Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
“If I met him in the street I would slap him.” By Tony Attwood Untold, from its earliest days, has carried the argument that FIFA is a bent organisation organising bent tournaments. The site has only reported a handful of the incidents that lead to that conclusion, but if you want more you only have …
Read More “The referee for the England game is “a crook, a scoundrel and a shameless bastard””
by Tony Attwood If you take homeowners who in recent years spent far more than they should on buying a house on a mortgage, you can liken them to clubs who’ve also taken the “everyone else is doing it!” approach of reckless financial management. Instead of living within their means, they’ve run up debts they …
Read More “The collapse of football: how the toxic weed of Strategic Default took over our game.”
By Tony Attwood Well, there it is. I pop over (or rather under, since I went by train) the English Channel for a few days, practice following the football news in French, watch France and Spain on TV being given the run around in warm ups, muck about a lot a Futuraworld (Poitiers) and then …
Read More “Revenue and Customs issues writ against the whole Premier League”
By Tony Attwood I have, from time to time, let slip that I feel that corruption is rife in football in England – and indeed elsewhere. The little affair of Lord Triesman and his allegations about bribes in the world cup didn’t come as a surprise, nor did it that it took FIFA just a …
by Walter Broeckx We all live in a perfect football World. Well, that is what we want to believe. Or what they want us to believe. There is no such thing as corruption in football. Games are not sold. Refs are not bribed. That is what we should believe. Most of you know that I …
by Walter Broeckx A few days ago I wrote an article on punishing certain types of behaviour of players on the field. Someone pointed out that it also should be done for referees. If players could get a yellow card after the game because of their body language or anything else that needed judging later, …
————— Today’s Sponsor: “Making the Arsenal” – just so you can realise what it was like in the really bad times. ————— By Tony Attwood The BBC and a lot of other commentators and news sources said, “Chelsea Football Club has said it is now “virtually debt-free”.” You’ll remember it well. 30 December last year …
Read More “Chelsea FC are not debt free at all – it was all a huge con (or a mistake)”
By Walter Broeckx Congratulations and celebrations, When I tell everyone that you’re going to the world cup Congratulations and jubilations, I want the world to know I’m not surprised at all. ————- Forgive me to have changed the lyrics of this old Cliff Richard song a bit. The refs that are going to the world …
Read More “Rewarding the loyal refs for their dreadful decisions”
Today’s Sponsor: Historical Fiction on Acid. The strangest book on football in the history of books on football. ———————— Crisis, What Crisis? By Simon Bailey. Is the English game in crisis? Well if we compare it to FIFA or Trinidad and Tobagos FA our own situation doesn’t look too bad. But judged on it’s own …
Read More “Crisis what crisis? The rotten structure of English football.”
———————— Today’s Sponsor: Making the Arsenal: historical fiction on acid ——————————— Blackburn Rovers will forever be known in football as the inventors of that most pernicious evil, Rotational Fouling. They later adopted the Rotational Timewasting approach that Bolton Wanderers developed soon after, and worked with other clubs to combine this philosophy with the “park the …
Read More “Blackburn Rovers. The source of much of the evil that inflicts football today”
Today’s Sponsor: Making the Arsenal: historical fiction on acid —————————– There is a story doing the rounds that says that the EPL is about to propose that transfer fees must be paid within a year of a player signing. At the moment the fee is paid over a period up to five years, which is …
Read More “Trying to decipher the code: what are the EPL going to do next?”
One of the big problems with Britain is that we don’t really know how to do scandals. But we are really good at covering them up. We can have scandals, of course, from ministers having affairs with prostitutes, to a whole bunch of KGB officers working in the middle of our military intelligence services with …
Read More “If English football was really bent, would anyone ever tell us?”
Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News And as today marks the 100th anniversary of the last day of Arsenal’s turbulent season when Norris first mentioned taking us over, today’s Sponsor is: Making the Arsenal ————————- At Arsenal there is an issue for some supporters (the black propaganda revisionists and catatrophists). They want us to follow the Charlton Athletic …
Today’s Sponsor: Gooner Gifts – everything for the real Arsenal fan —————– One thing that is very often said by fans from other teams or by our own fans is: if you take the decisions over the whole season the good and the bad one will even themselves out. Now do they really? It is …
Read More “Those ref decisions balance out by the end of the season, don’t they?”
By Walter Broeckx. Additional material by Tony Attwood When the referee in the Porto / Arsenal game allowed a quick free kick to be taken there were two reactions. Arsenal players, management and supporters were outraged. And the media, never one to miss an opportunity to knock Arsenal, said, “How many times did we see …
Read More “The quick restart after the foul: what does the ref’s manual say”
One of the best statements I have read on this site since the end of the 10 year unbeaten run was that encouraging us all to wear the shirt with pride. The 10 year run in which we were unbeaten in the league by Tottenham Sewage (a club renamed to coincide with the chants of …
Read More “Wear your shirt with pride as the EPL starts going to court”
By Walter Broeckx As a ref I am rather well placed to hear some things that others never hear. I have heard stories told by other refs on how they have helped teams to stay up or to become champions. Some did it because the president of a club came in the dressing room before …
By Walter Broeckx Sir Alexenophobia Ferguson has opened his mouth to tell us that the way the Bayern Munich players behaved in the game at Old Trafford was typical of Germans. I’m not going to give too much time on reviewing the ref of that game but let me start by saying that Rafael would …
It’s a bit of a funny old world at the moment (as they say), and my ramblings herein have no overall focus, what with us not having a match this weekend. But I thought I’d just throw in some of the stuff that has caught my attention of late. If it is all too boring, …
Read More “The world of football meanders along, and carries us with it…”
“The childish whimpering of car thieves like Domenech represent the pathetic winging of football’s dodos entering the last chance saloon.” I think that is a fair and reasoned statement. The idiot Domenech, whose main job is to steal footballers who are carefully trained, developed and nurtured by their clubs, not to mention paid by their …
By Walter Broeckx This week Howard Webb has taken away the last doubts. He will be the English ref that will go to the World cup in South Africa. This week he has done everything to deserve this but before I go to details I will tell you how FAs over the world hand the …
Read More “Just how corrupt would you like refs to be? Birmingham v Arsenal revisisted”
By Walter Broeckx I remember the day that Belgium had it’s greatest tragedy in football history very well. I know it was a very bright and sunny day. As I worked in the office of an industrial laundry at that time and we had a lot of hotels in Brussels as clients we had a …
The Football Association chief executive resigned on 18th March 2010 after about nine months in the job. Like virtually all of his recent predecssors he has simply thrown in the towel once he realised the enormity of the problem the FA faces. No reason has been given for his departure, and at the moment I …
Read More “Exclusive: the real reason why Watmore resigned from the FA”
West Porno United, named after their owners, threw everything at Arsenal in this game, and then some. We expected rotational fouling – it is what the lesser clubs do, and we got it. We expected the referee (their 12th man) and his linos (13th and 14th) to do their bit in letter it go – and they did. …
“You’re Fucked and you know you are….” By Simon Bailey. I think we are all caught in one of those moments where we are living an alternate reality. You sort of recognise what’s going on, but it all feels a bit surreal. A week ago everything was normal. Respective managers were briefing their respective teams …
Read More “You’re not very well: football stumbling along in an alternate reality”
