Feck! Girls! Arse nal!
By Belfast Kiwi
Ambrose is aptly named after his Patron Saint and is a bit of a character that drinks down at my local Irish bar, The Shuck and Shamrock, seemingly he lives there.
There is more than a bit of Father Jack about him. Wild grey hair and fascinatingly long finger nails (only on one hand) that would rate a 5 on the Werewolf scale.
He is ever present. No matter what time I happen to call in, there he is nursing a half pint of Guinness. He will change to whiskey however should you buy him a drink and surprisingly many people do.
He is a little dishevelled and could do with a wash, but is good value or ‘great craic’ as the locals say.
Despite all indications to the contrary, the man is bright, very, very bright. If he should drift into your company as he is prone to do in search of a proffered libation. You can be sure of an accurate and incisive comment or two, no matter what subject is being discussed.
Often the interjection is so apposite, pithily eloquent and focussed it becomes a real conversation stopper. He has often caused the bar room intelligencia to re evaluate their stance on many an issue. As I said the man is clever; much maligned but undoubtedly knows his stuff. (Remind you of anyone?)
As a result of his undoubted intelligence he is tolerated and often actively encouraged by the disparate groups which populate this hostelry to supply his two pence worth. I have never counted but I gather he is well paid in terms of liquid reward for his cogent thoughts. But he never stays too long at one table or with one group; he wears out his welcome quickly.
The main reason being he is a purveyor of inconvenient truth. With his photographic memory, he will remind you unerringly accurately of something you have done or said in the past, often embarrassingly.
Recent conversations of the bar room football experts encompassed the hairy issue of career ending tackles. Views were expressed on
both sides of the argument, Arsenal fans bemoaning the brutal response of talentless teams to violently stifle the wonderful Wengerball. The vast majority of the rest stating that football is a man’s game and hard tackling is just ‘part and parcel’.
Ambrose had this to say.
The likes of Stoke, Blackburn, Bolton, Sunderland and Wolves will not play good football unless they are financially forced to.
They do not have the required talented, athletic and technical players and lack the current ability and future desire to find or develop the same.
They are terrified of changing their brutal philosophy as it may result in loss of Premiership status and the cash cow it has become.
They are too slow physically, too dim intellectually for the modern fast paced, choreographed beauty of evolved teams such as Arsenal. After all is difficult to concentrate on great football in the certain knowledge that some thug is about to break your legs.
In the absence of true footballing talent they resort to a proven and successful default position of brutality and violence.
Complete lack of Ctrl/
Alt/ercation at all costs
Del/ete the threat by any means.
They are under skilled and to compensate for this they are whipped up to an aggressive frenzy by their tactically limited coaches to deliberately injure, disable and intimidate.
They aim to exploit the Referee; they push the rules as far as they can to gain any advantage.
They prey upon the weak wills of Referees, who cannot deal effectively with all aspects of violent play in the heat of the moment of a game.
Referees actions and decisions reflect the national desire for violence. The majority want football to be a war, a licensed fight. There is something in the national mentality to turn the game into gladiatorial combat proven by the fact that fans will deride a ‘diving’ player more than a leg breaker.
Players will continue with the two footed tackle, the scissor tackle, the tackle from behind until they and their clubs are severely and consistently punished.
The rules conspire with the thugs as there is no retrospective punishment. The matter cannot be revisited if the referee sees the incident, irrespective of the accuracy of his decision.
It will take a serious injury caused by an English player to a Star England player to even begin to sway public opinion. Eduardo, Ramsey, Diaby et al lack the ‘love’ of the whole nation.
Until retrospective punishment is introduced, irrespective of whether the Referee has seen it or not, nothing will change.
Danny Murphy has had an epiphany and just might have seen the light.
Arsene Wenger is universally castigated for leading a one man crusade against this violent institutionalised cheating. Just because he is apparently alone in this, does not mean he is wrong.
After all no one likes to be reminded of an Inconvenient Truth.
- Making the Arsenal: the only book about Henry Norris, the man who made the modern Arsenal
- Arsenal History: “My grandfather played for Arsenal”
- Untold Arsenal on Facebook here
- Untold Arsenal Index: silly stuff, serious stuff, and stuff
- Arsenal Worldwide: supporting Arsenal from outside the UK
- Arsenal Independent Supporters Association
i dont mind the physical game, but the stokes, wolves etc take it to a new level by continuously making bad and reckless tackles. even players like shawcross must know whether or not they will win the ball/if a ball is even 50 50, he made that ‘tackle’ on ramsey to make himself ‘known in the game’ – even if it meant injuring the opposing player. so the player must take some of the blame…but most of the blame should go to the manager. if your the manager and you want to play the physical game, then you focus on the art of defending/ winning the BALL… not the art of going through a player with brute strength hoping the ball is with you after the tackle.
i agree with you on the media and these ‘expert’ pundits being biased. even the commentary during football matches have become utter shite, pretty much against arsenal and/or non-english/british player. always thought commentary was supposed to be neutral.
majority of the time commentary/pundits just regurgitate shit from the media and giving their ‘expert’ opinions. id much rather have a option that allows us to just hear the two opposing fans and their banter in the stadium, than listening to the verbal diarrhea coming out of these so called ‘experts’.
the media/’experts’ passes off that wenger hates the english game. they say he doesnt like the physicality, but they are really missing the point, its not the physical side but the moronic, over the top, no intent to win the ball, intent to injure mentality that he doesnt like. and of course the rotational fouling.
the one thing most english players lack is technique. i think arsenal are setting the standard for english players and i would class wilshere as a modern-day english player….players like henry(of wolves)…modern-day english thug.
Its groundhog day at FA there is not really much any of us can add.
Great article, thanks for writing it up. As someone who has family in belfast, I found it particularly funny. Great stuff
physical game doesn’t mean bad tackling. Tackling is an art and thugs are too naive to learn them.
Sentiments expressed in the article are quite correct. A high profile injury or even fatality is waiting to happen. Only then will the authorities have the courage to act. The punishment of these thugs AND THEIR MANAGERS must be financial, the deduction of points AND heavy suspension. Only then will thugs like Shawcross, de Jong and Henry (not forgetting Pulis) be forced from the game. Original thugs like Keane have a lot to answer for.
@Belfast Kiwi,
An interesting name and a more interesting article. As you have me guessing and asking questions I don’t have the answers to… Are you Kiwi or B.Irish? And, does the man you speak of exist or just figurative writing or are the hops just soaking in my head the wrong way? For me, I am always one to listen to the strange man or anyone who goes against the grain because often they lack bias or PC. They speak truth. These days it is an “epiphany” as you say. And, It makes you wonder why we don’t lend an ear more often rather than isolate him. My only other thought is if we are being targeted in thes matters of “war” well are we not responsible to defend ourelves? Diaby, went quite bolistic when after being debilitated for over 1 year (and on the verge of quitting after realizing is it worth it?) against Bolton. And, why doesn’t the team enforce the notion of you kick one of us we will do the same? And, Shawcross, De Jong, Henry, et al are still walking on the pitch to this day and no one is doing anything about that. If I were on Arsenal I would have long ago felt if the league, refs, and media could care less of our me and my mates I would have been a protector of that! So my last question is what did your bar mate utter about that?
PS.
In my younger days I once saw my mate take an injury because of a “reckless tackle”. The next tackle I was given a caution and that player was sent to the dressing room to address his injuries. That player was never given a caution a speaking to by the ref. The sun must have been in the ref’s eyes but I sent the message to all. Don’t “Feck” with me mate’s. And, from what I heard a past time ago he did not hurt another mate or any other player.
Arsene has always got it right on a lot of controversial points he’s made a stand on in the past. Not being biased,……. a lot of such tackles are plainly useless, maliciously intentional and un-called for. take de-jong for instance, it simply looked like a hatchet job.(thought the objective of tackles is to win the ball, dis-posess ur opponent…….., bt alas!, the butcher achieved non of these than break a leg). Wat goes around comes around nd some day will surely come around!.
Spot on, belfast white feather. pithy, well written and another excellent addition to the international family of the untold. i hope that the sort of opinion you express gets passed around the blogosphere and gets spat out at fleet street as they are always on the look out for a villain or an idea to steal.fantastic work!
Where I come from they are called the “unwritten rules”….
The “unwritten rules” also say step up or step out!
I would rather “play” with mates who have my “back” than a bunch of primedonnas who don’t.
Last point where was RVP when Hatem Ben Arfa was crushed?
He has been missing from the same sort of “crap” when he was introduced a long time ago.
I give Diaby all sorts of credeit with the Robinson tackle. I say what took you so long?