I grew up listening to the Archers. No, that’s understating it. I probably heard Barwick Green while I was still in the womb. My mother, you see, is a lifelong devotee. The radio has always been an important part of my life from Listen With Mother (which I did, both ante and post natal) through radio dramas and book serialisations to timeless comedies like Hancock and ISIHAC. The Archers was the stitch that held the whole thing together. I can still vividly recall where I was when Mike Tucker lost an eye, Eddie took Clarrie to Norfolk for their anniversary and whenever I think of Mark Hebdon’s death I am transported back to the kitchen in my old house, the sense of shock which stopped me in my tracks as I prepared our supper, as palpable today as it was all those years ago.
When the internet arrived and grew into a feature of our daily lives I discovered to my joy that the BBC had set up what was then known as a message board for people like myself who’s real lives were hopelessly entangled with the radio soap. We could discuss our favourite characters, rage at the ones we disliked and argue with one another over how awful or dire the current episode was. I discovered that far from being a bland middle class woman with a penchant for horses and other people’s husbands, Shula was in fact a hate figure for many of the shows most ardent fans. Nigel was loved and David despised, everybody loathed the writers but nowhere near as much as the editor and were to a man and woman all mildly deranged. I loved it.
It was baffling but wonderful to be connected with a world wide network of similarly minded people and to realise just how much more they knew about the show than I did and how much more they cared and how many of them seemed to find listening to it little short of torture. The years passed and the message board became as important if not more so than the programme itself. Even if I missed an episode I knew what folk thought of the plot (ridiculous) the acting (lamentable) the producer (sack her!) and could weigh in with my own venomous or light hearted contributions.
Then they killed Nigel.
In a move more Albert Square than Ambridge the powers that be decided that the Archers sixtieth anniversary was such a big occasion it ought to be marked in some dramatic fashion. Not just with a documentary or a book release but within the story arc of the show itself. They broke the rules. They killed off a much loved character in a ridiculous fashion and without the merest passing thought of the history of the show and what made it great. It was a cheap shot and a needless one and many of us were so outraged we vowed never to listen again and I haven’t.
I realise now that had I not dived into the world of online dissection and over reaction I would probably never have known I should have been so cross about Nigel’s death. I would in all likelihood have continued with my curious, furtive addiction and still be enjoying the goings on at Brookfield to this day. As I looked through the swirling cesspool of anguish and over blown emotion on both sides of the internet debate in which the simple love of football has drowned since Sunday’s defeat, I can’t help wondering if I’ve been making the same mistake all over again.
Back in the day, when there were wolves in Radstock and hair on my head, I used to turn eagerly to the sports pages in the hope that there would be something – anything – about Arsenal. If there wasn’t it was a disappointment but I got over it. When the scientific revolution exploded into our homes I discovered people were blogging about the club. Some of them were doing a pretty good job too, more honest and earthy than the staid journalists, more partisan. I was cock a hoop. I could read about Arsenal every day, guaranteed, some times from two or three different perspectives. Once I plucked up the courage to add a comment or two I was suddenly swept along on a wave of conversation, commiseration, celebration and tactical analysis. I was through the back of the wardrobe and into a world I couldn’t have dreamed possible.
Nowadays the prospect of Arsenal taking a trip to Spain in the hope of conquering impossible odds in the European cup isn’t one of nervous anticipation. Instead it is an exercise in wading through despair, factionalism, hatred, argument for its own sake and a long drawn out game of playground one-upmanship. Trust me there won’t be any winners in this. I’ve been down this road before. If we football fans don’t find a way to just enjoy the matches as they come and shrug off the inevitable defeats as we once did, we might wake up one morning to find our love of the game suffocated by this artificial world of the armchair expert and the keyboard warrior.
Before you point out the irony of me using a football blog to make this statement, I’ve got that already. Also there’s no need to tell me that football is different from every other passion, is special in some way because I don’t believe it is. There could come a day, and it might come sooner than you think, when all of this garbage that sadly envelopes what could and should be a fun way to stay in touch with other supporters actually destroys our passion for the club. It may already be too late. We may already be in free fall, or we may just be teetering on the edge.
I am painfully aware that I ought to be excited at the prospect of an historic European night right now, and not concerned at the reaction if we don’t make it. If I feel like this, imagine what it must be like for the honourable, decent man who stands every day at the eye of the storm. He must feel like climbing to the roof of Lower Loxley.
Positively Arsenal 
Poor old Nigel! These days, if not wanting to kill him, they’d like to see Arsene out of the show. Bloody morons. I support Arsenal. Full stop. So if one of these morons could PROVE to me that Arsenal would be a better, stronger club without AW than with AW, then I’d be all for it. But bearing in mind exactly what he’s done for the club, it would have to be one hell of a better case than that derived for bumping off Nigel.
Thanks again Stew.
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Morning Stew and many thanks, I wondered what you might write today,and youve done a great job. I think a lot of supporters feel like you, I know I do. Playground one up-manship sums it all up.Thatchers loving it all. If only the energy thats being put into “Wenger out” was put into our social problems,how much we could change. The illusion of football is a mighty one,sending the mind into joy or something nefarious.
Only wish our lads and manager the very best and hope they can detach from all the bullshit. And all the best to all the fans travelling to the game,hope they have a great night too.
COYG!!!
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interesting read steww as per sual…
lets enjoy the game.. let barca not overly dive – they seem unable to help themselves…
let arsenal be more clinical cos we will continue to create chances…
3 shots, 3 goals, game won.. next round for the arsenal.
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Never got into the Archers although I do know a chap who advised them on some mental health storyline.
I still manage to shake off a defeat almost by the time I’m out of the stadium or, if not, at the very latest before I’ve finished my first post match pint.
I look forward to tonight and also the enevitable outcries of rage should we fail to turn the tide.
I was looking at Twitter last night and a thought hit me: given every club has their ‘manager out’ selection of fans to one degree or another (maybe not audible in Leicester at present but believe me they’re lying in wait, hidden among the inflatable clapping sticks) then our own WOBs must surely need to ask themselves one question:-
“How fucking useless are we? YEARS we’ve been trying and failing. We are the clearly identifiable, most useless ‘manager outers’ in existence”.
Whether they do ask themselves this is perhaps unlikely but while they shout their ineffective demands after our next defeat, I’ll down my pint and smile at yet another pointless, fruitless and mindless expenditure of spit and vitriol on their part and the ever lengthening record they are creating. At least, when Arsene does go, our WOBs will have a record to stand for decades. A record in abject failure and pointless effort.
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Brilliant Steve!
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Stew is right you know.?
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“I was through the back of the wardrobe and into a world I couldn’t have dreamed possible.”
Absolutely brilliant Stew.
There’s so many that got lost on the other side, started their own colony and are hyped by the new personas they created for themselves, that they forgot to return back to real world.
I’m looking fwd to the 2nd instalment of Arsenal playing against the best in the business tonight. Our boys not rolling over and making a game out of it will be winning for me. COYG
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A great write-up as usual, I am deeply touched. It’s gotten so that these days I find it hard to contact fellow Arsenal fans that I am friends with or with which I keep some kind of correspondence with, and this is because whenever I do – with the expectation of sharing good points about a game – all I get is bitterness and a seemingly negativity about everything Arsenal/Arsene.
What I do now is enjoy the moments by myself, brush off disappointments when they arise, and most importantly, come on here to read the truly great write-ups and comments, thereby learning more about the club. I pray we can always have ‘Positively Arsenal’ to come recharge in when things are a bit bleak.
Really looking forward to the game tonight, Arsenal to win 4 – 2
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its clear that the WOB are laying the foundations for who to blame if when Wenger leaves, all is not magically transformed at Arsenal, its a two tier blame game
1. Wenger’s mismanagement of our squad/recruitment will be to blame, what he leaves behind is bound to fail as he has assembled a squad of failures.
2. Kroenke/Gazidis/The board, no matter who they appoint to replace Wenger, be it an untried legend like Henry, or one of those top top managers(who is it this week, Simone, Koeman, Conte, Pep, Blanc), if they fail it will again be the fault of Kroenke/Gazidis/The Board for either
A) appointing the wrong man, if its Henry it should have been experienced manager, if its one of those top guys we should have got an Arsenal man.
B) if we do appoint a top name and he fails, then it will clearly be that the club did not give him enough money to assemble a better team. and just to complete the circle, this brings us back to the mess of a squad Wenger leaves behind.
One of the funniest things is that so many of the WOB want Dein back, Wenger out, Kroenke out, Usmanov out, the irony of it is lost of them, Dein the man who brought Wenger in as manager, Dein the man who brought Kroenke to the club, Dein the man who sold all his shares to Usmanov, it seems they want their Arsenal back, their Arsenal of the mid 70’s I assume. Surely they don’t mean their Arsenal of 2004, you know the one managed by Wenger.
Another odd thing is that members of AST are now saying they want
1. Usmanov on the Board
2. Usmanov to buy out Kroenke
3. A sugar daddy to buy out both Kroenke and Usmanov
its clear that the set out objectives of the AST is not being followed by its members, who clearly want to be able to play the game of one upmanship with fans of other clubs in the playground/twitter
A thought of the day for all the AAA/WOB
“But it is the mark of all movements, however well-intentioned, that their pioneers tend, by much lashing of themselves into excitement, to lose sight of the obvious.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers,
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 1h1 hour ago
Just taking note of how many people are giving us absolutely no chance of any result tonight but will still go crazy when we lose.
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Morning Stew, I am still an Archers aficionado but I admit I am finding the current Rob/Helen domestic abuse story line toe-curlingly difficult to stick with.
You know the thing that has kept me within the Archers fold over these many long years since it used to rattle out of the kitchen radio on a Sunday morning immediately after Alistair Cooke had reviewed goings on in the land from sea to sea ?
The Archers has a bit of humour in it – it provides a glimpse of the absurdity and pomposity in its everyday story of country folk. And through humour I reflect a little on my self, and perhaps occasionally l have an insight into something that I had not thought about before. No blinding revelation, but an occasional new piece of my personal jigsaw.
The glaring difference between the Archers, and what it offers, and modern football journalism and the vast majority of blogging social media output, The difference is the total absence of humour, a hint of recognition of the absurd and the deluded self importance of the actors, never self reflection, never meditation on what may be important beyond the immediate scoreline or this day’s “story” (no matter how vacuous contrived that is).
Somewhere along the line the capacity to laugh, to understand football was gifted to us to enjoy, has been lost.
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And a comment of the week rosette for Steve there -clearly he did not read the memo about keeping it ‘serious’
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Wonderful stuff Steww and I too was a Listen With Mother child and can remember the Archers theme tune as one of my earliest memories from the 1960s (alongside The Seekers Morningtown Ride which I loved as a very small boy). Never got into actually listening to the Archers but their greatest contribution to popular culture was an indirect one via Billy Connolly who, some years back, quite sensibly suggested that the theme tune to the Archers should replace the dirge of our current national anthem. Billy is, of course, Scottish, but who knows how many World Cups we might have won by now had this small change to the pre-match routines been introduced without delay.
Fascinating analysis, also, Steww, of the effect of the online bitch-fest.
People have, I’m sure, always moaned about football to some degree but it was always far more self-contained, temporal and less damaging. These days certain people are making a career out of building a ‘profile’ and being famous for their hatred and vitriol targeted at the club. It’s all very sad. Not to mention tedious.
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I had money on anicoll being the only one to know how Mark Hebdon died.
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Oh Andrew – Morningtown Ride. I’ve not thought of that for decades and your mention of it jut opened a floodgate of associated memories. Thank you.
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More than you know Stew – I remember the Sunday morning listening to the Hebden car crash story ( and Shula just pregnant at the time! ) as I was driving from Stockton where my parents lived at the time, probably 91/92. My Mum who had been suffering from Alzheimers for a while had really begun to disintegrate, physically, personality wise – she ‘sort of’ knew me, and for the first time it really hit me that she was going to die, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Cheerful aren’t I ?
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The snot and the tears were flowing freely that day – oh yes – quite an episode
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Steww and my English friends: I must admit I have absolutely no knowledge of this Archers radio soap you speak of but given colonial Jamaica’s propensity to imitate all things British, until we became more Americanized, you should know that there was a comparable English produced serial that was on Radio Jamaica for decades until someone pulled the plug 20 or so years ago. It was something in which my Mum was totally immersed and was passed onto her children from the womb. Inevitably, these foreign imports have a way of losing their relevance over time,
But what is certainly relevant, is Steww’s use of the radio soap as a metaphor of the current miasma among many supporters of Arsenal Football Club. Encouraged by the mainstream media, there is an oppressive or unpleasant atmosphere that emanates from several bloggers, podcasters and tweeps that have no bearing on reality. The perceived wisdom is we have absolutely no hope of beating Barca and an equally if not more pessimistic view of our chances of winning the premier league. If FCB believes we are no hopers then why don’t they put a team of second stringers on the field later today resting one of Messi, Suarez or Neymar. If AFC are no hopers why are Barca charging approximately €250 for some of the cheapest seats in their stadium. Only a writer for a soap opera could come up with such a fantastic scenario and have millions of viewers (listeners) clinging fervently to this negative trope as if it has any bearing on reality
Despite all the fairly tales I was taught in Sunday School about the goodness of human nature, one of the things I have learnt from my personal engagement with society in general and football in particular is that humanity is capable of stupidity on a mass scale. The most glaring example is Hitler convincing the Germans that they are master race whose mission was to not only destroy the Jews but also the Slavs in Cental and Eastern Europe. In football I saw a similar phenomenon among the Geordies of Newcastle who sacked the late great Bobby Robson in 2004, shortly after the start of the season because they were lying 5th in the table, when only three months earlier they had barely missed the champions league. The decision was met with great euphoria by Geordie supporters egged on by the usual scurrilous irresponsible elements in the English media. Since then Newcastle has never remotely come close a top-five finish, having been relegated at least once and flirting with the drop this year and not for the first time. This is a big club in a one-club city. The usual suspects are up to the same nonsense when it comes to Arsenal Football Club. Hopefully the majority of Positively Arsenal refuse to be caught up in this mass stupidity.
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Bilic Out!
One injury to Payet when he was hacked off the park and their entire form tanks
Pardéux Out!
One injury to Bolasie and the entire Palace squad’s form tanks. Fortunately for the palace fans their supporters groups that have direct access to their board (no need for pathetic innuendo about their connections on Twitter) will not be telling their chairman how to spend his wonga.
Yup. The Newcastle Supporters Trust showed us the way forward. Living the dream.
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Many thanks Steww for another enjoyable read.
I briefly joined PG and Anicoll who engaged with some WOBs on twitter last night. I quickly became bored and preferred watching ManShitty. However, that was so boring that I switched to Athletico v PSV, which was a little better.
It is not out of the question that we might pull off an upset of gargantuan proportions. But then again I’m on a sunshine bus with rose-tinted glasses and always gravitating to this place….
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Simply brilliant again Steww, Europe used to be celebrated but unfortunately the plebs now take it for granted.
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Looks like we’re going to win as the “lucky” banner has been taken out to Barca.Well last time it was out we won 4-0!
Last I felt this nervous was way back in 1989, and MT gave me my greatest AFC moment ever.
Dear Paul Vaessen and good ol Rocky, can you give us a hand tonight?
COYG! You can do it!
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The Flamster, Iwobi !!
Yeeeeeeeehaghhh !!
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Thanks for this, not sure about the radio, but agree 100% about the football. Let’s enjoy ourselves, it is a leisure activity!
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Great to see Alex Iwobi get his chance and what an experience for him. Also Congratulations to Nacho and Flamster has another chance to go out with a bang.COYG
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did you know that our selection tonight is an embarrassment, neither did I till so called Arsenal supporters told me.
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COYG!COYG!COYG!
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come on you Gunners!
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Özil almost. Good start gunners.
F*ck FUFA. COYG!
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hang in here Arsenal.
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thats it Arsenal keep going.
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nice work Ospina.
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how the fuck was Cech getting in the team ahead of Ospina, what a save
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stay strong Gunners.
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that puts a tin hat on it, Neymar
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shit.
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COYG!
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Damn, shame we couldn’t hold them off for a bit longer. Ospina is a fine goalkeeper, he just got a bad rep for one mistake against Olympiakos. I hope he sticks around.
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Two chances – one goal – here endeth the first, and possibly the last, lesson.
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Come on Arsenal!!!!!
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Pleased we are putting in shots from range – need a few on target
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keep going Arsenal.
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ah for fucks sake ref, that should have been a penalty
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Gabriel booked for protesting about the non award of the penalty
on second viewing not sure it was a penalty
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coyg
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Elneny really needed to hit that first time, taking a touch meant he would be closed down.
Alexis with a header wide now.
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keep going Arsenal
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stay with them afc
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c o y g
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