Wiziwig suffered a DDOS attack the other night. There’s a sentence I couldn’t have predicted I’d be writing when, as a boy, I used to wait up, yawning, for Match Of The Day to come on, wondering whether Arsenal would feature or not. In fact when I was much younger I didn’t wait up at all. If I wanted to watch the single most important programme of the week my Mum made me go to bed early and I was then woken up to watch it before going back to bed. My parents were old school and believed firmly that children needed their sleep. Even though lying in bed staring at the ceiling an hour before my bedtime, excited like it was Christmas Eve, made sleep all but impossible, I usually did drift off. Eventually.
Mum would shake me awake at the appointed hour and I would wander in to the front room, wrapped in my dressing gown, hair awry, bewildered and blinking into the light of the television, a strange youthful alien creature materialised into the adult world of drawn curtains, hushed tones and night time TV. Dad would bring me a cup of sweet milky tea and I’d settle in next to his warmth on the settee in anticipation of the famous theme tune. Football for me has always been a place of cosiness, familiarity, excitement and expectation all commingled and stirred into a nostalgic emotional gumbo.
And now Wiziwig has suffered a DDOS attack. It’s difficult sometimes for my generation to maintain a grip on the childlike wonder with which we started our love affair with the most beautiful of games. With the explosion of technology which we have seen in recent years the way in which we consume football has altered beyond measure. Whereas I used to listen to a small transistor radio on a Saturday afternoon in the hope that the second half commentary (yes only the second half) would feature the Arsenal game, or try to decipher those strange encoded half time score cards that surrounded the touchline if I was at a Bristol Rovers match, nowadays I can watch via satellite or terrestrial television, listen to commentary provided by the club itself, wait and watch the whole match on the Arsenal Player the following day or select from a multitude of internet based players and watch every match live with a choice of commentaries from all around the world. If I wanted to discuss a match I had to have a couple of mates around listening at the same time and we could debate what we were hearing. Or if I was at a match I could discuss the half times with my fellow Gas Heads. The entire crowd was made up of Man United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Leeds fans. We were all supporting the Rovers but secretly almost the entire terrace was populated with people part of whose hearts were far far away. A couple of closet QPR fans would chat with a West Ham fan over their fags and flasks about how well Everton were doing. And all we knew we gleaned from the code in the programme and the alphabetized scores where nowadays scrolling advertising rolls relentlessly around the pitch side.
I vividly recall listening to a sixth round cup tie in which Arsenal were playing. Dave Bell, Wilb and Speed Bradley were all in my room with me and the commentators competed with the crowd noise to bring news of the match via my portable transistor. In those days, as the home side attacked, the sound of the roaring crowd drowned out Bryon Butler and Peter Jones, achieving a crackling distorted crescendo and leaving the listener in an agony of ignorance until the noise subsided and the com
mentator could at last be heard telling us whether a goal had been scored or the target missed. On this occasion the game was on a knife edge, the team were attacking again and again, the scene painted for us from the genius of Butler or the poetry of Jones , I forget precisely which was on the microphone, and as the tension grew I gripped the radio in feverish excitement. The crowd roared, the commentators erudition was lost in a welter of north London voices, Dave Bell held my arm, Wilb and Speed exchanged nervous glances, nobody spoke as we all waited to see if the ball had finally gone in and when the noise subsided sufficiently for us to hear that it hadn’t I flung the radio across the room where it erupted into a sorry pile of mute plastic pieces and silence filled the room. I felt three incredulous faces turn slowly from the shattered transistor to stare at my own horrified disbelief, and we decided to go out and ride our bikes for a bit instead.
Nowadays I don’t have anyone in the room. I don’t love the commentary as I used to. I don’t have to be woken up to watch the very abbreviated highlights. The whole thing is at my hi-tech fingertips. I never miss a match, I watch particularly well executed moves repeatedly on youtube or Arsenal player and mention anyone from Arsenal’s past and I can summon up some kind of footage of them in action. Has this diluted or increased my enjoyment? Well I have to say one thing has remained constant. I’m still that feverish little boy, muscles knotted, nerves taught, ready to smash the radio when we don’t quite score. I don’t think that will ever change. Now I have a whole world of fellow travellers typing away and transmitting their thoughts directly into my room with whom I can cheer, share consolation, argue, unfollow, favourite or applaud and with the passing of this country’s finest ever commentators I can choose to listen to Dutch or French or (and this is often the case) Russian voices thrilling to the fast flowing football of my favourite side which means I don’t have to hear Butler and Jones’ sacred memories sullied by the irredeemably despicable gibbering of their modern day successors.
Unless of course Wiziwig suffers a DDOS attack. Well on Tuesday night it did. In the absence of suitable safe links I tried for a while to listen to Arsenal Player while watching ITV but the perfect sync seemed to slip and the voices anticipated the action in a way that leant them a curious prescience so I was compelled to switch to Messrs Townsend and Tyldesley, more for the stadium noise than their wisdom you understand. How I long for the days when the crowd would simply overwhelm the commentary. It wasn’t all irritating though. In fact in a strange way Arsenal’s hypnotic stroll through the motions on Tuesday night brought with it a revelation of sorts. I don’t follow fools gladly on Twitter and not at all in the comment section of blogs but a few retweeters and a couple of good folk keep me abreast of the prevailing mood. On Tuesday it seemed many must have been watching a very different game to the one I was enjoying. There were rumblings, discontent at individual players performances and that of the team overall. When you consider the laughable ease with which we controlled the game this was something of a shock to me. But then I began to pay attention to Townsend and his pal. It dawned on me that if you are being drip fed a continuous diet of half truths, fantasy and over arching negativity about the match you are watching the chances are you might just start to feel that maybe things are not after all going too well. Is this maybe why the world beyond the barricade seems so unhappy even when we are enjoying our best season for years? They are constantly being told things are not right, performances are below par, the squad is too weak, Arsenal are having a nightmare, can’t pass, need to step it up. By never listening to the British media I don’t receive these messages and so I make up my own mind based on what is actually happening.
Townsend of course blew his cover with his involuntary cry of ‘Get in’ as a Marseilles player shot low to Szczęsny’s left compounding his embarrassing error with “I was applauding the fact that I thought he’d got himself a lovely goal”. No Andy, no you weren’t. You were caught up in the moment like any fan and you showed your true colours. The feeble attempt to make a really pitiful excuse moments later, like the rambling and painfully inept way I attempted to explain away the broken radio to my Dad all those years ago, merely served to make you sound even more guilty. It was a schoolboy error, but it at least proved beyond doubt how horribly biased against us the man actually is.
So my advice to enjoy your football is find an alternative to Wiziwig in case of DDOS attacks, get to bed early if it’s a late kick off, and don’t stand too close to me if I’m holding anything small enough to throw.
Positively Arsenal 
Thanks, guys! Off to my sister’s in a bit for the annual Thanksgiving feast and political “discourse”. My daughter and I have a bet going I how long it will be before my nephew tries to bait me with an “Obamacare” dig. My bet is 5 minutes after I walk in the door. Ah, family…
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“I remind you that cesc between 18-23 was the main playmaker of a team ending 3-4th in epl and usually top 8 in europe……alone..with eboue and others older than him choking and losing it”
For fuck’s sake, Hunter, Cesc was a bit part player for Spain, that’s how he earned his WC and Euros medals. With us he was playing with Rosicky, Hleb, Henry, Gilberto, Edu, Eduardo and an endless list of wonderful players. He sure as hell didn’t do it on his own and you don’t need to degrade players like Eboue in order to make your point. All I’m saying, free of malice, envy or whatever other emotion you want to ascribe to me, is that Jack and Ramsey, for me, are better players than Cesc. I believe they offer the team more by way of shear power and dynamism. They’re also more goal oriented than Cesc as well.
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Alabama, tell them that Obamacare has sky high approval ratings in states like Kentucky which set up their own exchanges and expanded Medicaid coverage. Also remind them that Romneycare is mega popular in Massachusetts and running against O’care in the 2014 midterms is going help the democrats hold the senate.
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I suppose expecting Tromso to deliver AVB the fatal blow is too much ?
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Ah, yes Gains, but you’re forgetting the number one rule of holiday survival…grit your teeth and keep your mouth shut. (banned smiley).
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Can Hunter and Gains agree to disagree? Let us not become like those twats elsewhere who became so fixated with their own self importance, they forgot what brought us together which is love and support for our team.
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You guys.
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Zimpaul
It’s fantastic to see the Bac Back.
Not that he dropped standards too much.
Wenger, sign him up!
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shotta
100%
It’s like discussing whether you loved DR7 more than DB10.
Or picking your favourite child.
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Errrrr,
…….. one of your own!
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nonono you dont ffs me buddy. im trying since yesterday with light hearted humour even and with multiple examples to explain to you my reasoning of why cesc is better than the magnificent jack and aaron and all youre interested in is trying to find faults in my way of thinking with ridiculous snaps about ” didnt neville carry utd to finals”…
rosicky was injured for three years.hleb had gone gilberto was way gone flamini left ..and even when they were in the team little cesc was the one responsible of keeping 9 other players movement on the pitch in his mind and orchstrate the overall play of arsenal..jack and aaron can do that even now. you are presenting cesc as just being a part of the team when he was the main computer mainframe, the software of the team…not just a part but the player that Arsene Wenger chose to build Arsenal around and trusted him with the responsibily as early as 18-19. arsene wenger who had rosicky, one of the games last genuine tens positioned tomaas on the left and had cesc as his main violin…..neither was cesc sent on loan here and there….
even before ronaldo’s last season where he could do whatever he want scoring 45 goals and 20 assists whatever…before that season, cesc was even better than him, purely in terms of responsibilty and role he had to play in his team in comparison to ronaldo. ronaldo had to finnish things or beat his man on flanks and square for the tap in, cesc had to calculate times/runs for the rest of his team and execute the passing patterns that brought the WHOLE arsenal into play and not just a section of the pitch.
and i will sure as fuck degrade whoever i want because i have eyes and i can tell who means businees, who is a kitten, who is a warrior etc etc and i am fair ..i will even degrade henry if i want to as long as i have good reason…and missing three sitters against valdez in the momment his coach and club and fans needed him the most registers as “bottler”….at the big momment where it mattered he couldnt do it and left with a letter to the sun….so trust me, your pal eboue got off lightly in my previous post…
as for the current golden duo being more dynamic/energetic, perhaps you missed the part that cesc is playmaker while the other two are box to box tenacious midfielders who are being encouraged by arsene to express their natural football talent and not just be strict ball winners/carriers. please go ahead and find me playmakers who are fast , pacey and tenacious……you are talking about the wrong attributes…
and for the zillionth time…… yes they might/will contribute more to arsenal in terms of trophies/success than cesc but that is more to do with circumstance, does it not?
well said shotta but when someone tries to target my reasoning and replies with silly examples that dotn get thepoint i despise these routines…. ive never judged anyones opinion or words in here because as you said more things unite us than seperate us. i wont have it from someone who calls ancelotti a crap coach when he played with three tens ( seedorf, kaka and pirlo ) and went to three finals winning two of them in an era we all witnessed….whenever we express a preference we have the cop here telling us we are wrong and calling us arseholes….
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Cesc vs Jack & Aaron
Day 2.
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The re -match
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We followed Brazil almost religiously Shotta. But from the mid-70s we were otherwise engaged, the struggle reaching its zenith, it was war, you took sides, I joined the movement at 17, hundreds of thousands involved, tens of thousands of casualties, thousands dying, eventually to reach 85,000, and finally independence April 1980. One consequence was that short wave radio was common, some home-made, as it was the only source of independent information against Rhodesian propaganda, and also the only way to listen to liberation radio stations broadcast from outside. In my unit (intelligence) it was obligatory. But of course we followed football. Afterwards in the 80s friends visited friends who had shortwave radio, to listen to football and have a beer.
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Hunter
As I noted yesterday, I’m more in agreement with your opinion in the dilemma than gains.
I hope my ‘you guys’ post was understood as a loving complement to the quality of posting today from so many of our PA community around the world, who have been so beautifully eloquent in their reminiscences of older and simpler times of trying to catch the Arsenal before the internet.
That’s a bit ‘when I were a lad’ stuff but hey it’s midweek. ‘Or lass’ bama!
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man i have no issues ..i just dont like it when i see people trying to corner me or expose my reasoning as “double standards” with examples that arent on the point…. ..i didnt get the chance to read stewws article but i trust its gold …from a quick scans at the comments though i realised that i have nothing to offer cause its an era i never witnessed and thus i am irrelevant….. i will only say that im a diego man and i hate fkn pele…lol…
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A poor Tromso contrived to give Spuds the three points
I suspect it may not save the Portugese from the sack on arrival at Stanstead
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you reckon he ll get fired anicol ? ..haha levy the businessman…
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mou who is still disappointed he didnt get the united job …and it shows…how long you reckon till roman gets fed up with him ..again ?
🙂
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double canister November 28, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Cesc vs Jack & Aaron
Day 2.
pedantic george November 28, 2013 at 7:46 pm
The re -match
lol…you two poking the flames huh….. i wont bite..its neither cesc vs jack+ aaron nor hunter vs gains…lets laugh at tottenham instead and tired chelsea or how the media were more interested in flaminis shirt cuts and fucking ryan giggs and all them “how does he do it comments”…what can i say perhaps his brothers wife’s vagina holds the key to his longivity or maybe them yoga/tantra sessions with sting
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Levy loves the image of being the ruthless/ decisive great helmsman
The Portugese goose is cooked – IMO before kick off against the Mancs
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None of em can dance like Eboue, and the forward hip thrust from Denilson at Everton was worth the ballon door-rer-rer.
Investigative journalism from Cross John reveals “Sleavegate”. I’m not linking to it. Look it up yourselves.
Thanks, Moderators, for fixing my earlier post.
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard….. My post, is better than yours, tra la la.
Taxi for mwah…..
Hi Alabama Gooner. Have a great day.
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Rosicky is my favorite player after DB10…. glad he is around for the long haul… none more deserving of a trophy with arsenal than him and i wish we could get Eduardo back!
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though i dislike patrick barkley he said somehting correct that totnm should rather have invested the bale money on a new ground rather than experimenting in fm …. then i got pissed of at another journalist rooting to see totnem part of the elite..what is it with totnam and the love they get in media? why do people like totnam and want them to do good even at our expence? disgusting….
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absolutely…against marseille when i saw flamini and rosicky starting i felt very very confident. konscielny and sagna and generaly the defence is in top form…we rush it a bit in attack but we will settle and start raining goals…i pity the opponent where the goals that should/could have gone in, actually do go in.
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ArsenalAndrew November 28, 2013 at 2:43 pm
sad to hear that. all the best to pat. lets win it for him. the minimum we can do . judging by the photo in his retirement last year or was it birthdy? sagna was there on cratches…..sagna will explain to everyone else how things will pan out from now on, per will supervise and flam will ensure everyone is on board.
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DC ‘hearts’ Eboue.
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Anicoll
I expect the red scum will rip the torts apart on Sunday. If I’m wrong, we’ll hey! It’s good too.
I real on the reason AVB is confidant of his job is that he has a mega million sacking clause, like he had at chavski .
How’d that work out for ya Andreas?
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In a way,
I love how fickle the goober verse I’d that right now, the quote I extracted out of some morons contributing to a bbc online discussion is now the gold standard of the lol at the anti arsenal fools.
In case you missed the original nip petty it ran along this logic,
“How can you judge arsenals title chances yet? Because they haven’t beaten any of the teams above then yet”
I wish I made that up.
But we’ll done to the folks that have spotted this line and spread it around.
(C) DC; YA pikie bastards.
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In a way,
I love how fickle the goonerverse is right now, the quote I extracted out of some morons contributing to a bbc online discussion is now the gold standard of the lol at the anti arsenal fools.
In case you missed the original quip it pretty much it ran along this logic,
“How can you judge arsenal’s title chances yet? Because they haven’t beaten any of the teams above them yet”
I wish I made that up.
But well done to the folks that have spotted this line and spread it around.
(C) DC; YA thievin bastards
🙂
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TS!
Wow. I thought it was just me.
Eduardo is the striker we need,
I ain’t joking, he was a better Suarez than Suarez ever will be. An a better human being by a million times.
And he’s a gunner forever.
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Does anyone remember back when lardrup was worth talking about?
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Very difficult to get an idea of what might happen on the field at WHL at the weekend DC
What will fuck Levy off are the pictures of Soldado shouting his head off, slagging his team mates, total lack of organisation against Tromso tonight among the Spuddies
And AVB doing Zero – other than cringeing in his wooly hat
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Great post Steww and authors of last few days too, along with comments/debate beneath.
Just spent an hour or more reading through last few days. MArvellous. keep it up
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AW, pretty please with a cherry on top, I want my Eduardo back!
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Steve I
The gains and hunter dialogues
On here alone, involve a quality of dedication too and knowledge about proper football that you won’t find anywhere else.
The rest of the posters are merely the cherries on top of the cake.
PG and his gang of (allegedly only terrorised into writing posts!?!?) writers make this the greatest website in the world,
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Ed-
Uard-
Do!!
Please AW, make this happen.
Him and Diaby coming on as subs for the last ten matches.
The uCL final is in
Portugal I think.
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Anicoll
All I hope is that the lads play anywhere near the same standard as shown against Marseilles.
No away game is a certainty, and the taffs gander is up, but if Arsenal are professional we can outplay them.
This might mean laying back on the sofa with a few good quality beers on Sunday and let the cartoon show commence!
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Well done spuds,
This away game will serve you well in the round of 32. (Thirty two!!)
The likes of Napoli, Ajax, Porto, Shalke 04, CSKA, Benfica, Shaktar, Galatasaray, Porto are going to meet them.
Never mind teams like Valencia, PSV, RB Salzburg, Rubin Kazan, Fiorentina, Frankfurt, Dynamo Kiev, Sevilla, Lyon, Betis or Lazio amongst others who could also await them.
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Jeez,
Writing that.
The Europa looks harder to win than the UCL cup!
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It looks like someone developed selective amnesia. We got the crap kicked out of us by Barcelona in successive seasons when Cesc was captain. The only time we beat them during that era was when we had Jack, Nasri and van Persie in the team. Who, last I checked, were nowhere as bad as a Eboue or the other dead wood, right?
By the way, that wall of text; TLDR.
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<>
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((CARLTON DANCE))
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Double Canister:
“Hunter, As I noted yesterday, I’m more in agreement with your opinion in the dilemma than gains.”
I knew it. You’ll pay for this.
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Eboue played on the right when we beat Bardelona, Hunter.
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What’s a DDOS attack? And what is a colon?
Something very romantic about catching the action of the game with a transistor radio. Very cozy.
That said, thank god for television and other modern inventions.
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Gainsbourg89,
I have to go with hunter on this. Cesc Fabregas it is for me all day long. I think Aaron and Jack would be honoured that they are being compared with Cesc.
You need to forget about the pain of his Barcelona DNA nonsense and look at the man himself. God, Cesc is good. Let’s not bad-mouth him now that he doesn’t play for us anymore. I absolutely can’t stand RvP but I’ll always give the asshole his due: when fit, he is a phenomenal striker. I have to bite my tongue to say this but it is the truth.
Some of the criteria that you have used to make your point are rather petty or revisionist in my opinion. The fact that Cesc did not receive the 2007/8 premier league medals is one of the gravest injustices I have ever witnessed in the beautiful game that we call football.
Finally, while this may make me sound like a hypocrite (after having taken a side), may I suggest that we drop this whole debate as it is of no use. It seems to me that all sides involved have their minds made up. All that this argument will end up doing is create bad blood. In the end we all have the right to believe whatever we like.
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What puts Cesc up there among the great midfield players I have ever seen in an Arsenal shirt was his ability to really get hold of a game and turn it round. It is not just a matter of his skill to hit a sweet pass or put in a clean tackle but to drive the whole team forward and the opposition backwards. A combination of personality, energy, football brain ? I dunno what I do know it is a rare quality.
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Arsene in a good mood this morning, no injuries, Gibbs back in the squad and Arteta ‘a little bit rested’, Polidi due back three weeks and the OX in the New Year
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