The club that changed football
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Making the Arsenal
By Billy the Dog McGraw
Munchester City was created by Edvard Munch, a painter who went on to found a football club in north western England.
The club’s deeply evocative psychological themes of hope mixed with failure and decay, plussymbolic resistance and futility, has influenced much of English football ever since. And the city of Munchester too. The recently built Commonwealth Games Stadium, known universally as “The Scream”, because of the despair it engenders, is one of the most horrifying locations in the UK.
The Scream exists in four parts of the UK – twice in Munchester (City and Untidy), once in Liverpoodle, and once in Totteringham. Before these clubs came along, football was calm and tidy, there was no problem. But they, between them, brought a darkest side of the dark side.
The Munchester Scream was sold in May 2012 for $119,922,500, – a sale which caused many clubs to consider introducing Financial Fair Play and stopping the crowds at the various Munchian grounds sobbing or dealing in fine works of art.
Munchester Untidy is one of the most known football clubs in the world. Munchester City would like to be the same, and so have spent lots of money: the agonized figure of the manager reduced to a skull in the throes of an emotional crisis is one of the most recognisable monuments to football and an icon for local fans.
Munchester City offers us the study of the soul. As their manager recently said, “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.”
And so the modern Sheikh Rattle and Roll of Munchester City began – the story of nature screaming in the blood of those who live in the diminutive principality but share nothing in the wealth of the nation.
After the arrival of Munchester City I gave up hope ever of being able to love football again – but then Arsenal keep plodding along, doing the impossible, setting aside the rape of civilisation, living as they live.
Munchester City communicate a meaning immediately to almost everyone who is interested in football. Few clubs have ever managed this before. This is who we play, this is the Scream that we face.
“We need to learn to win ugly sometimes,” said Arteta. “You get through that and you are still winning.”
Unbeaten this season there is resilience in the New Arsenal – resilience enough to defeat the Scream of Munchester. “Sometimes when you play ugly and win that will give you six, nine, 10 points at the end of the season and that will make a big difference,” said Arteta.
“Arsène is very clear how he wants us to play and that’s not just admired in England. Over the years if you had to choose a game to watch then nine times out of 10 people would choose to watch Arsenal. And that’s for a reason: because they were exciting, they had great players and they always play the same way.”
Thus spake Arteta, but for a further review I spoke to Dennis Bergkamp at this allotment in Enfield this week. He made the point that even when faced with this scream of horror Arsène comes in and says ‘no, we are going to play the same way and we are going to hurt them here and there’.
There sheer excellence and fun of selling players to a club with no money that doesn’t need them, is an excellent backdrop for Arsenal. Song the bench-sitter, the unused sub (except once) earning more than you or I could ever imagine. While others scream at the Scream, Arsenal just keep playing the Arsenal way.
Good times for gunners all over the world.
GOOD times INDEED.
nice one again…..BUT the history lesson a couple of days ago was much more interesting. Looks like TONY had some strict guidelines placed in front of you.
Man City are the opposite of all that ARSENAL stands for. SO a win there will be a vindication of our stand.
The way we played this season so far….I am confident of a victory. 2-0 for the GUNNERS..
When football is art : Arsenal
When art meets football : Untold Arsenal
It’s MANCHESTER city not Munchester city lol. Hope we win 2 nil against the cash bags. Up the gunners 🙂
Fantastic imagination from Untold’s pet dog.
Billy, you joke about Citeh’s present ground but I recall, in 1940, the cavern of a Stand at Maine Road where young boys sat in terror at the gloom behind them.
Then, in February, 1948, I watched, cold and fed-up, in pouring rain on the opposite side of the ground, as City fought with Huddersfield in the FA Cup. After all these years, I still cannot fathom how I ever watched a game in which Arsenal wasn’t present.
Blood and Fire has given rise to the answer to today’s game. Arsene should kit out Mannone with a Salvation Army jersey.
We Really going to be happy if Jack Wilshere Can Start And even be susbs at the end …
Today’s refreeing of Liverpool-ManU game was simple day light robbery…. Shame, but no surprise.
Please review today’s Pool-Manure game. Bloody travesty.
Another dodgy penalty for United (from another blatant dive), is that 4 pens so far already this season?
How long can this blatant support of ManU by refree system continue?
Riley & co strike again – they obviously don’t want to change the underwhelming ref performances.
Laurent Koscielny is in as Vermaelen has flu. Mikel Arteta is captain
Aaron Ramsey is in, Olivier Giroud is on the bench. So just two forwards: Podolski, Gervinho.
It is 4-2-2-2
Substitutes: Martinez, Djourou, Santos, Coquelin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Giroud.
Not good, we concede from corner. 1-0 for City.
We missed some chances, they only have one and goal.
Would need to see it again, but Toure seemed to foul Manone, not sure if he would have got to the ball anyway.
Unbelivable at Anfield, that is now two ref assisted wins for Utd since mid week.
Must be strange for RVP, having all these penalties thrown at him, in stark contrast to his former club.
Would be interested to see the ref review, but it has struck me over a while that Halsey is a very poor ref, but not poor in equal measure
81″, Kos makes it 1-1
So, no clean sheets for City until now.
1-1 at the end, not bad under Dean.
A very very good point, and it could easily have been more.
This team clearly have something about them
Great to see Rambo playing so well….and as for Kos!!
Great team performance, well done guys – a very good point. I like the spirit in this team.
Really good performance from Arsenal against a very strong team.
Not many teams will take points from Man City at home.
Watching Man Utd play in mid-week and today they are going to need plenty more help from the officials to win anything this season, what a farce there games have become.
Any else notice Fergy sitting next to EPL chief Richard Scudamore at Goodison Park on Monday night?
A very cosy relationship.
Really happy to see finally big Per is getting the credit he DESERVES. he was so unfairly slated last season and he was rock solid today..Didnt put in a foot wrong,anticipated and intercepted everything today. We have got the BFG 😛
everyone here know about my man crush on Koscielny and as it was work as usual for him and great strike too..What a good selection headache for Wenger, so much better than when we were once CB down to playing silvestre. I really think we are finally settled in the CB position and when you think about it you wont find a better 4th choice CB than Djourou
So far, touch wood, our refs have been really good…if anything biased in our favour? Be very interested to see the reviews for Saints and City. Hope they’re coming out this year?
😮
Well played, should of been 3 points but you can’t have everything unless your Fergie.
Well…well…well…we come back with a point!
Great team work again…where are the boo boys for Rambo? Go take a hike…morons! Just give this guy a decent run…and he will show you the stuff he is made off! It is too early but I am truly fancying our chances now…and seriously don’t care if Walcott signs or not! A really great performance…we are coming back with just a point but look at the team, a little bit of luck (Gervinho…well we know you have it in you) and the match was ours!
Ofcourse the EPL would do anything to make it a happy retirement for Rednose…ha what a farce the Anfield game was!!!
Jenkinson also did very well – unfortunately, like Gibbs, I fear could will soon be at least on Englands radar- unless he elects to play for Finland, believe he has some connections there.
On another note, Theo needs to do the right thing before it is too late…these issues really start getting to him. He has yet to prove he really is worth more than 80 gpw, if someone else pays that, will he have a chance of playing regularly and will they be a better team than this Arsenal?
just looked again at the events at Anfield – that ref really should be ashamed of himself, many up there behaved in a manner fitting for a very delicate occasion but the ref was a complete disgrace. I know Halsey has come back from adversity and deserves respect for that, but if this is his best, he should not be a ref in this league. Like Ref Walton, he should be mysteriously moved to sunnier climates mid season if he cannot improve on this performance.
Utd have had 4 pens this season, as has been pointed out. How far back do we have to go to rack up our most recent 4 penalties?
Can’t fault a single player, all played great. Yet again another ref assisted win for red-nose boy’s, as much as I hate the scousers it was obvious the official was doing all could to ensure all the points went with the visitors.
United will break penalty record this season, at least they must be broke penalty record for first 5 games.
And Robin will breaks his last season goals, now he is United penalty taker.
And Arsenal will continue clean sheets for penalty at home.
And…
United decided not lose the title on goals different again, so they must have penalty every game or every 2 games, so they can score more.
And Arsene decided to win a title without any single penalty, it will be new new new record.
And…
I would just like to say that I was very proud of watching arsenal today-if only our finishing was a bit sharper we would have seen off the “champions”.
Potives: good spirit shown. Point is good, played well for many spells.Mertesacker very good. Cazorla exceptional. Arteta decent. Koscielny excellent. Jenko good.Negatives: Gervinho staying on 90 minutes.Complete lack of cutting edge in attack (which is what happens when you sell the best striker in the league to Fergie and Nasri to Citeh etc. £48 mil right there in profits btw).A £13m striker on the bench and clearly not rated or trusted enough by the manager.Poor, predictable subs by a clueless, lazy manager.Zone marking WTF.GOALKEEPER. Last time Arsenal had a suitable number 1 was 2006 in Lehmann.That’s a fucking joke.
A very,very good performance and result.We are more of a team this season.I like the way we celebrated our goal.Everyone ran to Kos(Walcott aswell).Nice to heat Redknapp actually say some positive things about us.They all said this was our big test and we came through it.Finally, it was good to hear Kos and Mert speaking so well on sky afterwards.
Did anyone else notice Redknapp jnr’s face during the post match analysis, he was pissed that our boys played so great, Rosie’s little nephew really hate us.
marioartist, really you need to take a look at the league table and look at the goals conceded in the PL from Arsenal.
2 goals in 5 games. And one from a mistake from an injured keeper. I think last year we had now 14 goals against.
And all this with a poor team and poor manager and selling our best players.
Yep your comment makes sense… sigh
In advance of the detailed review of the referee performance for today’s match, my impressions from watching on television are that Mike Dean showed none of the anti-Arsenal bias which we have become accustomed to in recent seasons. It is to be hoped that this may signal a realisation by PGMOL that they are vulnerable to the valid criticisms expressed on this site and backed by evidence. In other words, the refs know that they have been “found out”. Let us hope so!
John Lynch,
It is of course early days but for the moment it looks as if the refs have been rather fair in their games so far. I haven’t seen the game today apart from the last 10 mins because of my own game. But I have heard that he was rather fair today and I thought in the last 10 mins he was fair.
But will have to wait the review from our reviewer on this of course.
But imagine that the PGMOL doesn’t dare to screw us any more because they know they are being watched by us ref reviewers and by Untold….
I think people should start looking at results with the long game in mind. Chelsea next week our last game of september then October should see us win our 3 league games(I hope). November and January are going to be hard months to get through. However this gooner feels quietly confident that we will do better than last season. We have a possible 45 points available to us until January all teams that have won the premiership in recent years have had between 38-45 points going in to January.
About the Liv – Mu game. Halsey had Liverpool only once last season (against Arsenal) and he was in their favour.
But our numbers show that he was much more in favour (or better said constant in favour) of MU in the 3 games we reviewed.
hmmm, I guess its true after all, we do have a big f’ing german!
Regarding Arteta’s comments about winning ugly… I think that really shows his pedigree as an experienced player from a mid table team. What I mean by that is that when he joined Arsenal, he was accustomed to having to fight and claw in every game until the 90th minute. Mid table teams need to fight for every point, even a draw, in every game, against every opponent. They can’t afford to take any game for granted. All to often I felt Fabregas, talented though he was, would hang his head and show his frustration as soon as Arsenal went 1 nil down. I feel this undermined our team spirit, particularly among the youngsters who look to the captain for leadership. Starting last year, we’ve seen a new resolve at Arsenal and the result was many a game where came from behind to win or draw. That seems to have carried through to this season and I credit Arteta as a major contributor to Arsenal’s new resolve.
DocBrady: You hit the nail on the head with that one. I thought the same about Cesc when he played for us. It looked like when the defense wasn’t up to it, he sulked and thought why am I playing with these guys?
In the end I felt embarrassed when we would concede, thinking Cesc would get pi$$ed and leave us. Almost like having a stunner of a girlfriend that you cant believe is sleeping with you, so you don’t do Scythian she might not like or that will put her off, so you live a unmanageable life until she leaves and you can get girl that likes you just as much and wants to be with you.
We all know that kind of analogy, right?
Santi swung the ball from the left-hand side corner. City scrambled to clear the ball. The loose ball went to Kos, he controlled it with his left foot and placed it perfectly to smash with his right foot. and GOAL! That was a wonderful technique for a central defender!
Welcome back, Laurent!
well……our unbeaten run continues. I thought Giroud played really well. The only thing missing are the goals and that will come.
Brilliant display Ramsey, Diaby (1st half), the big german, Gibbs, Jenkinson…..well every one.
Though I felt the lack of competitive game time showed up in Bossielny. I thought he was caught napping for the first goal and almost had an assist to Aguero, who slashed the ball wide.
and next week we have Chelsea…
RDM the back stabber must be wondering….how will I break this ARSENAL defense and score. AND then….OH @#$#……how will I stop Gunners from scoring???
Scythian??? Stupid iPhone predictive text, I meant ‘anything’…
Anyway great game we should have nicked it in the end. I really feel and the team must also feel very confident now, bring on Chelsea!
Chelsea fc, come on down, your the next mother f***ers were gonna clown!
Oh my what a game,as i wrote in the archives ‘jack is back who drops out’i would love to hear from the AAA what do we need to add to this team? Sometimes they give us :good ideas!!Anyway Chelsea is next in the firing rage and im danm sure we will shoot them down but who is going to be our Ref? We are not yet a danger to rednose but after chelski we will be watched closely and we have to be very very careful,mark my words. All in all we are good like it or not and if the refs do their work slightly better we might just go to january unbeaten.Keep it up gunners.
“…but then Arsenal keep plodding along ,doing the impossible , setting aside the rape of civilisation ,living as they live.” – so true ,so inspirational ,so corny !Well done !
Reminds me of the tale of a ‘ little Dutch boy’ who fought a flood(of negativity ) by valiantly sticking his finger into a dyke to save the Arsenal .He grew weary and dispirited and was lured away by an evil red nosed knight who fed him ManUre !
Let him RIP -that rotter – One Pussy !
The dyke ? She’s still there gay and all, and plying her trade behind the pubs on High Street !
Which leads to the following joke .
Two lesbians (no, not inhabitants of Lesbos !), unbeknowst to either but beknownst to themselves , happen to share a room on a trip .
Both being horny and hot for each other and wanting to ‘come out of the closet’,when one of them said ,” Look I ‘ll be frank “.
To which the other said ,” No ! no, I want to be Frank !”.
WSe did well considering being at Etihad I was impressed, Patience and consistency will get us there, let the haters hate. Refs truly have a plan with manure and help them accomplish things cause really…… no way man…