Dear Positivitas, please find below the wise and no doubt the carefully considered words of a Smoggie, Mr Stroller by name who has been a supporter of Boro since Jack Charlton was a small boy.
Bill offers a spot of history, a spot of technical football analysis and – well, yes, on Valentine’s Day – lust.
Enjoy !
BORO v ARSENAL…..
OMG….. I can see David Mills even now…. the late 70’s…blonde afro hairstyle flying in the breeze as he sliced through the Arsenal defence YET AGAIN….as Arsenals defence collapsed like a House of Cards before him….and the 5th Boro goal nestled in the back of the net……….
Terry Neill suggested afterwards that the Arse defence had practised their passing game against 10 dustbins in training the day before…AND THE DUSTBINS WON !!
I recall coming down to the Gunners FAB HIGHBURY Stadium the year Jack Charlton’s Boro got promoted in 1975. I had to see KEN FRIAR, your long serving Club Secretary to conclude a little business BEFORE the game. He invited my colleague and I to have lunch in one of the club restaurants and we were taken to a beautiful dining room and sat on the next table to Joan Collins and her dad. My pal said – can you smell Sunday Dinner….and I said.. “ I can SMELL MONEY” Hell, we were used to having a BOVRIL & a MARS Bar “OooP NORTH “. This was a different world and your famous MARBLED HALLS were amazing. What a classy place it was…and so was JOAN. The woman was very sexy to us 2 young fellas sat next to her. She teased us and tickled our fancies and was quite preposterous with some of her suggestions. She and her dad asked if we want to have a go on their “forwards sweep draw”….so we said go on then. Trouble was we had to decline as they were chucking in a TENNER a go…we used to put 50 pence in OOP at AYRESOME PARK.
Highbury was always one of my fave grounds…and over the last 30 years or so – ARSE have been my 4th FAVE TEAM in RED…after Boro , BORO reserves…and my BILLINGHAM STROLLERS VETERANS team…who appeared at WEMBLEY STADIUM in August 1993 at the CHARITY SHIELD. We shared the pitch with ARSENAL that day as they followed our game against NOTTINGHAM VETS by playing ( and losing) to Man Utd.,
As for SUNDAY’s game…… well…. BORO are no longer the surprise package in the FA CUP…and you guys MAY have a bit of a battle on your hands.
Personally, I think YOUR GAME will suit our style far more than MAN CITY did. YOU LOT have CLASS all over the pitch and we have PASSION and COMMITTMENT and PACE…..and a fair amount of CLASS. AITOR KARANKA will make sure we’re NOT overawed and NOT over confident after our good form throughout the season.
DANGER MEN you need to watch out for……. TBH….ALL OF US……… Our keeper is TERRIFIC. He’s 36 and been on the scrapheap more times than enough yet he’s got more clean sheets than the SAVOY HOTEL.
The back four is full of class, height, pace, heading ability and great savvy. VERY disciplined indeed.
Mid-field dynamos are Leadbitter and Clayton – the BEST 2 guys in the Championship. Work well off and with each other and are supported by 4 good forwards who don’t know the meaning of “an off-day”. They all have lots of individual and different talents and yet they work brilliantly as a team. Our bench has 7 others on there as good as the first choice XI.
You will have a hard task tomorrow. Don’t expect to WIN without a BATTLE on your hands and blood on your boots . ……..
…and yet…as MUCH as I want us to win….and every BORO fan of the 5,500 LUCKY ones there tomorrow and the thousands at home……. will be cheering us on to win. OUR SUPPORT over the last couple of seasons has been fantastic. We’re all going to enjoy the day BUT IF we don’t manage to defeat a great team at home…then we are all hoping that we’ll be back to see you again NEXT SEASON.
Is Joan COLLINS still a season ticket holder.. ??
How old is she now… ??
Anyone got her number… ??
Hope it’s a great game …….
Positively Arsenal 
I can echo that… hope it is a great game!
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Fantastic read,old Joanie eh?..
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Lovely stuff.
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Re team speculation in comments to previous post, I sincerely hope the boss takes this one seriously and puts out his strongest team. Boro should not be taken lightly – they are in good form and brimming with confidence.
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Another gem, PG, this blog gets richer and richer when you get a good old smoggie to write for us too….class
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Arsenal to lose 3-0 to Smoggies Man of the Match the great the biggest Sh#t for Brains man from Wirral Mike (I hate Arsenal) Mike Dean. Expect Arsenal to be reduced to 10(maybe 9) men, for not smiling at the Smoggies crowd. Two penalties for smiling at the Arsenal crowd. Love to be wrong but the Man from Wirral will take the day.
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Thanks for that, always interesting to have a voice from the other side as it were. I remember Roger Northam getting in to see The Bitch featuring Joan Collins at the Midsomer Norton Palladium, because he always looked older than the rest of us.
He also was rumoured to have ‘done it’ with Miss Weiss the staggeringly sexy girls PE teacher but I’ve come to doubt that over the years.
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great read Mr Stroller ( surely thats George Graham isnt it)
The best ARSENAL v middlesborugh game I remember was the 5-3 at Highbury when we conceeded three early goals but come back to win. As I have said in a previous post I always expect Boro to send down a good team and by the look of their lastest version I expect no different this time. COYG
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Morning Positives and the sun is beaming down
I was having a look at Boro’ s record against us and it is better than I thought during Wenger’ s reign
I well remember the 7-0 spanking and the 5-3 thriller AoB talks about above bout do you remember them coming to Highbury and winning 3-0 ? I don’t but it happened !
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I think the worst Boro memory I have -possibly the worst football memory I have – is back in 1980.
We had lost the FA Cup final to 2nd division West Ham, and followed that with a defeat at the Heysel to Seville on penalties in the Cup Winners Cup final. Not a great week.
With our final game of the season delayed our chance of European football the next season relied on us getting a win at Ayresome Park. A midweek game in late May, Boro had nothing to play for so we travelled North with confidence that it could not go wrong again. Ayresome Park was a bleak unfriendly place, like Stoke but much much uglier.
So off the game went , a poor start, players tired, morale obviously gone, and Boro at that time were a tough physical side, uncompromising. If they had nothing to play for then no one had told them.we crumbled, nothing went right. It is a blur of pain.
The score finished 5-0 to the hosts and the train journey back to London was the most miserable I have ever travelled.
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Well we can’t say we weren’t warned – tough encounter expected!
Ken Friar is today a kindly old soul, well into his 80’s still attending games, home and away. A local lad, he was once caught red handed having kicked his football under the then manager’s car. He was next required to work as a messenger boy on match days to pay the cost of the repair (so legend has it) and has been stuck at the club ever since.
When the Emirates was at planning stage he is said to have played a key role in securing the necessary permissions; having lived in the borough all his life he knew all the various officials required to get the thing off the ground: something our neighbours in Middlesex have struggled badly with – and are still working on, even now.
Although today something of an unsung hero to many fans, his contribution to where the club finds itself in 2015 has not been entirely overlooked and many Middlesborough fans may today pass unwittingly over the Ken Friar bridge and past the discreet but touching statue recently unveiled there, as they make their hopeful and likely noisy progress from Arsenal Station to the Emirates.
It’s a slightly mind-boggling thought that the manager who’s car trapped Mr Friar’s football under it all those years ago, George Allison, was himself born in 1883, just three years before the birth of our now great club. By my rough calculation, for a similar feat to be repeated today, we would have to wait until around 2147 for the sequence to play itself out.
And even then, no doubt, there will still be those moaning about the manager, banging on about prices and the urgent need for new technology.
Holographic referees, anyone?
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Nice one!
Joan Collins! Was 16 or 17 when The Bitch came out and still recall seeing a promotion pic of Joan in black stockings basque lying on a bed………… Hmmmm ………. Oh yeah there’s a game of football….. UP The Arse…. Yep def now football on my mind again (winking smilie)
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Anicoll, why didn’t you wait to string up Terry Neil at the train station in Boro?
That’s what the smart kids do.
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Nice one, Mr. stroller.
I’m afraid that after yesterday’s results it will be Arsenal left to stop the PR juggernaut of Liverpool and Stevie G from getting anything at Wembley.
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What a great Post by the Boro guest, and also a little look back at a different era, and reminding us of what a great stadium Highbury was.
I would like to have known what Mr Stroller did to get an invitation to have a pre-match dinner with Joan Collins in the select Arsenal restaurant, courtesy of Ken Friar?
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I’m guessing Joan was one of Ken’s side bitches, Henry B.
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The thought of today’s match fills me with excitement and I cannot wait to see who is selected to play.
I would like to see Chezzer have a wonderful performance in goal as I have to admit that I remain a fan of someone who is self-evidently a Gooner – the trouble is that implies him having to do so because Boro are playing out of their skins.
Maybe young Bielik will also get a cameo appearance to let us see what he is made of, and of course there are rumours that Gabriel will play at CB instead of either Mert or Kozzer, and that is intriguing as well.
Then a cold draught of reality hits me, and maybe taking liberty’s with assuming we can beat Boro without all our seasoned first team players and coming an unexpected cropper makes me think that perhaps a more limited change of personnel might be in order.
Frankly I just could not bear the ructions that would erupt if, given the vagaries of all Cup games where upsets have become commonplace, coupled with a dodgy referee, fate should conspire to give Boro a win, lucky or not.
I am not a wholly convinced fan of Theo, as he has promised so much over the years only to disappoint because of injury or whatever, but today might just be the game for him to let rip and take control of the game and score a hat-trick – he is well capable of doing just that.
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What a mild and mellow place PA has become! Frolicking with the enemy before battle. Who would have thought this?
Quite an enjoyable read Mr Stroller, even for a gooner in the Caribbean.
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AA,
If I was allowed to do an emoticon, I would give you a double grinner for that!!
If he heard that you thought Joan was only ‘one of his side bitches’ I think Ken would collapse with shock – and wonder where he went wrong!!
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A5, as i remember the 0-3 was when we scored two own goals, both by brazilians one by debutant Juan, the thrid might even of been a pen but my memory is a bit sketchy.
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Shotta this a nice place as no one has mentioned the firm boro used to have, away games were usually scary and i honed my running skills there on more than one occasion.
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An nice preview on Untold http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/41071
“But as you will see from the note at the end of this piece, we have already played Middlesbrough in the fifth round of the Cup on this day. It was under Herbert Chapman, and was part of the cup run that gave Arsenal their first ever major trophy. Not a bad day to have the match.”
COYG
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Ravenelli, juninho, Boksic, the chap who nearly scored the silly goal against City. They’ve had some players, and probably have some decent ones in the current squad.
None of the teams in the championship are running away with it like Leicester last year, but they are still probably a better team/squad then QPR and maybe one or two others in the PL.
Akpom to score his debut goal when/if he comes on/starts.
Come on Arsenal!
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a-or_b @ 12:48 pm – I guess many of us “old-school” football fans have a tale or two to tell. I have had my share. Competition brings out the best and the worse in us.
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Nketiah (2) and Da Silva (2) scored the goals today as Arsenal U17’s won 3rd place in the ALKASS International Cup v Milan
Team was
Keto
Tella
Musendo
Da Graca
Moore
Mourgos
Sheaf
Gilmour
Willock
Da Silva
Nketiah
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Arsenal FC @Arsenal · 7s 7 seconds ago
#Arsenal team to play @Boro: Szczesny, Chambers, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Flamini, Cazorla, Welbeck, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud
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Arsenal FC @Arsenal · 18s 18 seconds ago
#Arsenal subs: Martinez, Mertesacker, Monreal, Rosicky, Walcott, Coquelin, Akpom
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What a great read… thanks Mr Stroller.
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I can’t see past an away win today, and don’t recall ever feeling so pessimistic before a game. In fact I think the rest of the season will be a struggle. Not because of the players, or the manager: just a sense that the games will be called incorrectly until such time as we are out of whatever race it is that we are perceived to be a threat in.
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I’m not surprised flamster has been picked, it’s a big game for him to show he isn’t surplus to requirements for the rest of the season.
UTA!
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Gabriel starts for Arsenal & becomes the 829th player to represent the club
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Mike Dean was there when we beat city 2-0 at the emptihad, don’t be too down beat FH.
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Sam @samuelJayC · 16m 16 minutes ago
Not in #AFC squad today: Ospina, Debuchy, Bellerin, Arteta, Wilshere, Ramsey, Gnabry, Chamberlain, Diaby & Bielik.
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Good balance in the starting squad. Should be good enough but, hey – it’s the FA Cup!
It’s cliché time.
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Looking forward to seeing Gabriel play. Hope he’s looking forward to playing. A nice headed goal from a set piece in the first five minutes should settle him.
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what the fuck is Wenger playing at, picking Alexis, you’d think he’d not take the FA Cup so seriously
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Cazorla is captain today
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Surprised it isn’t Koscielny as captain but then,wtf they’re all captains on the pitch.
(Told you it was cliché time.)
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It’s a bit embarrassing having a captain with that hairstyle.
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Nice warm up piece for what is shaping up to be a great game of football.
Why do people take Arsene for his word when they know he’s taking the piss half the time? If people think he’d risk Sanchez theyve lost it.
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20 minutes gone, totally in control, all that is missing is a goal for Arsenal
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delightful goal, Giroud with a tap in from a Gibbs cross after beautiful one touch play from Ozil, Welbeck and Cazorla
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great volley finish by Giroud from an Alexis corner makes it 2-0, outstanding goal
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Bloody corker the 2nd from Olivier
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HT: 2-0
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Lovely stuff…. I really enjoyed watching that. Let’s hope it continues for the 2nd half
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Comfortably in control. Gabriel looking relaxed – wonder what he’s like under pressure? Don’t think we’ll find out today.
Good to see that they all came out and put the pressure on Boro from the first minute – no taking for granted. The goals were just a matter of time. It was clear early on we would score.
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Giroud’s second was a breathtaking piece of finishing, such skill and power. Total control so far let’s hope the foot stays firmly on the gas.
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professional foul earns Gabriel his first yellow card in English football – 55 minutes
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