Dear Tony,
I don’t know it if you realise it but this article is the 2.500th article that appears on Untold Arsenal. So I think this is the appropriate time to express my and may I say our gratitude for all that you have done in the last years for us here at Untold.
I still remember that when I first discovered Untold Arsenal I found it a breath of fresh air between other places in the Arsenal blog world. I remember reading an article that was written in a funny way that made me laugh. I then started reading other articles and I just liked them all.
Like you have said you wanted to counter balance the stream of negativity that surrounded a big part of the Arsenal internet world. The negativity about the manager in the first place. And all this with a touch of humour and at times really hilarious articles.
I became part of this Untold world on a special day for me. When Tony asked to send in articles about your worst Arsenal game. I did just that and from then on I became a real part of this blog. I was already commenting on a lot of articles. Something that I didn’t dare at first thinking that my English was not good enough. (In fact when I look back at it now: it was terrible and Tony saved me some blushing at first by correcting my mistakes – he stopped doing this after a while so I am grateful for Tony for having helped me back to knowing the English language a bit better).
So Tony helped me and asked me in a friendly but persuasive way to write some more. He can be persuasive I have been told. And from one article came two, and another one and another one. Did I ever told you not all my articles I send to him were published. Some must have been really bad I think.
Then came the ref articles. Then came the ref reviews. And then came the amazing Refwatch articles from Dogface. The game previews from Phil. Then came other people who wrote the Untold Media articles, the injury index, oh I think I will have missed a few persons and series by now. (Sorry for that but I had to make sure this was nr. 2500 and the articles are published at a high rate for the moment)
And all this appeared on this Untold Arsenal blog that Tony started. The magic word (apart from Arsenal) was Untold. It had to be something completely different from other blogs. I like being different a bit so maybe this way of thinking attracted me in the first place. And I think that after all those years since January 2008 we still manage to be Untold. We still manage to be different from other blogs.
All who have written in the past and present have helped to develop Untold in what it has become. A beacon of hope even in the darkest hours or Arsenal FC. We will always try to find the silver lining behind the clouds and I hope we succeed in this. And when things are going great with Arsenal we will go overboard. Because that is just part of the fun of being a real supporter. We have known both sides of the medal in the past years.
And all our regular readers who have found the way back to us over and over again. And I would like to take the opportunity to also say a big thank you to all our past, present and future readers. It is after all for you that we keep on doing this. If you wouldn’t be there, we wouldn’t carry on I think. (would we Tony? ) We can write what we want, if you wouldn’t come over to read it and approve it or discuss it (in a sensible way with arguments as we like to keep it away from abuse) or disagree (again the same remark) with us. So once again I thank you all and this thank you goes to almost half a million monthly readers I have been told.
Untold Arsenal is a place where we can share our passion and love for Arsenal. It doesn’t matter from where you come, where you live, how good or how bad your English is. If you love Arsenal and have love for the players and the managers and are happy that our club is being run not just for the now but for the future and for the future generations, then Untold is a good place for you.
Now let us move back to the man who has made it possible: Tony Attwood. The man who wrote the book Making the Arsenal. The man who has other websites and the Arsenal history website where he looks back on our history. The man who since this season writes in the official Arsenal program.
They call that other Tony (Adams) sometimes Mr. Arsenal. And he deserves that title. But for me another Mr. Arsenal is you Tony. (It must be the name I guess). I think we should call you Mr. Untold Arsenal. Or why not Sir Untold Arsenal?
My wife has told me a thousand times that saying thank you to someone who has done a good thing cost nothing and always feels nice for that person. And as I listen to my wife (sometimes) and as she is wise (sometimes) I just wanted to make sure that this article 2.500 would not just be another ref review or another refwatch or another game preview. No it had to be an article saying : THANK YOU TONY!
Thank you for starting this wonderful place in the Arsenal internet world. Thank you for your articles. Thank you for those great characters you made. Thank you for bringing all the people of the world together at your virtual home: Untold Arsenal. Untold is and will always be your “child’. I felt deeply honoured and touched that one day you decided to put my (ugly) head next to yours on this website. Untold is your child but I love it just the same I think.
FORWARD ARSENAL, FORWARD UNTOLD, up to the 5.000 articles!!!
THANKS TONY AND CHEERS!
By Walter Broeckx,
A proud Untolder
PS: If you want to join in celebrating this landmark in the Untold history just let it know in the comment section.
I just couldn’t resist it, Tony
Congratulations! Always enjoy visiting this site, long may it continue.
The strange thing, despite all the negativity in the press, on certain sites,and on talkshite radio, the vast majority of arsenal fans I know would identify with many of the opinions on this site. The quiet majority who just love the team at the end of the day.
Nice to get some well researched and backed up opinion, sometimes with humour thrown in, as opposed to reading about who rvp has visited, shite about hand shakes, theo has no football brain wenger has lost the plot, relative wage bills, empty seats covered in bin liners, how brilliant arry is, wenger is tactically inept and other examples of lazy blogging and reporting.
Thanks and keep it up!
Congratulations!
@Walter
I suppose that is what the -2, -1 was about? A countdown.
Congratulations. Keep on keeping on.
Congrats Tony,Walter,Dogface,Phil,Dale,Anne and all others on this wonderful landmark..i can proudly say im happy to be part of those 2500 eventhough just with 2.. I have grown really fond of untold,i love this blog so much that a day cant pass without me dropping in..Thank you Tony for untold and thanks to all the contributors(you are way too many to mention) for making this the best Arsenal blog on the internet
Yep Gord I had to keep counting somewhere 😉 Some might have noticed the 2497 also somewhere
Thank you Tony, thank you Walter, and everyone else who writes the articles and contributes to the debates.
Like others I turn to Untold Arsenal for proper comment on what has been going on, and proper analysis. And I always get it.
It was a lucky day for me when I followed a link to Untold from another web site and found something unlike all the others – even the good ones.
Thank you to Tony and Walter and Dogface and Phil and Anne and all the other writers! Thank you for consistently being both positive and realistic, when most opinions on the internet seem to think the two are mutually exclusive!
congratulations everyone involved. and thanx.
A huge well-done to Tony and everyone else here. Even though I had set out myself to contribute my quota to the articles published on here, sadly the pressure of my other engagements kept me to just under three articles which Tony had encouraged me to write. Tony I thank you.
I am sure that I will soon be a bit freer to contribute just a bit more. However, with Walter and Anne’s prolific writing; with DogFace’s data intensive Refwatch; Phil’s very interesting Previews; and other analytical articles, I doubt that I can add anything more valuable. Well-done everyone. Cheers!
Congrats to all at Untold Asrenal!
Your by far greatest team
The world has ever seen!
I love this site, the best for mine keep up the good work!
Hey Congratulations…Great Work..Keep it up..
Very well done Tony et al! Keep up the great work!!!
It is funny how our reading habits on the web evolve. I can’t believe that I would actually read what people like Myles Palmer had to say…well, I did see the error of my ways and Untold is now the first thing I check. Keep ’em coming most excellent and honourable team!
Well done Tony,Walter and everyone who keep Untold going. It has been a breath of fresh air in the otherwise suffocating Arsenal blogosphere. Thank You.
May I also say congratulations and as well a toast to the best Arsenal blog! No other blog brings us such laughter aside the thought provoking stuff. Other things that should be mentioned include originality and hard work. Kudos!!!
Well done Tony and all the other contributors to the Thinking Gooners site.
Great 😀 keep up the great work
I join all the others with my congratulations. Far away the best on Arsenal on the web. No speculations as to who we will buy, and exaggerated claims. Facts, information and sometimes a well supported theory to make you think and may be see something in a different way.
As you know I like to add a few numbers in my articles at time, but left it out of the article. But just want to given them anyway.
Tony started somewhere in 2008 and then managed to write on average just a bit more than one article a day. Now in 2012 we publish on average more than 2 articles a day.
In the first year Tony published 425 articles, in 2009 we only got 406 articles.
From then on the numbers started climbing to 701 articles in 2010, up to 718 articles in 2011.
This article is (what a coincidence) article number 250 of this year. And if we could keep up this rate it would mean that at the end of this year we would publish 837 articles in one year.
And speaking of coincidences. yesterday around noon as I saw that we still have a lot of articles ready to be published in the next days I just wondered how many articles we had published on Untold and I just counted them (in the month by month section you can find the numbers for each month) and to my surprise we were just 3 short of reaching the number 2500.
If I would have had the idea only one day later we would have missed this landmark.
Thank you Untold Team.
This site is wonderful. I visit it every single day to read articles and many comments. Long may it continue.
I a totally overwhelmed.
Thank you
Tony
Thank you Tony.
Thank you everyone [Walter, DogFace, Anne, everyone who contributes to Untold].
Thank you for making this site a part of my daily ritual. I make sure I drop in atleast once everyday. It’s a joy reading the columns as well as the knowledgeable comments.
Thank you all.
Dear Untold,
Thank you for making a community of hope for Arsenal suporters.
Keep up the great work.
I can only reiterate the comments made above. Thanks.
Let’s reach 3000 by the end of this year.
Guys this is the Best blog on the net by miles!!!
It used to be my home page until my boss “Manure Fan/Pig” made me change it. So you are now atop of my favourites list.
I think with the ref reviews and media watch picking up steam we are definately in for some ‘interesting times’ ahead. And you will definately only go from strenght to strength.
THANKYOU ALL for the great articles, and please keep it up.
From a devoted South African Goon.
IAWT!
Happy celebrations to the Untold Team.
Can we just raise our glass to the toast counting from
A-R-S-E-N-A-L
Well done it must take a huge amount of effort and dedication to put out, you should be rightly proud.
Best Arsenal site on the web. A great read every time, congratulations on this landmark, and thank you for the enjoyable articles. Long Live Untold!
Not only is this the best Arsenal blog of’em all but also a sort of second Emirates for all the people like us who love Arsenal as much as anyone else but are not in the vicinity and have not been to one live game (though aspire to…)!
Well done guys! You are doing a tremendous work and not long into the future I shall be posting a comment of jubilation on the pages of this blog…Long live Arsenal and Untold be its untold defender of faith!
Started reading this blog a year ago and it’s the best arsenal blog around. Well done to all who are involved!
Tony,
Your generousity of spirit is the driving force that continues to make a difference, and Untold is its grateful child. The gift that does keep giving. Let five thousand flowers bloom! Thank you.
Congratulations, this is a very special site.
The rate of speed at which the writers of this blog produce quality and balanced articles is one thing that sets Arsenal Untold apart from the other blogs
This is honestly not just the first-and-often-only Arsenal blog I read, but also my favorite sports blog in general! Reading the site has enriched the last couple seasons for me, and may the next 2500 articles be as enjoyable!
Walter mentioned it a couple of times in the article, it shows up in comments and other articles. That being a fear of producing bad English. I have it too, normally I speak engineer, not English.
Way back when UNIX was young, a project called Documenters Workbench was started. Nominally there to produce the tools to allow people to make nice documents. Among the tools are a pair of programs known as style and diction. They are not spell checkers, you need to do that before you use either.
Style will give you an estimate of how complex your text is. I typically produce too complex text. Diction looks for many grammatical errors in text. Double words are an example.
As style and diction came from UNIX, most Linux distributions should have a ‘diction’ package available. I don’t know if an Apple package is available, but as modern Macs are based on *BSD, I suspect the UNIX code compiles directly. For those in the Windows world, it does run there too. The URL below has binaries and documentation for Windows. While nobody is actively working on this package, it works quite well (last update was 2007). And the price is right (free). It is one of those yucky command line programs however. 🙂
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/diction.htm
There are other programs which look to do similar things, I have little experience with them.
Thanks You Tony, Untold Arsenal is the best Arsenal Blog on the internet ! If I describe Untold Arsenal on 2 words, I will choose : Arsenal Family.
CONGRATS !
Robdogooner,
Priceless! The Bossman as ManUre backer
making you take down UA as your homepage/splashpage!!!!
When’s the last time you got a raise or promotion?
Any correlations, or am I engaging in conspiracy theory? 🙂
Great to cross paths with you.
Tony,
And when the Great Turnaround is complete,
Untold Arsenal will tell the tale(s).
It’s true home.
Walter,
Bad English? Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks bob. I was just trying to help.
Thanks Tony & everyone at Untold for all the time and effort put into this site.
Untold is an excellent place to come and read about Arsenal. The quality of the writing is of a very high standard.
Top notch.
Tony and Walter……where DO you guys find the time to monitor, write and manage this blog?????? You both must have very understanding spouses and families! Well done and keep em coming!
Well done and congratulations to you , your Lordship ,Walter and the rest of you guys & Gals that steer the good ship “Untold ” through uncharted waters ,past the slime and sleaze and who take us on a journey of discovery of all things great about The Arsenal and that great helmsman AW.
Thank you and best wishes for more of the same .
Keep the faith .