, so to speak. Why should we care about what discredited hacks have to say or write?
Football still remains an athletic sport, regardless of the hyper-real surreal vortex inhabited by the celebrity fans and bloggers and these gallant podcastateers.
Which makes that story about the NFL player retiring after a bad/medium concussion far more interesting to me then any gurgles erupting from the Manchester Grunt.
In the spirit of fairness i should add that the ArsenalVision podcast hosted by @meanlean is consistently brilliant and balanced! 🙂
No wonder the likes of Mr.Ronay feel the impertivae to try and to appeal to that massive AFC global audience when a group fans can consistently churn out better more interesting content. In their spare time! 😉
http://arsenalvisionpodcast.podbean.com/
Could there be favouritism towards some clubs?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/11481618/England-could-rest-Liverpool-quartet-for-Euro-2016-qualifier-but-what-will-Premier-League-rivals-think.html
Hi, I really think you guys should do a referee review for Chelsea once in a while just to see if their claims are justified. I dunno if its logistically possible for you guys
God help us… http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/mar/18/howard-webb-premier-league-referees
Next season does look very promising. And my main reason for being so is the preseason.
Next season will be ozils 3rd season but his first after a full preseason with arsenal.
Ozil, alexis and cazorla will have time to train fully together. Where as they are constantly talking to each other during games now, their understanding of each others game should grow and benefit the club as a whole After a full preseason
I like the way Barney Ronay writes. He did a delightful piece on Arsene some time ago which started on the TV gantry at a European Championship match. He isn’t always full of praise, but he writes with a degree of intelligence and lightness of touch that holds the best values of the game at heart. As Cardus (I think) once said, “Who can write of cricket that only cricket knows” and I get the sense with Ronay that his is a wide background too. And yes, I suspect that Cardus borrowed that exceedingly good phrase too.
We have to respect the referees to make their job as easy as possible. It’s difficult for them today as they are criticised a lot
John Carver has been talking to the press. He manages Newcastle, our next opponent. I am guessing that they will wear long sleeves on Saturday, as he has said they will have something up their sleeves. He has also said that he has 13 fit senior players, not counting 2 goalkeepers. Which means he has 15 players. As you are allowed 5 on the bench (?), he only needs to have 1 youth on the bench.
Cheick Tiote is apparently injured, so we shouldn’t have to worry too much about broken bones.
Asked if he is tempted to field young players, the former Toon assistant added: “Saturday is not the environment for young lads, especially against an in-form Arsenal side. It’s not the right time for them.”
I disagree with this statement. You don’t risk young lads against Shawcross, or other excessive goons. If you have young players, you want to play them against Arsenal. They will learn more playing against Arsenal. Sure, you probably need some experienced players there to keep the young lads from ball watching. Let’s hope for a fair game.
—-
Yellow Ribbon
I will wait until Andrew publishes his preview. But it is likely that we will have to get on the officials case, in order to try and get a fair game. If left to their own devices, they are usually picked to tilt matches away from Arsenal in some way.
Jambug has been waiting for this, FA Cup semifinal date released.
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150319/fa-cup-semi-final-date-is-confirmed
5:20pm on Saturday April 18.
I believe there was crowd trouble at a recent FA Cup related game, when the kickoff time was placed later in the day, given people more time to drink EtOH before game time. Obviously the BBC and the FA have learned from that event, and decided to do the exact same thing again.
I know, just cut back on the ticket allocations. That way, there aren’t enough fans at the game to cause trouble. And it means the debt problems of the FA will go on for longer, as it still isn’t making enough money to pay its own way.
How to go FA and BBC!
Oh, looking things up, Liverpool play the next day at 3pm (not 5:20). They get BT Sprout for TV.
Hopefully the pitch will be in good shape for us.
TheFA says TV by BBC. Arsenal.com says TV by Sky Sports. Anyone else also carrying the game?
@Tony, great write up even if there is only 9! I agree Arsenal are or at least try to be the ideal club in England. The club is financially secure, promotes youth, plays attractive football, buys top players without any real major misses like other clubs (United – Falcao, Liverpool – Carrol, Chelsea – Torres, etc.) which is probably why Arsenal gets so much hate from the media and pundits.
@Rich, you know what’s interesting in those penalty stats? Before this year, the last time Arsenal actually got more penalties for than against was the 2007-2008 season, we were even in 2008-2009, and then every year until this year we had more penalties against than for. But sure, Mike Riley taking over in 2009 just happens to be a coincidence.
Gord, They’ll be bringing on some Iron bars and knuckle dusters stuffed up their sleeves.
So our semi-final, apart from being at the one time I can’t make that weekend, is also a head-to-head against Chelsea v Man Utd (KO 5.30pm).
How unbelievably stupid are our broadcasters (BBC in particular in this case).
But surely, knowing there would be two semi-finals this weekend, they could have all got together and agreed a schedule months ago?
Absolute madness.
Gord
Thanks my friend, holiday booked !!
Pete, the Mirror has a dumb article, nominally talking about how stupid this double booking is. What if some other TV network puts on Dancing or Opera? Is anyone going to watch either game? 🙂
@Jerry. Not surprised to hear that.
The numbers guys (one of them’s got a name up there with Szcz’) who’ve done a couple of football books on the subject did a chapter or two on penalties, and one of the things they studied was whether or not there’s truth in home- or big- team advantage; they concluded no and that the decisive thing in pens is which team is best/ does the most attacking.
So, over time, the teams who are best at attacking will score goals, be high up the table and win pens.
In short, because of random elements in football (and the sort of stuff that goes into the warnings about making conclusions from small sample sizes) it’s not impossible that one of the better teams in the league will have a funny year for penalties; maybe if it’s a particularly odd year, they’ll be in the negative- but the run we had?
I’d guess across all leagues over time, it happens something between 1 in 8 or 1 in 15 times that one of the best teams, top four say, finishes equal or minus in pens for/against. 6 years in a row for the same club, finishing in that league position each time, is stretching credibility (of it being down to randomness,etc) to the max, or quite a bit beyond that.
I don’t know about this team of ours. 🙂
Giroud got named the most handsome player by USA females or something like that. And today (Hector’s birthday), there is some comment about Hector being the most romantic player on the team. A few days ago, there were no end of articles about Mesut and his grooming habits. And Aaron seems to be a runway model for Ford when he is injured.
It must be Wenger’s fault, getting that arrangement with that French house of fashion. 🙂
Arsenal the envy of English football? – yes, but possibly also in additional areas to those noted above: –
The style of football when playing well can be breathtaking, something which few if any in the EPL can emanate, remembering that this has been achieved by a careful building process.
The Arsenal model is based on doing things in a fair and correct way, the self sustaining model, not buying off the refs, not bullying opponents but winning by skill and superb movement etc.
There is an air about the club of being morally correct in handling its business – e.g. not telling lies about the terms of players contracts, treating people with respect and setting a fine example to be followed.
The club has a great history and reputation – something which the even newly super rich cannot really match.
A lot of this comes from the board over the years, but a lot also comes from AW. Long may he stay.
Unfortunately, when something is attractive, some in society will wish to own it or exploit the resources, others will want to denigrate it, some will be jealous, while others will want to betray it – somewhere in there we find the aaaa, the media and the odd shadowy figure.
Among the maybe not bonehead articles today, were articles about the aways goal rule. If the away goals rule was just about convincing away teams to attempt to score once, there is an alternative. If the away goals rule is there to promote a lot of scoring, there may also be an alternative.
Football is unusual in there is 0 points for a loss, 1 point for a tie and 3 points for a win (it used to be 0,1,2). And 0,1,2 is common in sports. In statistics, for a tri-state system we can use -1,0,1. It would be different to convince people that they should lose points for losing a game.
But, 3 points provides a bonus for winning. It gets us away from the idea that a win and a loss is the same as two ties.
Not new here, different setting. Only give points if a team scores goals. You get no points for losing (currently true). You get no points if you don’t score.
Also, people talk about bonus points. My inclination for a single bonus point, is to award it at 4 goals.
0-0 no points. 1-0 = 3:0. 2-0 = 3:0. 3-0 3:0. 4-0 = 4:0. 1-1 = 1:1. 4-4 = 2:2.
The round robin in Champions League is 3 pairs of home and home games. If you win all your home games and lose all your away games, you have 9 points (currently). Hence most managers aim for 10 points. And Arsenal has been burnt for getting 10 points and not going through (I believe). To win each game, is 18 points.
If a person loses every game, 0 points. If you win every game, and in so doing you score 4 (or more) goals, you get 24 points. If you tie every game, you will have some total between 0 and 6 points, depending on how many games you didn’t score goals in. And there is complexity beyond this. The object of monkeying around with details like this is not to make Arsenal win more, the idea is to make the fans win more. The fans don’t go to games to see no scoring.
But the idea of getting a bonus point for reaching a reasonable goal plateau, may undo the need for an away goals rule. I think the idea of 0-0 resulting in no points to either team explains itself.
How on Earth did Alexis Sanchez ever start playing football? How on Earth did he ever end up at Barcelona and then here?
I do hope he gets his energy back, and starts generating goals and assists again.
Have you ever wanted to book a vacation to somewhere? How many websites say they are the best place to look at for this? Worldwide, there are probably millions, and they all say they are the best, because some sales geek who never learned what TRUTH is works there. Google is dominant in search engines, and a FOIA request related to the FTC getting involved with Google suggest that TripAdvisor isn’t necessarily the best, but they are among the more important ones. TheRegister has an article on this (FTC business).
Okay, plug Tocopilla into TripAdvisor and they bring up the One Hotel and One Restaurant thing. Who knows where the data originally came from, nobody does anything. As near as I could tell, there actually is 2 radiostations in Tocopilla (one AM and one FM) and both have an internet presence. And telephones. Or if you are patient, snail mail addresses. XYZ site says, “well if I do something, all the others will just copy what I have”. And because everyone is chasing that damned penny, nobody does anything.
The problem with the travel to Tocopilla thing, is that all of these websites think they own the data, and don’t want to share (and they all steal from each other).
There are lots of local places to eat, and at least 2 places (the city is 20-30 thousand people) you can find a room at. It is a long drive (or bus ride) from the capital of Chile. There may be closer airports, there may not be roads to get to Tocopilla from those closer airports.
I can easily see the following happening. Hello Arsenal.com? I’ve been interested in the Atacama Desert for a long time. I have 5 PTP Wifi receivers and 2 MPTP recievers which I don’t need, and I would be happy to donate them to Tocopilla and install them, when I go to visit the Atacama Desert. I would like to visit the telescope in the desert. Can you arrange something, or get me an email address? Thanks: Fred Flintstone.
That is an interesting part of the world. Who the heck builds a desalination plant, not to provide water for people living there, but to make water for shipping ore from inland to the coast? (That is considerably south of Tocopilla.)
But, because all these sales idiots (who are about as intelligent as Phil Neville) are all chasing pennies, there is no information.
Alexis, I am in awe of you. You have exceptional skills, and managed to get to the world stage. From a small place. I have exceptional skills (not in football), and haven’t found the path to any stage of note. But, you keep trying.
Tony , no : 6. The faithful AKBs here fought the good fight( and will still keep on fighting !) and kicked the shit out of ‘them’ ; always with unrestrained contempt but also tempered with humour and class !
This next attachment will bring fond memories to the AKBs of an old foe that I had inadvertently tangled up with hilarious consequence ! No prizes for guessing whom , but go on !
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/84508483/
Someone sent me this ,and am sharing it with like minded AKBs. Enjoy.
THE WORLD IS MINE…. Author Unknown
Today, on a bus, I saw a very beautiful woman and wished I were as beautiful.
When suddenly she rose to leave, I saw her hobble down the aisle.
She had one leg and used a crutch. But as she passed, she passed a smile.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I have two legs; the world is mine.
I stopped to buy some candy. The lad who sold it had such charm.
I talked with him, he seemed so glad. If I were late, it’d do no harm.
And as I left, he said to me, “I thank you, you’ve been so kind.
It’s nice to talk with folks like you. You see, “he said, I’m blind.”
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes; the world is mine.
Later while walking down the street, I saw a child I knew.
He stood and watched the others play, but he did not know what to do.
I stopped a moment and then I said, “Why don’t you join them dear?”
He looked ahead without a word. I forgot, he couldn’t hear.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I have two ears; the world is mine.
With feet to take me where I’d go..
With eyes to see the sunset’s glow.
With ears to hear what I’d know.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I’ve been blessed indeed, the world is mine.
Brickfields.
As near as I can tell, it was written Dec 8, 1963. But I may be misunderstanding the following web page.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-world-is-mine/
@ Gord – Thanks , very glad that we here at UA have the Insta-Gord search engine available !
Am saving that link for later . Am sure there will be some ‘naughty’ poems that I could use !
Cheers !