Arsenal Worldwide, an update

by Walter Broeckx

When I came in touch with Armin Medic, of the Bosnian supporters club,  a few months ago he came up with the idea to do something for the Arsenal fans outside the UK. We had some very interesting email sessions and so the idea of making a magazine written by Arsenal fans from over the world was born.

We have been writing at first to the official clubs that are known and an article by Tony Attwood, where he told about our idea, was published on this site.

As Armin and I are members of a supporters club in our country we know that sending an email to the club is not always a certain guarantee of getting a quick response. I must admit that until a few months ago even my own supporters club was very guilty of being very slow on replying on mails send to the general mail address. To give you an example Armin send a first mail to our club in September last year and it was only till we got our new webmaster in March that he send it further to me.

Anyway after writing to the clubs and the article on this site we got a rather satisfying response. Both from official clubs and also from persons who were not members from a club in their country and also from supporters who had a supporters club but who never asked to become recognized as an official club. We don’t make any difference between all those different people and clubs. Any Gooner is a Gooner for Arsenal Worldwide.

We also have informed Arsenal about our project. We have let them know that one of our main objectives would be to let fans over the world know that there are clubs in their own country or maybe new clubs could be made as a result. And so we would be supporting The Arsenal itself by doing this. Arsenal have sent us a mail to let us know that they like this idea and hare happy about it.

So the first magazine we plan to make will be a magazine in which supporters clubs can present themselves to the audience and to each other. We also want to give the supporters clubs the chance to make them self known to other fans in their country. Fans who maybe didn’t know that there was a club that they could join. Also single fans can write on how they experience their live in their country during games or on match days. Maybe they find other people in their country and in time they could form their own club.

The first goal is to bring people together. Maybe in the village next to you, or even in your own village where you live, there could be another Gooner who is doing the same things as you but you don’t know each other and you don’t know that he exists.

People came up with other ideas. One of them was translating the magazine in other languages. I think it could be a nice idea. After all not all people can understand enough English to read an English magazine. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to also reach those people? You understand this is not an easy task and this is something that not will be done overnight but it is something we will keep in mind.

Another idea that was brought up was to try and gather ideas. Ideas from fans from all over the world about the Arsenal. Now I don’t mean an idea like : “I think Wenger should buy Messi”. It should be ideas about Arsenal and how it can relate with fans like us. Ideas like asking Arsenal if it would be possible to sell more tickets to clubs outside the UK that are willing to visit games.  Again this is an idea that has to be looked upon and has to be worked out in time.

You don’t have to send me other ideas now but we could see that we find something where we can communicate first with each other and then with Arsenal.

I also know that when a new idea comes up people are willing to join it. And I also know that  saying : ”I will  join” is easy. But when it comes to writing an article it is not that simple anymore. People have other things to do, they have to work, all things can happen which causes delays.  That’s just the way many things in live go.

Our first deadline was to try to make something ready at the end of the season. I must admit that we failed in this. Time is valuable and as we do have a live outside the internet even for me at times it was difficult to keep it going. So we have dropped that deadline a bit and our goal now is to publish our first magazine when we are really ready for it.  For the moment it looks like we will have articles from Africa, Asia, Australia, America and Europe. I think this is very well much worldwide I think.

So if by any chance you might think that this is an idea you want to support you can still join us. You can always send an email to me at walterbroeckx@hotmail.com if you want to join. And if you have already told me you would join but you haven’t sent in your article  yet, you can also use the same address.

If the first magazine is a little success in terms or readership and comments we will be looking to new magazines in the future. In fact that is what I hope for to be honest.

I also would like to thank Tony Attwood for his help on this. He really was helpful in making it possible to find a space on the internet where we could have this magazine available.  He has done a lot of work already behind the scenes and if we publish our first magazine it will be thanks to Tony that you can read it. In fact it is Tony that was so kind to take care of a name for the site and for letting it run on his servers. But it will not be another Untold Arsenal. I will try to ask Tony to write a little article in the first magazine and by writing this here in public I put some pressure on him, even though I think he will not need any pressure to write something for us.

But other than that it is meant to be a magazine where all the different supporters of The Arsenal can let the world know how they are living with The Arsenal. All from their different countries, with their different cultural backgrounds, their different religions and traditions. Because when it comes to The Arsenal we lose our nationality. From the moment we pull on our Arsenal shirt to support our team, the only nationality that is left and shared is the Gooner nationality.

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And there is more interesting stuff on this site

If you like this idea just read this also

Rewarding dreadful refs

Untold Arsenal – the index of everything

Woolwich Arsenal – Oh no, not them

Making the Arsenal – how it all happened