Hello and how are you?
Saturday the 21st of December sees the Mighty Cannon play the second game in our double header against Crystal Palace, only this time we are at Selhurst Park. The game kicks off at 5.30pm, western European time.
After the Carabao cup match, a game of two halves and having been sick as a parrot we found ourselves over the moon with our second half display, lets hope we’ve learnt a few lessons, aside of it being a funny old game? One thing for sure it was great to see some quick-fire one touch football and goals from open play? Nice. More please! Hopefully our eyes will be on the game and not tempted by the ‘come hither’ advances from the plum pudding and the Christmas booze cache!
Selhurst Park always seems to be a tough place to play, as their stadium still has the 12th person/ old style F A Cup 3rd round giant- killing feel to it, the Nest holds just over 25,000 people, and I’m sure it will be packed as the look to beat us and grab some Christmas cheer. Well, the Mighty Cannon might have something to say about that! Bah humbug!
When the Crystal Palace burnt down in 1936, my Grandfather went out from his house in Plumstead and watched it, he recalled how the sky glowed that night and the fire could be seen for miles, perhaps being on high ground meant people could see more easily? What a fabulous piece of work the Palace was, so sad that it had deteriorated and the fire started and it was destroyed, as can be said of many other great buildings (world-wide there were many ‘crystal palaces’ that also succumbed to fire), built by unknowns and forgottens as architects take all the glory. No, it wasn’t built by Archibald Leitch. But Selhurst Park was! The man gets everywhere!
There’s some fascinating documentaries on YT, including modern day Urbex guys having a wander around examining what’s left of the old Palace grounds etc.
Nearly thirty years ago I went and had a look/dig around myself and found pieces of glass, some thick and some melted, and some bits of framing too. I had a look online about a year ago and although there are still some areas you could have a dig around in, mostly they are shut off and the whole areas changed.
At the time of writing this the Gunners have been given 59.1% chance of winning and the Smeagles 17.6%. I’m sure we all have a small spring in our supportive step for this one, Palace might have a better idea of what we can do after Wednesdays clash, and hopefully we will have the answers to anything they can conjure. COYG!
Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you feel like going off and seeing if you can make the North sea deeper by taking a leak in it in instead of reading this tediousness.
Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses!
COYG and keep on keepin’ on!
Mills
Positively Arsenal 
Thank you Mills. As ever you set me up beautifully for the day ahead. I had no idea that debris from the great fire were still diguppable – in fact my knowledge of the palace is lamentable. I shall endeavour to employ this ‘youtube’ of which you speak and find out more.
As far as the game ahead goes I don’t think the cup tie will tell us much. Eddie, bless him, has got the inevitable goal against us out of his system, the makeshift nature of our line up is unlikely to be repeated, the tight knit ferocity of their ground must necessarily influence their players. I’m other words, a whole different ball game.
I suppose the only debate is whether Jesus has done enough to merit another start. We shall see.
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Thanks Stew. Its incredible to think such a structure was there for all to see, can you imagine what a tourist attraction it would be now? I also didn’t realise how many there had been (similar buildings) world wide? Question is would it have got bombed in WW2?
Back in ’95 when I had a scratch around, nobody was about, not even in the park and that was in the afternoon, it had a kind of forlorn and forgotten feel.
The area behind the sphinxes was just a wasteland, over grown and if you went some meters behind in the undergrowth you didn’t have to dig too deep to find the glass and metal I talked about. The glass was thick and other pieces burnt and melted, must have been one heck of blaze. Some amazing photos too of the ruins (some colourised from mylondonews site).
There were also some interesting railway stations that connected to the Palace, also very interesting styles, I think they are still there.
We need to keep an eye on Eddie the Eagle today for sure!
COYG!
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Fascinating history Mills.
Anyone watching Villa dismantling City?
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Raya; Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly; Partey, Odegaard, Havertz; Saka, Jesus, Martinelli
Subs: Neto, Tierney, Kiwior, Calafiori, Jorginho, Rice, Merino, Nwaneri, Trossard
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On the subject of City and their current woes. I’m reminded strongly of Arsenal once the Invincibles lost that awful game at the Old Toilet.
That staggering, over arching confidence with which they approached every game left them and they looked like shadows of their former selves.
The manager wasn’t suddenly crap and nor were the players, but confidence, surely the single most important factor, isn’t teachable, can’t be coached, and can dissolve in an instant.
Funny old game.
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Sterling is out of the squad with an injury
Saka plays his 250th game for Arsenal, his 221st start.
A win for AFC would mean they go 6pts clear of man city, with the same number of games played, something they have not achieved in either of the last two seasons. So don’t hold your breath, we have that habit of not taking advantage when a rival stumbles
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some players to play for both Arsenal and Crystal palace
the great Kenny Sansom, the not so great peter nicholas, although I did like him and he has a great unbeaten run when he joined, Ian Wright Wright Wright of course, David Madden, got a couple of games for us when Terry Neill was throwing players at it from the youths and reserves to try in vain to save his job, and George Wood a goalie I liked, in his time with us he for a brief period was first choice for Scotland while at the same time Pat Jennings was first choice for N Ireland, and we also had Rhys Wilmot a Wales U21 goalie.
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Rhys Wilmot and George Wood, names I haven’t heard in a long time, straight out of the Arsenal handbook! Good memory Ed!
Looks like we played City at the wrong time! Spot on Stew with the 5.13pm post.
What about Chamakh, Adebayor,Cole, Rob Holding, Flamini didnt Eddie McGoldrick also play for us both? Im sure theres more.
COYG!
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Jesusssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss makes it 1-0 to the Arsenal
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1-1 now
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Jesusssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss makes it 2-1 to the Arsenal
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oh my, Raya saves our bacon there, sloppy at the back and palace looked certain to score but Raya made the save
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Saka injured
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Trossard on for the injured Saka, not a nice way to end his 250th game for us, they are saying it looks like a muscle injury, so could be a few weeks out
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Trossard gone to the left wing, Martinelli on the right wing
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Havertzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 3-1 to the Arsenal, Jesus hits the post and the German taps home, Saliba had hit the bar a moment before that
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HT: Crystal Palace 1-3 Arsenal
Jesus x2 and Havertz with out goals, a bit chaotic but maybe that is what we have to live with for us to be more dangerous in attack.
Saka off injured is the big worry, some mention that its a hamstring.
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yes mills ashley cole was on loan at palace, and a big name I’d forgot to mention was George Graham who if I remember correctly helped palace win promotion from the old third division, seen an old big match revisited not long ago and he was in the palace team going up
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Raya saves our bacon again, we are very open today at the back
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not sure if anyone mentioned it on here but former Arsenal star George Eastham died yesterday, I never seen him play for Arsenal but I remember him at Stoke
he was the main man in doing away with the maximum wage of footballers at the time, and the retain clause in players contracts.
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Raya with a great double save, we need to be tighter at the back, or score again to kill them off
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we’ve been second best this half.
Calafiori getting ready to come on
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Calafiori on MLS off
Rice on for Havertz
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Martinelliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii makes it 4-1 to the Arsenal
Martinelli has scored more goals against palace than against any other team, think that is his 5th or 6th against them
Nkeitah on for palace
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Calafiori yelling in pain after getting caught on the ankle by Clyne, awful challenge
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Rice Rice baby makes it 5-1 to the Arsenal
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Jesus off, Nwaneri on
Timber off, Merino on
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5 minutes of stoppage time to be played
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Jingle balls! Nice.
COYG!
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FT: Crystal Palace 1-5 Arsenal
Jesus x2, Havertz, Martinelli and Rice with our goals.
Raya had to make several great saves at crucial times in the game, but once Rice came on we took full control.
3rd time in 4 weeks we have scored 5 goals in an away game, we are much more suited to playing away cos the home team comes out to play, our problems have been at home when the visitors sit defensively
saka with a hamstring is a massive concern.
we are now 3pts behind liverpool, but they have 2 games in hand. need them to wobble at the least
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so Arsenal move 6pts clear of man city with same amount of games played, something that we never managed to do in the last two seasons.
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First time in 20 years that Arsenal have not lost a single Premier League London derby in a calendar year
W W W W W W D W D W
Chelsea the last london side to do it, that was in 2005
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livepool are mauling spurs and are going 6 points ahead of us with a game in hand.
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Spurs 3-6 Liverpool
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Saka out for “many weeks” Mikel has said, well that’s a nightmare. I hope he makes it back for January 7th which is the 1st leg of the league cup followed by the F.A. Cup a couple of days later.
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ian we’ll be damn lucky if Saka is back for second leg of the semi final in early February. Many Weeks, is not two or three weeks, its more likely minimum of 6 or 8, and maybe up to 12 weeks out.
Sterling out for a few weeks too with a knee injury. Arteta said the solution to replacing Saka and Sterling is likely to have to be internal, and may need a tactical change too.
Arteta said today with regards to any signings in January its more likely we sign another defender if things don’t clear up there. He’s obsessed with packing the squad with defenders.
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I mentioned the death of George Eastham the other day, he actually went on strike at Newcastle over his mistreatment there, and took them to court and won. One of his reasons for taking action against them was that there was maximum wage, which mean clubs used to provide houses and second jobs to the players to make up the shortfall, but the house they provided for Eastham was in his view uninhabitable. At that time if a player went on strike or had a dispute with a club the club would just stop paying them, and contracts and the rules of the day in football were in such a way that the player could not sign for another club without permission from his club, even if out of contract.
Eastham won his court battle with Newcastle and got to join Arsenal, there was some changes to football contracts, but clubs still held the upper hand over players for decades more, it was not till the Bosman ruling that things went the other way with players now holding the king hand.
Many older fans harp on about in the good old days we used to see the one club man. Well in fact we used to see lots of them, but that was not through the choice of the player. Clubs by and large treated players terribly, it was especially bad at the northern clubs, the London clubs had a bit more about them, at that time Arsenal for example put the players in good houses, and provided them with easier and better paid second jobs. But clubs played hard ball on contracts and transfers, they often reneged on verbal agreements, even to loyal players and even some big stars, for example the great Bobby Moore was poorly paid by West Ham, and in the early 70’s, or it may have been the late 60’s, he wanted a pay rise and West Ham refused, but told him that if any club offered a set fee, I think it was £100K they would not stand in his way, Moore knew Arsenal wanted him and were going to pay him double his West Ham wages, so he got Arsenal to offer the £100K but West Ham flat out refused it and even refused to negotiate, Moore was not for sale at any price was there stance, but he got no pay rise. A few years later they sold him to Fulham for £25K.
Transfers for out of contract players evolved to a tribunal system, where the selling club would always ask above what the players was worth and the buying club would offer less. the tribunal would take into account offers made by clubs for the player, the wages he was being offered by both clubs and well as how they rated the guy, but the tribunal was made up of football league chairmen who often had personal gripes with one of the clubs involved and would take it out on them, also by and large the chairmen thought that by keeping tribunal fees down they would help keep all transfer fees down, of course it didn’t.
by the mid 80’s there was a transfer rule for players out of contract, that as long as they were offered a new contract by their club then a transfer fee was required, Arsenal signed Ian Allinson from Colchester Utd on a free transfer when Colchester made the mistake of offering him less in bonus payments in the new contract they offered and this meant he was allowed a free transfer, I think he was on the verge of signing for second division Fulham when Terry Neill phoned him, but Ian hung up as he thought it was some of his Colchester team mates who knew he was in talks with Fulham having a laugh, Arsenal had just signed Charlie Nicholas so Allinson was sure it was a windup, Neill phoned back and Ian signed on double quick, he did not play much under Neill as the manager was sacked very shortly after Allinson made his debut for the club. Ian’s finest hour was his goal at White Hart Lane in the Littleswood cup semi final, but he did not make the cup final squad.
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Arsenal play Ipswich on Friday so some players who played for both Arsenal and Ipswich that I can recall.
Well there was Brian Talbot, an all action midfielder who won an FAC with Ipswich against Arsenal in 78 before joining us and scoring in the 79 cup final win. And speaking of the 79 cup win, the winning goal was scored by Alan Sunderland, and he left us in 84 to join Ipswich, and he later became a publican and on a couple of occasions Arsenal fans drank his pub dry after games with Ipswich, one of which I think was the game where Tony Adams played with a bandage on his head having cut it falling down drunk on the way to the game, he was still half cut during the game but if I’m not mistaken he scored the winner.
Next on my list is Paul Mariner, he was in his 30’s when he joined us and gave us a real lift when he joined midseason, and was a regular the next season, but he didn’t score freely and in fact some of his best games that season were as a CB when we were struggling big time there, be it from injuries or bad form
The last bigger name signing, if you can call him that, is the never forgettable(no matter how hard I try) Chris Kiwomya, he was one of George Graham’s last thrashes of a dying whale transfers, along with the brilliant(well brilliant on his debut) Glen Helder and the young John Hartson
some lesser known guys were Daniel Karbassiyoon, who played in the league cup for AFC in Arsene’s time and more recently a couple of guys who never made their senior debut for AFC but were in match day squads Omari Hutchinson and Harry Clarke
I’m sure I’ve probably missed on on some, anyone remember anyone else
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Your 6.26pm post is a cracker Ed, top piece! A great read.
I didn’t know about Moore and the Arsenal connection, that was an eye opener! Makes you wonder how that one might have worked out?
As for Ipswich/Arsenal, Francis Jeffers, Matthew Upson, didn’t Ainsely play for both too? I have a strange memory that Raphel Meade did?
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AMN certainly played for Ipswich, his mother got banned from their training ground, think she had words with Mick McCarthy
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I forgot all about that too! It seemed a big deal at the time!
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ah Raphael Meade, thought he was going to be a big star for us, that couple of games one December when he scored 2 v spurs and I think 3 v Watford, was his highlight, it was a false dawn, he did like so many at the time have major injury problems with his knees, a cartridge problem that is now seen as a very simple operation at that time was a 50/50 career ender, Malcolm McDonald and the tragic Paul Vassen just two Arsenal strikers it finished, as I said I think it hindered Meade, he lost a bit of speed which was one of his big plusses. Didn’t he go to a club in Portugal where he did well but again injury blighted his career.
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Mills poor old Ainsley, his mum caused a fuss in many places he went, didn’t she also get banned from London Colney games
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Footballs such a tragic game in a way, so many players wo were tipped to be great just don’t make it, or make it for a bit and then it doesn’t quite work out and its all over so quickly. And its bloody hard to even break into it. Plus its all out there in public, good or bad. Each week you don’t know if as you go into that tackle its the end of the road. Got to admire everyone that goes for it?
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don’t know why but talking about Meade(maybe it was the 2 goals v spurs) brought to mind another striker that came through the Arsenal Academy and who many thought he would make it big, Issah Rankin, especially as he made his debut in a North London derby v spurs, in the league winning season of 97/98, actually double winning season, but that game was his only one for Arsenal.
And Rankin’s debut v spurs has had my mind spring to a real Arsenal legend, Paul Davis, who also made his debut in a North London derby v Spurs, what a wand of a left foot he had, and his uppercut wasn’t bad either.
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Paul Davis, I really liked him. A bit unsung as an Arsenal hero? Nice you mentioned the Ian Allinson goal in the semi, now that was a semi! Good old Rocky! Still love that guy.
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not sure of the stats now mills but when Liam Brady was head of the Academy he said that overall, in English pro football, it was less than 2% of Academy players that went on to make a pro debut, and less than 1% that made any sort of playing career, as in even being pro even to the age of 22, and its only a fraction that make 10 year or more career, then we are talking .001% who make it big as in top tier career.
then mills there is some crazy stat like 33% of EPL players will be divorced within a year of retiring and worse still 40% will be bankrupt within 5 years. Relationships crumble when the stardom is not there, when he is there all the time maybe. So many players get depression, and addictions it fucks up life and especially family life. And the bankruptcy is partly down to now being able to cut their cloth to their new lesser status and lesser income, and of course so many have no education of note and end up making lots of mistakes and as we know so many footballers have hangers on that are not there for the good of the footballer.
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I was listening to that semi final on BBC Radio 5 and when I tell you the reception now is dire, you can imagine how bad it was in 87, and i was only getting bits of it, me and my best friend were listening to it, the winning goal went in and all we knew was that there had been a goal, we didn’t know who scored, we didn’t know in fact which team had scored, the commentator mentioned spurs several times, my mate said spurs must have scored, but then a few seconds of good air and it was Arsenal ahead, then it was nerve jangling time waiting for the end of the game,
I was at the cup final for our win over liverpool, the one and only time I’ve been to Wembley, so far.
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it was sad how it all ended for Paul Davis at Arsenal, he was a coach in the Academy, think it was with the U15’s and there was a vacancy for the coach of the U16’s and he wanted it but didn’t get it, and he it seems felt it was partly him being taken for granted, and maybe partly due to him being black. Whatever the reasons he ended up quitting at U15 coach and working for the PFA or the FA
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Makes a sad read Ed. I wonder if ex players have set up advisory programmes that can help players afterwards?
Some of the things you write about remind me of the old Jam song ‘To be someone’.
Football to its haters seems an overpaid and easy job, but it seems really tough too.
I wondered that this week with Kieran, and wondered if he wished he had stayed at Celtic? Of course neither Ange or Brendan might have kept him. Brendan doesnt seem to be getting the best out of Kyogo and that seems odd. Soz, off topic a bit.
If you cant get into management or punditry must be tough after football? Hero to half forgotten, pretty quick.
As a kid coming into all this I was totally ignorant. Same with music, I thought my heroes lived amazing lives, when Japan split up I read they all just went and signed on.
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