Good Morning!
At Starbucks Monash today with my Mocha next to me and a bright day in front of me (currently). Sleep wasn’t very good, only got 5 hours, so hopefully i don’t crash too soon.
Today I’m going to kick off my Gooner4Life section, starting with a little introduction as a Gooner.
I’ve been an Arsenal fan since 2000 but turned supporter in 2006 (i’ll explain the difference between fan & supporter another time). Before 2006 i never really watched football, or knew much about the team, i was just a fan, i wasn’t really into football. My true life as a Gooner started after i watched the Champions League Final between Arsenal & Barca and felt the heartache after, we should have won that. I starting watching Arsenal more regularly and by 2008 there were not many games i missed. I never had the pleasure of watching the Invincibles go through the season unbeaten, or if i did i didn’t really understand or appreciate it, or appreciate Bergkamp for the magician that he was and all the other good things from before my Gooner Life.
But what i can say now, is that I am a Gooner now and forever, i’ve suffered the heartaches of losing vital games and players but also see some great things in the last 6 years. I’m a supporter going though the trophy drought. I am a supporter who has seen key players leave every season. I’ve seen us throw away a Cup at the end and witnessed the physical breaking of some Gunners.
But also,
I’ve watched my Gunners beat Barca, Milan & Bayern at home, I watched the chemistry of the Rosicky, Flamini, Fabregas & Hleb midfield, i watched our comebacks against Chelsea and Spurs and time after time i’ve seen the team do brilliant things even though we haven’t had a stable, fixed squad over the years since we moved over to the Emirates; which is what i believe to be our main problem, not the lack of quality in our players, but the inability to retain a stable core of team for more than a season, which affects team chemistry and communication. I’ll go into this further in a future post.
Through all that, my support is right behind the club, Wenger, Hill-Wood & the Board. In Wenger I trust. They initiated a plan to take us to the next level, a 10 year plan that started with the move to the Emirates and will be completed when we pay off the remaining stadium debt of £250m . It is all short-term displeasure and we will get through it. We were a winning squad before but a small club, now we are a growing club without trophies after 2017 we will be one of the biggest Clubs Globally, with a Winning Squad, great leader, revenues that will enable us to pay players the inflated market wage and that’s when things will truly be stable again. Again, I’ll go into more detail in my next Gooner4Life post.
So, in wrapping up, I’m a Gooner, In Wenger I Trust, I’m here for the long-term, I believe i what the club, board and Wenger are doing for the Club and I don’t want someone (Oil money, billionaire) to buy us out and make the Club his/her new toy.
Gooner4Life
arkaysthoughts 