An Untold Letter to Father Christmas; love, hate, laugh, cry, and the truth about the AAA.

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Dear Father Christmas,

We think we have been good boys all season long and now we want to ask you if you could bring our friends and ourselves some nice Christmas presents.

Of course we know you have already done so much for us this year.   For example, when you arranged it so that nine of the eleven players for England in a single match all had managed to get Super Injunctions or Injunctions to stop us talking about their naughty little activities off the football pitch.  Oh how we laughed.

Next year we look forward to seeing an entire England team and management all with injunctions to stop us talking about them.  That will, we believe, be a major achievement.  No one will talk about England.  Yes!

In the league we know that Ryan Shawcross applied for an injunction, and the court refused, on the grounds that basically he was  that sort of player.  Thank you Santa, that was great.

And we also want to say thank you for Ian Holloway who really made us smile and laugh and laugh and smile.   He’s running a team with no money, and a tiny stadium in which the chairman went bankrupt and didn’t resign his position, (he was still fit and proper), and then resigned for no reason, then wasn’t bankrupt, and where another director (the chair’s father) is a convicted rapist, but is also a fit and proper person.  And still he refuses to play rotational fouling and rotational time wasting.  He makes his team play football.   Good on yer mate, and an extra Xmas pie from the man with the big white beard for Mr H. please.

Better still you have given us a lot of laughs as we read the chit-chat of the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal (who are currently saying that they want 25 new shining players).   They claimed all the season ticket holders had left and this season the stadium would be empty.  Oh how we laughed.

We also know that last year the AAA wrote pleading letters to you saying that new players all have to be world class. No younger players any more. They wrote to you asking for big names and big price tags, old and experienced because they claimed our old toy players are all bad, no good, just rubbish and that Cesc would leave in 2010.

But you, wonderful Father Christmas, brought us a brand new Nasri to replace the prototype Nasri, and he’s as good as it gets.  And you gave us Baby Jack, who gets better every game.   And to round it all Baby jack came second in the kiddie of the year competition for the whole universe – although that’s not good enough for the AAA.  They want a big name to shut up that big prick from United and that fat twat who supports Chelsea and eats McDonald’s (if you’ll excuse my patois Father C).

And oh how we laughed when you gave us Chamakh and the AAA told us Chamakh was no good because he came on a free, because good players cost £££££££, but you brought him to us, and he’s wonderful.  Thank you.

But now we have to confess something Father C.   Last weekend we sneaked up to your igloo at the North Pole – just past where the map ends – and we plugged a kettle into your wind farm turbine, and used the steam to open some of the letters you have been sent this year.  And now we know what the AAA are asking for, for 2011.

They want a Schwarzer in goal to start with because they can see that so many people are still so angry about us not getting him in the summer he must be world class. And there’s one letter saying why don’t you bring us Given also? After all sitting on the bench at Manchester City must be a sign of being world class.  (Sorry Santa, we burned that one in the little fire we lit to keep us warm).

Another letter – a rather sad and sorry one we think – said could you also give us Ferdinand and Vidic? They must be much better than what we have now and it would give us a lot of bragging rights. An could you also add Mertesacker. And while you are at it just give us also Puyol.  And just give us Melo in midfield. He is supposed to be world class and who will cost a fortune but that shouldn’t be a problem for you. And Melo and we want him now. We will change them all just for one Melo toy.

Oh the screaming cries of the little ones as they beg you, Father Christmas!  How do you stand it?

(And also give us Van Bommel and Dejongh because we want to see some good kicking – sorry that was in a letter that got stuck to the one about Melo, and it got eaten by a polar bear that Billy the Dog had a fight with).

And there were more and more letters from them – but as we looked (and I know we shouldn’t but Billy insisted), we found something odd.  Because although they were all signed by a different person, they were all in the same handwriting.   600 letters a day, all written by the same demented child!   Oh Father Christmas!  What will you do?

“Could you also bring us Messi and Ronaldo,” he wrote in one letter.  Oh and Torres he said in another. Oh no wait just give us Villa in a third. Oh no he is too small, chimed the sad little boy in a third. And give us Abramovic. Yeah that one will do nicely. Oh, on second thought: just give them all!  And please give us another Father Christmas since you don’t seem to be up to it any more.  We know that you can print your own money as much as you want so just get your dwarfs out there and let them start printing more money so you can buy us the toys we want.”

And here’s one we really liked (but it got eaten by our husky that Billy was training for the Manchester to London uphill ski championship) so I can’t show you the original.   “And if you think we are naughty boys, well we are not completely bad. And we even will prove it to you. We are thinking of giving  our old toys to that boy down the road. The one that cried his eyes out when we won at the Lane in the Carling cup. We think he would be happy with our old toys. He would have been happy in the past, that is for sure.  And we want you to punish some people for being silly too.   We’d like you to punish every player who is not that kind of player, and make them sit on a bench in the park until the player that they maimed comes back to play again.”

What a funny little boy he is!

But anyway Mr Claus, back to us, and what we (Walter and Tony) want.   Here’s a very special request.  We want you to cook in oil all of Fifa for being corrupt, and all of the FA for being so stupid that they didn’t realise Fifa was corrupt and so put in a bid which they (sorry, Father Christmas, I can hardly write this I am laughing so much)… which they really thought they would win!!!!!   But really Father Christmas, on that one we have to say thank you for making us laugh and laugh until we were taken away by the stewards.   Oh the nativity!  Oh the stupidity!  To think that England could put in a bid that would win!   (Actually we think the whole thing was made up by the little boy who writes all the AAA letters, and that the FA didn’t put in a bid at all.  After all, no one could be that stupid.  Could they?)

Oh and while we are at it, can you give something very funny and painful to Mr Sepp “There is no systematic corruption in Fifa” Blatter.   Some sort of nasty irritating skin disease perhaps?  Or a cactus that looks like a bowl of petunias which sits in his toilet and spikes him when he goes to the loo, but he never knows what it is so he has to go to the doctor who sends him to a hospital where he is put down.  Something like that.

Now what else?   Oh yes – thank you for your punishment of Barca.  When they got the “Unpaid Team of the Year” away in June we were so pleased for them.

And thank you for Graham Taylor, who actually seems to be a rather loveable old rogue these days and says one or two interesting things occasionally.  He’s ok, but this year, could you please somehow get rid of Robbie Savage?   OK, let him play for Derby, but on radio?  Although maybe you put him there just to torment the other prat they have on 606.  You will have your little game!

And thank you to for Frank Lampard.  “Nobody can stand here and tell me Germany were a lot better than us.”  Oh you couldn’t make it up – you really are pulling the strings aren’t you?   Like Shearer saying that no one knows much about Hatem Ben Arfa.   Well yes, these funny foreigners who play in strange alien places like France, and win the Kent Junior Challenge Cup (or the French League).  Difficult to keep track of.   Thanks Santa.  That was a good one.   Shame the old prat (Shearer that is) didn’t get the sack, but you can’t have it all.

Thank you also Father X for John Terry and his family of thieves and drug dealers, and for Wayne Rooney’s wallet and its relationship with the England fans and the Man IOU fans.  They show us just what football is like in far-flung corners of the galaxy – and yes we need to be reminded.

And finally Father Christmas, some very personal thanks and wishes.   From Walter, thank you for supplying tickets for the Benelux Supporters Club, so we can watch our beloved team.  And next year, please can we have more, because our membership is growing, and each game we come to we are disappointing more and more people who want to get to the shrine.

From Tony: thank you thank you Father Christmas, for setting it up so I could have a meeting with Ivan Gazidis, and for him receiving the ideas about celebrating Arsenal’s history so positively.   And in 2011, can we have our statue to Jack Humble please, and can Arsenal let me rewrite the Official Illustrated History of Arsenal without all those mistakes in.

With all our good wishes, and hopes for the new year

Walter Broeckx and Tony Attwood

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