Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal
Wikio publish regular reports on the top football blogs, based on readership, comments, validity of comments (ie are they “Hey I’m first” or are they something slightly more serious?), Tweets, regularity of postings, and the like.
Untold Arsenal is currently joggling around in 12th position, as you can see below.
Four of the top 12, including ourselves are Arsenal blogs, and there’s more Arsenal at 14 and 15. Quite why Arsenal has so many more top blogs than all the other clubs in English football put together is difficult to say, but we do. Indeed I would go further than this and say, we have many more blogs than the rest of football put together.
Which raises the question: why so many Arsenal blogs?
Certainly a fair number of them exist simply to destroy Arsenal – or at least Arsenal in its current form – but there are some others which are more fair-minded. We might not agree with them at each turn, but they put up a decent argument and are reasonable in their debate.
Some are just extraordinary for their depth of analysis. Take, for example Young Guns – the knowledge and insight shown on that particular blog is truly remarkable.
So why don’t the other clubs have such a depth of coverage? You can see for yourself that they don’t by going to www.goonernews.com Just go down the list of sources of articles and count the number of different blogs. Usually you will find about ten. Then go and look at most of the other clubs where you will find the number is generally between 0 and 5.
Go to any other site that has details of various blogs and you will find that much the same applies. Arsenal sites dominate.
Of course many of us have a suspicion that some sites are set up just to knock Arsenal, and so should not be called Arsenal sites at all – but that’s another matter. The fact is that in the sphere of news and comment on the internet Arsenal dominates – and has done since blogging began.
What we can conclude is that Arsenal is “discussable”. There are always things to say about Arsenal, relating to its style, its tradition, its approach, the variety of its players, the history, in a way that there is not about Liverpool, Tottenham or other clubs of that ilk.
For reasons that are hard to explain, Arsenal has a tradition and a feel that goes way beyond these clubs. Indeed if you can find a way to explain and describe it in a positive manner I would like to read it, since I am struggling to explain it myself in the book I’m doing on Woolwich Arsenal. That feeling about how special we are as a club was there even in the 19th century.
Anyway, here is the list of top football blogs, which is about to be released, with each title given a link. Of course I don’t want you to wander away from this site, but if you must, try one of these, and them come back to Untold.
One final word, Arsenal History doesn’t feature in the top 20 – but that’s not surprising given the specialist nature of the site. But you might like that too, so I have put in a link here…
Most recent news
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I’d like to beleive that Arsenal fans are on the whole better educated ,mature ,more decent ,articulate and understanding. This much I’ve gathered from reading this blog . I ‘ve never
had the urge to trawl the lower reaches for slime and sleaze.
We often disagree but respect the other’s point of view .We tend to detect the trolls early and put them in their place .The young ones do tend to get overboard sometimes like chicken little ,but sane arguments sets them right.
Arsenal FC and AW are fit and right examples of prudent and virutous behaviour to be emulated.
With a fine gatekeeper(and scribe) as thyself ,your Lordship ,we
will in the top 4 !
Congratulations Tony, Phil, Sammy the snake and all other regular and irregular writers of Untold. You really deserve it. Of course we also deserve credit for making constructive and sensible comments. Credit where credit is due. So congratulations to all those who made it into the top 20. There are some excellent Arsenal blogs out there who didn’t make it but are well worth a mention. The Goonerholic, Ladyarse, The Swiss Rambler, Arsenal Column, A Cultered Left Foot, Eastlower and 7 am kickoff all deserve a mention. How the hell did Caughtoffside become #1?
untold should be top five if not three.
i agree witt brick on da edumucation point. arsenal apeels 2 a hi’er intalect:-)
manure glory hunters for instance. take away the bragging and what do they have left to discuss?
the ‘i cant be arsed to play for england cos im part irish and like potatoes’ hair do?
seriously though aj is right with the mentions especially 7am, aclf and ill have to look into ladyarse and east lower. thanx.
my new favorite has to be arsenal blood.
Nice article, I agree here too. Had never read Arseblog or Gunnerblog before, but both seem like coherent well written blogs, such as this one. Well done!
Untold’s position, though not the issue, doesn’t begin to capture the the dimensions it introduces to football discussions and to supporting a UK-based football club worldwide.
I believe that the higher proliferation of Arsenal blogs can be correlated with its footballing style as well as its greater popularity outside the UK shores among those who, in the wake of global broadcasting of live football games have to gravitate towards supporting a UK based football club.
Nevertheless, I suspect that the greater number of Arsenal blogs that seem to not support Arsenal has more to do with the non-support of Arsenal by the popular British press (as Anne’s input increasingly justifies us to state as FACT)- the bloggers are too lazy to dig deeper and end up reflecting or transferring the negativity of the popular press.
There is, perhaps, another core of Anti-Arsenal blogs, run by genuine Arsenal fans who, in the process of creating a niche for their blogs, consciously choose to stake an opposite position from the typical adulation that would be expected from a fan-run blog.
As time went by, the blogs become set in their ways, some of their gripes became somewhat self-fulfilling and they became more committed to the outlook and image of their blogs than to the overall help or goodwill it generates for the club.
As for me Untold is number one! Where else would you find professional match reviews, football corruption discussions and a constructive media watch report? Untold has everything mixed together, both football on and off the pitch with elements of humour in it. The variety is so good, that it suits everyone, except dark prince probably 🙂 Well, I do know for a fact that arseblog has a daily media watch review combined with all the other latest news. If does offer a lot of thought, but somehow I failed to find a comment sectioned on it, whereas here people offer their views and it makes an article even more interesting at the end. Anyway enough from me here, just wanted to mention another blog which is very good, constructive and pro Wenger. Check it out: http://yankeegunnerblog.wordpress.com/
The Gunning Hawk is probably my favorite and the reason for that is they always have 4-7 links to watch the games. Young Guns and this Blog is very good as well. It’s nice to read good in depth content not just the “Cesc to Barca” story that we get slammed with everyday.
i feel that among the many things Arsene Wenger has gifted the arsenal, his intellect has made all things arsenal all the more discussable among the chattering classes- hence the readiness to take finger to keyboard!- What has Mark Hughes ever said that Chris moles or some such other pond life couldn’t grunt?
As you say 125 years of history (and thanks to our astute financial model, many more to come) creates fans right across the generations, are there man united fans who can say the same?, what with newton heath and manchester disunited muddying the water!
Many have questioned the clubs PR strategy but why bother trying to lie to make yourself look good, when it is obvious to all you are God’s gift to Football?
I would go with Untold at #1 any day. No other blog I’ve seen supports and identifies with the team like Untold does.
Heck, even our manager reads it! He’s quoted fresh new terminology that was spawned on this site more than once. And he did it with that little “read between the lines” smirk of his, did anyone see the video of him where he spoke about the Top 4 Mini League?
@tony,
here is proof that some like to dish it out but cannae take it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwIpFPIB-ek
Just how do you begin a rational discussion with this sort of oaf?
@ Shakabulagooner ahh well said! I was going to say more or less the same thing.
The only thing I would add is that fact that (as Tony rightly says) Arsenal are very ‘disscussable’ and so the blogs are able to monetize this through the high click-through rates to their pages. This is clearly not the case for other clubs like Chelsea and tottenham, despite their protests.
The bloggers will after a period of time work out what kind of article gets people to visit the site and leave a comment. For example picking on a player that made a mistake in game and turning them into public enemy no.1 has worked out well financially for some blogs. These kind of blogs thrive on hate and always need a player to have a laugh at or mock. Their MO is to pick on a player when they are down and use it for their financial gain.
Unfortuantely the spineless and simple minded losers who call themselves fans are an ever presence on Arsenal blogs and lap up all the negativity. So some of the blogs just cater to that pathological ‘cash cow’ audience. Many other bloggers follow suit because they see the success and are devoid of independant thought anyway.
It is really great that a blog like Untold Arsenal, which swims against the tide is so well recieved and read because I sometimes think that the ‘boo boys’ want to destroy the club from within by constantly chipping away at every thing that is good about the club. In my opinion:-
*Project youth is a success.
*Arsene Wenger is the best manager in football at the moment.
*Arsenal are a joy to watch.
*The players conduct themselves properly(most of the time)on and off the pitch.
*Our charity work has set a bench mark for others to follow.
*The scouting network is excellent.
*We have some of the best diehard overseas fans
*We have a responsible management board
*An excellent Chief Excecutive in Ivan Gazidis (trust me, there are many organisations that would love to have him on board).
*We are a club, if I can quote a great man, ‘that runs on sweat and not petrol’ and this has been the case for 125 years.
…..but despite all this, the majority of comments I come accross are by gloomy, jobless numbnuts talking the club down.
Wow! – erm….the short version is that money has a part to play too regarding why there are so many Arsenal blogs about….
@Gooner Girl,
Completely agree except for the last bit, when you paraphrase the great man, he meant to say- some clubs run on sweat, and others are run by people who sniff petrol, we run on sweat.
Detail sister, the devil is in the detail!
Haha! Ugandan Goon, I do apologise.
Ugandan Goon,
Really lovely quote – but I don’t know its author – so please share so I can know. Cheers.
God bless arsenal/wenger and my guns who bled red @ all times..finally God bless UNTOLD
arsenal my guns who always worrier and hard time to other team
Foot Ball
Hi,
I did a similar story years ago that you may find interesting.
http://blog.ecairn.com/2009/09/18/arsenal-wins-the-social-media-league/