Untold Arsenal Report on the End of Season supporters event 2017 and the commentary of Ivan Gazidis

By Blacksheep

Untold Arsenal Report on the End of Season supporters event 2017

Every year members of the variousf supporters groups get invited to an event at the Emirates in June.  I have been along with Tony in the past but he was otherwise engaged this time, so Untold was represented by Andrew and myself.

We belong to AISA (The Arsenal Independent Supporters Association) and I would recommend all Gooners joining as they lay on several talks and events over the year, often featuring past players. I’ve met Alan Smith and Bob Wilson this way, and had a tour of the Houses of Parliament from Jeremy Corbyn (before he was canonized).

This year’s do was held in the Royal Oak bar at the stadium, which is very swish and quite unlike the cheap seat section I ‘sit’ in on match days. We all got a voucher for a pie and a pint (or a glass of wine)* – the pie was apparently very good (with ‘actual chunks of beef’) according to Andrew. I refrained from pie having already eaten, but they were being gobbled down ferociously all around me.

The wine was pretty rough (and no, that isn’t simply a misspelling of ‘rouge’.)

Anyway, next up I had my photo taken handling the FA Cup. It was set up on a stand with a backdrop of Arsenal cutouts. If you wish to draw conclusions from the lineup of Monreal, Özil, Alexis, Ramsey, BJG, Ospina, and Hector Bellerin be my guest. One fellow supporter in the queue  asked if they were our new signings, I quipped it was our ‘flat back four’. How we laughed, what japes.

The security guard was chummy but suggested it wouldn’t be a good idea if I picked up the cup and started running around with it, indicating the even larger guard stationed nearby. We did both wonder at how the top of the cup got bent out of shape, and he said he didn’t think it was one of ‘our lot’ that had done it. Andrew and I did accept that given that we have been in possession of the trophy for three of the past four years Arsenal might have serious questions to answer.

So then it was on the serious part of the evening, a Q and A with Ivan Gazidis. We speculated whether he might turn up sporting a tin helmet given the criticism leveled at the club recently but he was, as ever, dressed simply in a sharp suit. He was interviewed by Mark Gonnella, the club’s communications director. Now I don’t wish to point fingers at anyone but given the rather poor comms performance of the club in recent years I suspect Mark was happy to be on the other side of the microphone, and it was brave of him (and IG) to take unprepared questions on this occasion.

We had a short recap of the season with a video of the ‘best bits’ before the interview and Q&A got underway. I thought Gazidis was a consummate professional as he always is, revealing little and striking the right notes in terms of the message he wanted us to hear. He started by noting that about 6 weeks had been left out of the season review we’d just watched; that awful six weeks when the team were, well awful.

The FA Cup (which now sat on the table between them) was ‘an iconic trophy’ and he was proud that we had won for a record 13th time but it ‘was not the trophy we wanted’. The club had spent ‘an unprecedented’ £100,000,000 in the previous summer because we wanted to challenge for the title.

That challenge, Liverpool apart, had been going well he thought (although without us really playing very well), until we met Everton and things fell apart. We had a 20 game unbeaten run and I got the impression that the club were still digesting what had gone wrong.

The season was then, despite the cup win, ‘disappointing’ in Ivan’s words.

When asked by Mark Gonnella what we doing about this going forward Gazidis had plenty of positive stuff to say. We had already been primed that asking about transfers was not likely to be met with any new information. The transfer window had not opened, it opens the first of July, but we are ‘busy’. Ivan did say that we are looking for ‘starters’, for first team players that can slot straight in and make a difference; there is enough squad depth the manager and staff feel.

He spoke of changes to the non-playing staff, mentioning that we have already brought in someone to support the ‘world class’ Shad Forsythe. Our sports analytics package (bought a few years ago and explained by Tony on this site) is bearing fruit and he believes it is now taking us ahead of our rivals. We have also got three times as many scouts as we had a few years ago, in fact in all areas we are improving and increasing the number of non-playing staff. He stressed that this was part and parcel of what Arsenal do and how we become and remain a top club.

We have to be ‘world class off the pitch to be world class on it’.

The decision to extend the manager’s contract was mutual and ‘not sentimental’ and this came up later.

So, after a short chat Gonnella opened it up to the floor and given the season and the protests we have had I thought this was pretty brave and commendable. Arsenal could easily have manipulated the Q&A by asking for questions to be sent in and then selected. Gazidis chose to meet the fans head on and listen. Say what you like about him but I give him credit for that. Unlike our ‘strong and stable’ Prime Minister he faced his public.

He was asked about that poor six weeks and, using the Palace away game as the nadir of this, why the team seemed not to try or to care and only picked up after the abuse they got from the away end.  Ivan batted this back gently. He accepted that it was a difficult period when we woefully under-performed but denied a lack of effort or desire on behalf of the players.

‘This is not a group of poor characters’ he said, this team wants to win. But he acknowledged confidence was fragile and perhaps changing the tactics was as much about getting the players to focus on a new formation (to take their minds off their individual performance) as it was designed to improve their collective play. Interesting psychology there I thought (and I could see Andrew nodding).

One fan, who said his father had scored two goals in the 1950 FA Cup final  (so that must have been Reg Lewis Tony?) declared that in all his 50 years following the Arsenal the atmosphere on match days had never been so awful. I suspect he must have slept through most of the 1970s then.

Instead of ignoring this Gazidis dealt with it pretty well I thought. He acknowledged the frustrations of many many supporters and said he and the board care what we feel. It is important to uphold Arsenal’s values he added, to be a club that plays good football, that wins trophies, but also that isn’t reliant on billionaire owners, but pays its own way.

He said he felt most fans were proud of the way the club operates but accepted that some (many even) may be worried that in the modern world  of oligarchs, sheiks and the like, we may not be able to compete. He thinks we can succeed if we pull together.

This was a core message I thought, asking for fans to rally around and be united behind the team. There was no mention of banners or marches or planes but while he accepts the rights of people to be angry, worried or upset the way forward, in his view, is unity.

This prompted the next question. From someone who was unhappy that Stan Kroenke had not allowed Usmanov to take over. He thought Usmanov’s offer was ‘exciting’. Well, Gazidis was not very impressed. He defended ‘silent’ Stan as a man who had put no debt on the club, and who had taken little out. He let the club run and was supportive. He dismissed the idea that it was simply a money pot for Kroenke, pointing out that there are easier ways to make money.

Ivan also defended the annual payment of £1m (others argue it is £3m) to KSC for their services. He said Stan didn’t want paying but Sir Chips insisted, after all we have used their (excellent) services. Gazidis prefers our model of ownership to an oligarch. Kroenke could have got rid of all the existing board members, all of them Arsenal fans, but he hasn’t.

A later question opened this up again and while Gazidis stopped short of saying he would place fans on the board he did say he wanted to listen more, and perhaps we need to push him on this.

We then had a AKB question to counter the previous WOB one (although it wasn’t really a question, more of a supporting statement). This speaker decried the abuse Arsene Wenger had got and received as much applause as the son of Reg Lewis had got for his point. I think this reflected the fact that the Arsenal support remains divided on the manager, he has as many supporters as he has detractors but now he is in place until 2019 I think we need to back him.

The final question turned on the reserves and the set up at Boreham Wood. IG explained that we have invested heavily here, with a pitch that replicates the one at the Ems and all sorts of new facilities being developed or built. Andrew is much better placed to comment on this and perhaps he can do so here or later.

That ended the Q&A which was much more friendly than I thought it might have been. Perhaps it was the quality of the pies.

We were then entertained by a Q&A with Ray Parlour, punctuated by grown men who should know better shouting ‘Ooh Ahh Ray Par-La’ at every opportunity. Ray looked suitably embarrassed. I also noted that at the end while we watched a ‘best bits’ compilation of his career he looked rather sad, wistful perhaps. It can’t be easy to give up doing something you love quite as much as football, even if his new career (which includes working for the Arsenal Foundation) must be interesting and rewarding.

My favourite other moment from Parlour’s discussion of his career was him reflecting on a pre-season tour in 1997/8. Once the team had finished their training and matches Wenger told them they could do as they liked. For Parlour and a few others this meant go out for a few drinks.

Steve Bould and he and few other English lads headed for a bar and Gilles Grimandi joined them. He hadn’t wanted to hang out with the French lads (Vieira, Henry and Petit) because they didn’t drink. Ray said he’d have more fun with the Brits.

So they went to the bar and Bould asked Gilles want he was having. ‘A small glass of red wine’ came the reply. Bould promptly ordered 35 pints of beer and a glass of red! Later Parlour saw the French boys, not drinking but smoking and reflected to himself, ‘how the hell are we going to win anything if half the team are smokers and the other half boozers’?

In the season 1997/8 they won the league and FA Cup double.

*soft drinks were available

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