Hello! I hope you’re doing well, that you’ve had your fill of the international week(s) and are ready for club football again? Sunday, September 15th (at 2.00pm western European time) sees the mighty Cannon hauled down the Seven Sisters road for the first of our two run-ins of the 2024/5 season with our best mates from the Tottenham Marshes and so like Jimmy Smith, we find ourselves back at the Chicken Shack!

Its quite an daunting task to write about such a big game; the years of history between us, the classic matches, classic goals, miserable defeats, winning the league there (twice), Rocky’s goal in that semi, and the tension during the game that seldom lets off until our Guns have blasted in enough goals to ensure that we can wipe the sweat off of our brows…

 Its one of those fixtures that if we lose, it sits with you, niggling and irritating, coughing like nanny goats for a long time afterwards. To be honest is there anything anyone can say about such a fixture without falling into some well trodden clichéd circuitous path? Perhaps the search for the new doesn’t lead us to anything new, so forgive me for not coming up with something utterly original (if that even possible)…

At the heart of this fixture is no love lost, its a game of entrenched prejudice, of fear and hatred and of desperation to be superior, but it really is a deep well of both pride and prejudice. By prejudice I mean: “an unfavourable opinions based on; suspicion, dislike, intolerance and inflexible generalisations (fear)” etc.

This is something that always worried me a lot. Of course all humans have prejudice in them in some form or other, from the utterly innocuous to the malignant, but this is all rooted in flux and depends on how we control our reactions and emotions as to where we find ourselves on this spectrum as it bubbles up in frothing fears. Luckily(!) I didn’t grown up in a malignant family, but there were other prejudice’s, most of which I rebelled against but developed others for myself. But its tough to have a deep-seated dislike for Tottenham; its irrational, I mean what have they done to me? Winning? Existing? Duh! That’s the object of the game and the competition as a whole, as I’ve rattled on and on about in the past, many sides I don’t begrudge them wins against us at all, but with Them its something else.

My first derby game was at Highbury in the 80/81 season, fighting kept breaking all over the stadium, and being a little a kid I was really, really scared. Grown men having pitch battles (armed with various tools and missiles), and anyone could observe the endless stream of humans being led away on gurneys or being held up under-arm whilst being led to a safer place to receive medical aid. I nearly started bawling watching the St.Johns ambulance men helping. Why? Because I’m a fkn kitty. But also because the StJa are the sort of organisation that ‘cool/hard’ people laugh at and ridicule, and yet as life shows us time and time again, compassion and kindness is needed in times of distress etc. It takes real strength of mind to show goodwill towards others, let alone people who’ve brought physical ill-health upon themselves? Much of the experiences I witnessed that day, like a lot of human life seems to be such a waste of time and energy(I’m part of this too), but for some reason or other in our minds, certain aspects get certain priories?

Meanwhile back at Highbury: some Spudney (A.J Ayer?) gave me a bollocking as we sat down to resume our seats after HT, in his expansive and aggressive rant he explained to me how Tottenham were going to win and that I should take my seat and observe. Thanks. I was just a kid. Not even a teenager. Of course I’ve soaked up much, much worse verbal and physical abuse in life ( I’m going to write about some of those experiences in another preview), but there was something that struck me at how utterly pathetic that bloke was, bollocking a kid. He didn’t see me, he saw only that which he thought I represented. But what do I/did I represent? All life is changing, a stream, but not an isolated stream but the vast expanse of all the universe creating and destroying; it isn’t ‘out there’ we are it, part of it. What do we represent as a baby, as a kid, as a teenager, and through the stages of adulthood? Where is this unchanging representation located? It seems real, but its not really real? He couldn’t see me. He saw an enemy.

Anyway, back at Highbury, planet earth, David Price scored to make it 1-0 ( I don’t recall it though) but I do recall Franky Stapleton’s goal and magical it was.

I came away from the game with a fear, deep seated and deep rooted. Of course this was later compounded by being mates with loads of other Arsenal kids who hated Tottenham etc. Around that time my mum ran off with a Tottenham fan and the old man stirred that one up a bit in his insecurity, he didn’t need to do it and even then I thought it was unnecessary, but people get desperate and they say and do less than mature things than they might have wanted to.

So suddenly in my little life at a little age I found myself: full of both pride (for The Mighty Cannon) and prejudice (for Tottenham); irrational, full of fear and after all they are the enemy. Says who? And why? What happens to me if I don’t agree? This was all made worse by the fallow period Arsenal had entered into after 1980 and observing, green-eyed, the meadow of joy bloody Tottenham frolicked in. Grrr! As anyone who remembers that period, it was horrible, and stemming from jealousy comes a plethora of difficult thought processes. Oh brother!

Of course I’ve got friends who are Tottenham fans and with whom I’ve been long-term acquainted with, but there’s always that barrier. Its utterly pathetic yet its the same for them! No matter how sublime (their words) they found the first Wenger period, no matter how jealous the were of the period afterwards when we were matching Barcelona for pure skill and vision, we were still Arsenal. The Scum. Them. Something to loathe. The enemy. The Woolwich imposters. Something to enjoy hating.

The only way these sets of attitudes could be over come in unison would be some terrible catastrophe which affected both clubs. I hope that doesn’t happen, so it looks like we’re stuck with prejudice, for all its enormous, unwieldy will to win, its verbal and physical violence, its dance of the irrational tied up in perverted forms of logic. How strange that prejudice can also be a driving force in life to achieve that which people want? It doesn’t seem right, and surely there are other systems that can drive us to victory? 

I do recall once our old friend Gf60 saying that as much as he hated the Spuds he wouldn’t have it any other way, that he didn’t want them relegated, as playing them twice a year was always exciting and an important part of life as an Arsenal supporter. 

I mentioned it before on Shotta and George’s vlog, so apologies for the repetition, but I had a friend at school who had been in the Arsenal supporters club since he was three months old.  And he went to the Coop just after they had built a new stand( the game was sometime in 1983) and we got walloped 5-0. So on Monday at school we all asked him what it was like, expecting him to tell us how utterly horrible and miserable the experience was, but he just said, “it was magic”. He considered even whilst being humiliated at the Coop, to watch Arsenal was still an electrifying, privileged experience. I’m not sure many of the talking heads I waste my life watching would ever consider that? But it stuck with me, even stayed with me as a seed that might grow one day into something more decent than my prejudiced, puerile perspective.

Ok, enough of that crap, our overall record versus Them is: 87 wins, 55 draws and 67 losses. Ange Postecoglou win rate is 53.3%, but it was higher at Celtic (around 73%) and he got those Bhoys playing extremely well and fished out some great talent from pools upon which the gazing eye of transfer originality had neglected to spy, most of whom have now left Celtic Park. In many respects we were blessed to face Brighton without Matt O’Reily.

 Postecoglou won the London manager of the year award last time around, perhaps they felt sorry for the Spuds not ever winning much? I’m sure St. Totteringham would agree.

Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces of jackasnorey that you already knew. Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills

Hello! How are you? Well we’ve hit the first of our ‘international breaks’ and we are starting see the back of the dog days of August and head on into the season of mists and fruitful mellowness (or where I am, still fkn boiling and humid) I wondered how do you feel about our first three games as we lull our selves into a two-week, sleepy, sloe- black, slow- black, sojourning sleep (pronounced: ‘wall-climbing tedium’)?

 I think, having examined the Gunner organism under our collective analytical microscopes we could spy all sorts of interesting things that happened: elements that went wrong, elements that went right and a whole pool of potential possibilities that we might see playing out in the next month or so? Luckily (our old friend lucks popped in to say hello already!) I had a totally horrible afternoon in the scorching sun with some disturbing people that took away the pain of the Rice red card and all its frustrations. I’m not sure which was worse really…

Of course we might feel a lack of optimism and positivity in view of our next couple of games as a result of the card, but despite us being at the dreaded noisy Coop, I feel the Cannon will still prove its self mightier and more capable than a Chicken. But feelings are unreliable, or at least mine are. As we all know, the derbies can throw up all sorts of results and are of no indication to form and fashion in any season.

I do feel a bit nervy about The Oil City game, but after our manoeuvres down the Seven Sisters road we will know a tiny bit more about how the muzzle astragals are faring up and whether our powders dry or not. Plus I also think it will be a game we will want to rise up to…

Perhaps it would have been nicer to have played City a bit further down the line, but nice and all things nicey aren’t on the Premier League agenda. 

Looking even further ahead (teams ahoy!), we have coming into sight: And Leicester and the Sotonists. and then Bournefootandmouth and then a showdown with our old chums, Liverpool. So hopefully by the time we take on the Scousers we shall be full of flow and full sail and will have (hopefully) navigated not landing on any rocks or sandbanks.

How did you feel Timber! looked? It was a tough break he had last year a having been bought and then chopped down by injury for most of the season. In many ways he is like having a new signing! Seemed like he wanted to do well, but once or twice wasn’t quite part of the whole subconscious Arsenal collectiveness (woo)?

New star Calafiori, what did you think of his contributions? Looks like he wants to be very much part of the action and looked excited to be a Gunner? Obviously its going to be interesting to see Sterling come in and whether he can do the business, but I hope it won’t affect Kai too much, and when Merino starts to really get some game time it will potentially start to raise everyone’s midfield game, and I’m all for that as I’m sure you are. Its a shame we won’t see him against the Slickers, unless a special kind of super glue has been invented that can heal his shoulder super quick. That guy gives me a good feeling; you?

 With Sterling’s arrival perhaps Jesus will want to get sharper, perhaps more hungry, which really would be great to see. Tomi’s sadly going to be out for a while longer though. With the Bolton League Cup game in the middle of the month we might see some fresh faces coming up and away from the numbers, so plenty of plenty.

I hope Martinelli can start to work on his final touch, I still like his driving runs, but his finally passes and crosses have sometimes been a bit wayward. But confidence is a fickle thing, what with 60,00 plus home and awayers getting on your back or the eight million streams of consciousness judging you in hindsight, like this one, hopefully he can get his self confidence back to better levels soon. 

Martin Ø looked quicker than quick and wanted to get the ball moving in the right directions, I think we would all love to see the human dynamo grab a few more goals though? I think Gabriel and Saliba! will want to do better after the confusion defending against Brighton, but seeing how they whole back line was interacting against Villa, I’m sure they will stay sure and steadfast.

So it wasn’t the ten out of ten we all wanted, but it was a pretty reasonable start, and that’s better than having to chase everyone three games down. Tell me what you think, I’m sure your insights are more valid than mine, who shone and who needs a tonic? How does September look to you? Feeling any excitement for the up-coming Champions League games?

Well rather than my usual snore bore, I hope it lulled you into some kind of better dream-time, like thoughts of not wasting anymore time reading this article.

Take care of yourselves, and see you back at the showdown with the Spuds.

COYG and keep on keepin on!

Mills

Well hello everyone, what a kerfuffle eh?

Let’s get right to it then, what a load of old officiating bollocks that was. Normally when I see a bad decision I get mad, then I get over it, but this one? Oh no, the more I see the incident the more my blood pressure rises. It can’t be in the spirt of the game to give a 2nd yellow card for that. The Brighton player carried the ball yards from where the free kick should have been being taken, then rolled the ball at Rice, Declan felt the ball hit the back of his leg, looked at it and touched it away. He was then instantly and unceremoniously booted really hard to the leg. Now, the Brighton player couldn’t have been trying to take a quick free kick because the ball was moving, as well as it being in the wrong spot. That the Referee rewarded his housery by rewarding him and his team is stupidity of the first order.

Twitter is awash with indignant Arsenal fans claiming corruption, and incidents like this are enough to make me go and stand alongside the baying mob nodding and jeering with them. The whole idea of that Rice was time wasting is ridiculous and preposterous.

This is supposed to be a match report, but truthfully, that incident was the match. I raises question about fairness, corruption and makes me wonder if spending the emotional energy of supporting is even worthwhile.

Ok, ok, ok, for the first 50 minutes we were the better team, we had scored a really good goal where Saka and Havertz had combined wonderfully and it was looking like a routine home win. We weren’t spectacular or dynamic, but we were good enough.

I suppose, a draw was therefore a good result in the end, because Brighton are one of the last teams you want to be playing with a man down for some 40 odd minutes. So I’ll leave it at that without even mentioning the bad defending that lead to is conceding an equaliser because that moment was surrounded by some stoic performances by the entire team.

I’ll tell you what though, I can’t imagine how Mikel must be feeling, given what he puts into trying to get results, compared to just a fan like me, and I feel crap.

Oh, and to top it all, we will now have Rice missing when we play next, and that’s Spurs. Grrrrr.

Pedantic George

Arsenal fc  v  Brighton and Hove Albion

Hello! Hope you’ve had a good week. Saturday the 31st of August at 12.30 pm (western European time) sees the mighty Cannon host a lunch-time visit from south coasters Brighton and Hove Albion at our shiny shed for a good ol’ kick around and target practise.

Being a clichéd ridden hack, here I will slide in and make honorable mentions of Brighton rock, Brighton rock the film, Mods and Rockers and Rocky Balboa, who know doubt (are you sure?) is a Seaweed fan, no not of larva bread but the Seagulls, the old Chekovs themselves, etc etc etc. 

Being of old timey fartiness, I still recall the Seaweed when they were at their old Hovel, The Goldstone Ground (now, like the rest of  the world, a retail park) and the echoing, rallying cries of: “he shot, he scored, his name is Peter Ward, Peter Ward” who was a super star for them. Heck, I can even remember PW being of lethal stats on the Top Trump cards. I’m not sure how many people (outside of the B Hove) remember him,  I mean do they even make Top Trumps anymore? Perhaps just a different kind, mostly with orange livery? Perhaps its as Debbie Reynolds daughter Carrie Fisher once said, “fame is obscurity waiting”?

“whose Debbie Reynolds, is she sometimes on AFTV?”

“yes, she is”

First time saw the Arsenal beat B&HA was in the fourth round of the FAC back on our run to the final back in the 1979/80 season, and still have the programme, although its probably being slowly being devoured by silverfish in the darkness of our cellar. The Arsenal played twenty seven cup games (in all competitions) that season and came away empty handed. It was the end of that short era. That’s football! And it hurts.

79/80 was still a brilliant season though, yet somehow I’m still haunted by the Valencia CWC final. I wondered if you have any games that stay as a very present ghost or even poltergeist? Game fifty? Our only European cup final? Your first match? The time you ran naked onto the pitch at Highbury and spent the rest of the game in the cells under the Clock End?

I still have fond memories of backing underdog Brighton in the 1983 cup final, despite having been relegated they took on the team from Old Toilet and gave a truly valiant performance in a classic final. Gordon Smith put Brighton ahead, ex Gunner Franky Stapleton equalised,  Butch Wilkins put ManUre ahead with one of the great FA Cup final goals, but Gary Stevens (motm) made things all square around fifteen minutes later. In the last minute of extra time Michael Robinson (gone way too early) was played through by Jimmy Case and passed across to Gordon Smith, who was unmarked on the right just outside the 6 yard box and surely was set to score and win the cup final for Brighton but he somehow seemed to shoot more at Gary Bailey who of course, made the save, and that was it. In them thar days there were still replays and Brighton got thrashed 4-0 in it. But what a game the first match was. 

Our all time historical record against Brighton stands to this day: twelve wins, four draws and eight losses and thirty eight goals scored and twenty four goals conceded. 

Brighton this season have started brightly and gave Everton a sound beating, and then winning 2-1 against ManUre (Mr Welbeck being amongst the Brighton goalscorers). Whilst on Tuesday they scored four against Crawley in the League Cup. So this is no team to laugh at, well perhaps behind their backs?

Fabian Hürzeler had a good record at the cult team St Pauli (65.45% win ratio) but life time career is around 47.17%. Even though Brighton fell to 11th last season they didn’t mind beating us at the Emirates, 0-3, obviously that was under de Zerbi, so whose knows how this one will play out, and that’s what makes football exciting… its especially exciting when you win five-nil.

Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces of more snore that you already knew or perhaps aren’t too interested in. Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills

Hello Positives.

I have no idea how I can write a blog that makes that dull as dishwater game interesting. So excuse me if I rely on cliches to sound like an expert from a real blog.

Well it was a game of two halves, the first being as dull as dishwater and the second as boring as listening to Piers Morgan talking about himself. They say it’s a good team that can win when not at their best, Let’s hope that’s true eh?

Three points is three points, any away win is a good win, they stopped us playing, who cares, we won?

I feel our man of the match was Watkins, he somehow missed two open goals, he’s an Arsenal fan, if I was a Villa fan I’d be asking questions , or at very least checking the far east betting markets.

To be fair, we perked up a little in the second half when Saka, White and Martin remembered how to link up and move the ball a bit faster. As simple as it sounds, the game changed when Trossard came on for Martinelli, who had been as under par as Tiger Woods has been since his car accident. Surely Trossard has to start next time out?

Declan Rice appears to be suffering a hangover from hell following the Euros, and he’s not being helped by Partey moving the ball with the speed of a sedated sloth.

I recorded the game and as a rule I would watch it again before writing the review, but I assure you, I’ll not be doing that, once was bad enough.

Now, on the bright side, that’s 6 points from the opening two games and no injuries. What has gone is gone and done is done. We will have to play much better than that going forwards and I’m convinced we will. Maybe start Trossard instead of Martinelli, sign the new Mikel to play left centre-mid, put Rice at the 6 he was bought to play and take off like a team of fast things going down hill with a wind behind them? Hope springs eternal. We’ll see.

Pedantic George.

Aston Villa v Arsenal FC

Hello!

I hope you’re doing well and that you’ve had a good week?

The opening day of our ninety-ninth consecutive top-flight campaign seemed decent enough, but you can imagine that both the Arsenal and Wolves when they meet again later in the season will be much tighter, sharper and less wasteful than last Saturday. But even so it was pretty enjoyable to watch the fun in the sun and I’m sure we all felt both victorious and harmonious all week in reflection?

Saturday August 24th (17.30pm western European time) sees the mighty Cannon take part in the second of our two bouts against west midland Mannschaften. So its on the train and over the southern borders with cheques and postal orders up to Birmingham New Street and onto Villa Park to take on the much resurrected Aston Villa. 

The long beards amongst us will remember the days of glory in the 1980’s (and later) when Villa were a menace in European Cup competitions and in our own domestic league and cup matches. Over the years they won seven league titles, seven FA Cups, seven brides for seven brothers, five league cups and one Charity shield, one European Cup, a European Super cup and an Intertoto cup.

Villa had some misfortune in recent years echoing what has often happened in their long history and were relegated into the Championship for a few seasons but came back up for some fizzy Premier League air in the 2019/20 season. And immediately fought their way to meet The Oil City in the League Cup final, and skidded in the oozy slickness of City’s rich game and got beaten. 

And who of course can forget the 2015 Cup final, well obviously Villa fans, but for us that followeth the Gun, Alexis’ magical power-super hoof goal was a spectacular moment, and it was that juncture that I knew we had won that final. Not one Arsenal player from that game is with us now, and how swiftly things change…

“oi! stop getting sentimental, its a sign of weakness, all life is in flux you fool!”

“hey cod-piece face! are you sure your name isn’t scrap-heap services? Are you something from a Sleaford Mods lyric?”

Their manager Mr Unai Emery needs no introduction to us, so I won’t give him one. But he’s mastered wonders at Villa since joining as manager, taking them from a team sniffing the toxic, anxious odours of relegation into a challenging side (finishing fourth last season) although Unai’s win rate is around the 53% mark. Regardless, we irritatingly lost last December to them and hit that negative spell as we were blinded by the festive lights and too many light ales from the night before. 

Unai seems a proud man and will be hoping for another avenging win against us, and having beaten the Irons 2-1 at the London Stadium, and also having the hint of home advantage may well feel confident. But we shall see…The Arsenal artillery might have something to play about that, perhaps with another brillant, cheeky goal from Martinelli..?

Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces of snore that you already knew. Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses! 

COYG and keep on keepin’ on!

Mills