by Unknown
Supporter-ownership, in my opinion, is important and healthy for the club. For most fans, the relationship with the club extends well beyond watching a bunch of modern players and hoping they win over 90 minutes. It is a more permanent and, we hope, meaningful interaction. We are part of the club, like those bits of timber, each playing a part – often throughout most of our lifetimes – to contribute to its journey. This is why we drive to Sunderland, or Derby, or get on an extremely dodgy-looking ex-Soviet plane to attend a European Cup away game in Ukraine. And this is why, when asked, ‘What is Arsenal?’ on Twitter, we immediately think of the history, the heritage and even the ethics that we feel the club holds – or should hold.
Note the consistency in the responses: rather than people attaching their own supposed ethics to the club, fans generally gave the same responses. Arsenal means innovation, it means class, and it means doing things the right way. It is for this reason that the tragically-lost David Rocastle – officially my first favourite Arsenal player, even before Anders Limpar – is so embedded in Arsenal folklore, and celebrated for his famous imperative: “Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent.”
Despite becoming cynical, miserable, lazy and inactive adults, we still need hope. We still seek identity and enjoy being part of something bigger. Arsenal, irrespective of the team’s up and downs, gives us all of this. More than just a team that represents a town, it is a club that we are all part of, with a unique identity, a strong heritage, yet also an unfettered enthusiasm for innovation and change.
This is why I am Arsenal, and I suspect it is why you’re Arsenal, too. This is Arsenal.
Forward.
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Julian Harris is a journalist, Arsenal season ticket holder and co-founder of the fan blog Gingers for Limpar. He Tweets (too frequently) about Arsenal @gingers4limpar.
9 – LET’S GET DIGITAL - James McNicholas
As little as ten years ago, the match day experience at Arsenal was markedly different – and not just because you were walking the narrow streets around Highbury rather than patrolling the Emirates’ vast concourse. Yes, burgers were cheaper and the club shop was smaller, but whilst fans can now consume ground beef products and merchandise at ludicrous expense to their hearts content, there is something else they devour with equal fervour. Something that doesn’t cost anything at all: information.
Today, a fan at the Emirates doesn’t have to wait to see the teams emerge from the tunnel to know the starting line-up. He probably got the starting XI off Twitter whilst he was still in the pub. Not only that, but he was most likely able to read a microblog from Jack Wilshere detailing the extent of his ankle injury, as well as a projected recovery schedule. A new-fangled shiny stadium has coincided with a new-fangled shiny information age, in which we’re all up to date, up to the minute, and up to our eyes in football. And this seems truer of Arsenal supporters than most. In the wide world of the web, Arsenal fans appear to be the most verbose, spawning literally hundreds of blogs, forums and online magazines each season. Take a look at the very book you’re holding: so many of its chapters are contributed by those who began by self-publishing on blogs or other social media. The Editor? Arseblog, whose legs bestride the Arsenal blogosphere like a colossus.
For many of these writers, getting in to print was once a distant ambition, and their blogs a hopeful conduit to that goal. However, in the intervening years, digital media has begun to outstrip its physical counterpart. This is typified in the shift experienced by Arsenal’s most renowned fanzine: I suspect The Gooner’s online element receives many more hits than actual hard copies are sold. Football moves fast, and digital media allows writers to be responsive and reactive. A blog has the benefit of being editable right up to the whistle – and, crucially, it’s free.
At the time of writing, the Wikio Blog Ranking (compiled using traffic statistics and inbound links) lists seven Arsenal-specific sites amid their top 20 Football Blogs. Manchester United hold just one spot; the rest are made up of general interest football blogs, which of course are open to a far wider audience. Arsenal fans’ voracious appetite for information seems to know no bounds. In the summer of 2011, for example, the previously unknown name of Costa Rican forward Joel Campbell trended globally as fans turned over every digital leaf for clues about his future. A 19-year-old footballer from Costa Rica became his country’s most Googled citizen all on the back of some reported interest from Arsenal. What was once a curiosity has become a phenomenon.
Many have sought to understand just why Arsenal are so richly represented online – particularly those in the parasitic worlds of marketing and PR. I have dabbled in these areas myself, and have worked with some fantastic people, but any industry that uses the term ‘viral’ when talking about generating spread is bound to carry less than sanitary overtones and have, occasionally, less than sanitary practises.
One socio-economic theory is that Arsenal’s inherent catchment area of North-East London contains an unusually high proportion of digitally literate ‘new media’ types. It’s a suggestion that sits neatly alongside the modern perception of Arsenal as a middle-class club. It does not, however, reflect the true breadth or our fanbase, nor explain the wide variety of content produced by those who rarely set foot in this part of the world. Our man Arseblogger, for example, began his site whilst ensconced in the sunny sanctuary of Barcelona, and now lives in Dublin.
An alternative theory is that there is just something about our football club that provokes fans to put their thoughts down on paper, or some modern LCD-lit equivalent. I think we’d all like to believe that there is some element within Arsenal that fires a creative spark in its fans; that the crest is a muse, inspiring artistry in its followers as it does in its players. With some of the beautiful football we’ve been treated to in the past decade, that’s almost credible – until you remember that most of the fans in question were raised on a steady diet of George Graham’s football, when ‘artistic’ and ‘inspiring’ were less prominent epithets. I think the truth of it is far simpler: Arsenal had pioneers; brave explorers venturing in to the undiscovered country of the net. Arseweb was among the first, bringing fans news, results, and what today look like rather funky retro graphics. Though now inactive, it still stands as a totemic reminder of the Arsenal online creation myth.
And then came the blogs. The proliferation of information has meant that news, as a currency, has weakened. Original sources of stories are lost behind a carousel of re-tweets, as a literalised version of Chinese whispers plays out across the online playground. In this environment, where news is devalued, opinion is king. Into this void stepped Arseblogger, our foul-mouthed Christopher Columbus, accidentally unlocking a land of plenty. His sterling efforts and remarkable consistency made maintaining a weblog look easy. Inevitably, he inspired copycats. I can safely say that without Arseblog there would be no Gunnerblog. Without Gunnerblog there would be no ... well, perhaps that’s a bad example, but you catch my drift. Like Johan Djourou’s bizarre hairstyle, it’s a pyramid that keeps on growing.
Arseblog, and the few sites that sprung up around it, established a culture of Arsenal blogging. Soon the sites were covering every aspect of the football club. Sociology dictates that any culture broad enough will eventually encompass subversion, and subcultures will be formed. With supporters hungry for more and more depth of knowledge, writers were able to carve themselves their own unique niches. Arsenal were the first club to sprout blogs about the youth and reserve teams, or to have their own unlicensed video highlights sites. The Internet has infamously allowed pornography to cater to specificity. Arsenal fans have embraced it similarly, fetishising the careers of players that ten years ago we simply would never have heard of.
For the club, the initial emergence of this chorus of online voices was something of a threat. Until then, the official website had been the sole authority on all things Arsenal: no dissenters, no discrepancy. Now they found themselves having to contend with a bunch of nois
y, opinionated and increasingly influential independents. Relations between blogs and the press office were on the chillier side of lukewarm. To be fair to the club, their reaction was more of bemusement than belligerence. New media was exactly that – brand, spanking new, and no guidelines or etiquette existed explaining how to deal with them. With time, the frost has thawed and positive relationships have blossomed. The club have, if not embraced, then certainly offered a firm gentlemanly handshake to the unofficial sites, inviting them to be interviewed on Arsenal.com and initiating what ought to be a mutually beneficial affiliate scheme. Arsenal have gained a powerful ally and invested in a fertile new avenue in which to plant their press releases.
Moreover, it seems the club recognised that they too had to become a part of this digital world. On top of a redeveloped and more in-depth site, and initiating engagement with the blogs, they moved to create an official Arsenal Facebook page and Twitter feed. Of course, the sheer scale of the following of the official Arsenal channels means it’s impossible for them to behave in a truly social way: they can’t reply to every tweet, or ‘Like’ every Facebook comment. Instead, the club seem to have found an appropriate role as a concise authority: they are the definitive destination for news on the club. The blogs happily continue to buzz around them, satellites of speculation and conjecture, providing a voice for the fanbase.
The world of old media has followed suit. Newspapers now firmly encourage their journalists to join Twitter, interacting with fans to build and engage their audience. It’s no longer good enough for Paddy Barclay of The Times to simply file a match report: he is obliged to tweet minute-by-minute observations, dissect the game during a live web-chat, and debate the controversial issues on The Game podcast. Engaging in this world has a benefit for journalists that goes beyond their employers’ commercial interests; occasionally the better blogs can become sources for printed stories, in an inversion of the traditional media hierarchy. The landscape has changed. It’s true that fans are still fans. Their opinion remains governed by one principle factor; performances on the pitch. Changing the way they communicate has changed the football supporting experience irrevocably.
Take, for example, the instantaneous speed at which opinions are now transmitted. Views that would once have been lost amidst the roar of the terraces can now be digitally amplified. When the originator of those views has a significant following, it intensifies the effect. Inevitably, consensus forms faster, and a musing or rumour can quickly become an accepted wisdom. Footballers are over-hyped, or written off, more swiftly than ever before. What was once a steady drip-drip of exposure is replaced by the equivalent of standing before a fire-hose.
This has had a direct impact upon the team and the atmosphere within the stadium, and more than one player has been caught in the blast. A memorable example is the now infamous booing of Emmanuel Eboue against Wigan in December 2008. In the months prior to the game, an online discourse had accelerated surrounding the player’s perceived poor attitude and application. Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that every supporter in the Emirates on that day was part of the online community around the club, nor am I discounting the ability of fans to judge what they see with their own eyes. However, the unprecedented degree of impatience and rage directed at a player in our own colours was undoubtedly characteristic of the online debate. The ill-feeling towards the Ivorian had built up on the Internet and spilled in to the Emirates. In the interest of balance it’s important to point out that it was an initially ironic online movement that subsequently turned Eboue in to a joyful Internet meme, beginning the slow process of restoring his reputation at Arsenal. Until he ruined it again.
I don’t mean this theory of the potential for nigh-instantaneous consensus should lead you to believe Arsenal fans are all one happy family, sitting around a figurative camp-fire holding hands and singing “Kumbaya” to the strum of imaginary ukuleles. The hive-mind is not without its divisions. A glance at the work of Arsenal’s voluntary chroniclers will show you a diverse range of opinions on the direction of the club, the board, and above all the manager. There are plenty of fascinating and genuinely worthwhile debates, and here we encounter another strength of the medium – the opportunity for interaction and response. For the most part, opposing views are expressed eloquently and respectfully. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The bigger your stadium is the more pigeons will gather in the rafters to shit on you from the darkness, and as Arsenal’s online universe has grown, so has it begun to include some rather unsavoury elements. Conflict, history will tell you, is a necessary counterpart to expansion.
Take Twitter, which works as a microcosmic example of this trend. As an up-and-coming social network, it was once the preserve of erudite media folk – the landed gentry of the online world – who crafted their 140 character messages with elegance and wit, gaily skipping through the digital meadows and high-fiving each other as they swapped #FFs back and forth. In recent months, however, it seems someone has opened a portal from the online asylum that is YouTube comments. Into Twitter have poured the trolls and other creatures that surely belong only in Norse mythology, spouting bile and throwing insults and tantrums in equal measure. It is a pattern reflected across the web. Eventually, these Internet hooligans will find you.
I don’t, of course, mean you, dear reader. In purchasing this book alone you have demonstrated yourself to be a considered and excellent sort. I am certain you are reading this on some idyllic veranda, chugging peacefully on a pipe whilst planning a scheme to simultaneously end world hunger and the recession. There are, however, less discerning Arsenal fans out there; ones capable of mutating debate into division. Tribal behaviour is common in both football and online communities, so we ought not be surprised by it, but it’s a shame when Arsenal fans turn on each other. A spectrum of opinion is reductively bludgeoned into a two-way scrap.
In the eyes of some, fans fall into one of two categories: either in thrall to the Gallic charms of Arsene Wenger, or one whose outlook is that of permanent doom. Inevitably, it is the negative shouts that are heard loudest. It’s a shame, because the animosity threatens to turn what ought to be an erudite assembly in to a mud fight. The tribalism in football fans is most productive when directed outwards, not inwards. It ought to be “Us vs Them”, not “Us vs Us”. It’s also something of an abuse of the opportunity for collaboration and communication presented to us.
I opened up by talking about how the match-day experience has shifted for those inside the ground, but the most dramatic changes have been for those fans outside the borders of the stadium and, even more so; the country. Arsenal have millions of fans across the world, and only 60,000 of them can file through the Emirates’ electronic turnstiles. There are plenty outside of these confines who are equally as committed, and just as heartfelt in their support. They kick every ball in Beirut, and feel every tackle in Tokyo. The incredible response of the fans in Asia during our tour in the summer of 2011 seemed a surprise to players and staff alike, but won’t have been to webmasters who’ve witnessed a consistent flow of traffic to their sites from that part of the world. The game has gone global, and Arsenal have too.
The online activity I’ve described acts as both the fuel and the evidence of that growth, feeding an ever-expanding frenzy. Gooners all around the globe are closer to the game than they’ve ever been before, able to follow Arsenal without missing a beat. Local fans benefit too. The emergence of Twitter is reversing the economics-driven alienating effect that threatened to destroy the bond between players and fans. Now there are opportunities for genuine interaction with our heroes, which seemed unthinkable only a few years ago.
We’re all joined up; players, fans, and journalists, and more. In the case of Arsenal, it is an incredible community, unmatched in English football, and I’m delighted to have spent almost a decade as part of it. Arsenal built the Emirates for 60,000; the web has built a stadium that can hold us all. But there are no stewards here: let’s not let the infight
ing spoil it for ourselves.
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James McNicholas began blogging about all things Arsenal at Gunnerblog.com in 2004.
10 – ALL HAIL THE ALMOST INVINCIBLES - Chris Harris
What makes some title teams more memorable than others?
Drama, for starters. What Arsenal fan will ever forget Anfield ’89, Mickey Thomas, ‘It’s up for grabs now!’ and all that? Then there’s the venue. Win the league at White Hart Lane or Old Trafford and you can brag about it forever. So that’s 1971, 2002 and 2004 covered, in case you needed reminding. A long wait for glory also lubricates the celebrations. Arsenal supporters were positively gagging for the title after the 18-year hiatus in 1971 and, coincidentally, the same delay before 1989; while a seven-year itch was scratched in 1998.
Of course there’s history too. Turn a title into a Double – as Arsenal did in ’71, ’98 and ’02 – and there’s less chance of it falling down the back of your memory bank. And if you go an entire season unbeaten … well, that pretty much guarantees immortality. So spare a thought for the class of 1991. It’s more than 20 years since George Graham’s squad cavorted around Highbury with the championship trophy – not to mention a rather uglier pot from the sponsors – but this particular title can slip the mind when Arsenal fans recall the highs of their supporting lives.
Why? Well, the ’91 success wasn’t laced with drama: Arsenal wrapped up the title with two games to spare. It wasn’t won at the home of a fierce rival; in fact, Graham’s side wasn’t even on the pitch when they became impossible to catch. The fans, though ever grateful for a title to celebrate, were hardly strangers to the experience after the magic of Anfield two years prior (the chance to Double-up was scuppered by an uncharacteristic cup blip). Without the special ingredients needed to extend its shelf life, the ’91 title can get overlooked when the conversation turns to Arsenal’s finest. But that’s unfair because the statistics and circumstances suggest that Graham’s second championship team was as potent as any post-war Gunners’ side – with the possible exception of the bar-raising, history-shredding Invincibles.
