To any new readers, Fred is a character and any resemblance to real people is purely accidental. PG

To all PA readers, my name is John Paxford, and I’m a relation of Fred Paxford, who died about a month ago. We found in his last papers this note that he was hoping for me to write up and send to you as we did in the past but that wasn’t possible. I know it gave him great pleasure to read or for me to read the responses to his thoughts and in a world where he felt increasingly alienated, Positively Arsenal was a sometime oasis. I leave you with his final words…

Hullo there, I’ve found out I’ve got that blasted virus and I wanted to write something to you as Im not sure what will happen. I’m not frightened but its a bit uncomfortable. A lots happened since I wrote last, about a year and a half ago some kids got into my house and garden, sprayed obscene things on the walls, nicked a load of bits and peices and trampled my runners and bloody set fire to my shed. Normally it takes me a couple of hours to get to the shops and back and they must have been watching. The fire brigade was there waiting for me, having put it all out, they did their best but really it broke me. So I moved out after nearly 60 years and ended up here in Milton Keynes in a sterile little flat for one person, no garden nor much else, certainly no runners or my irises, I miss cutting my lawn and looking at the smooth green. After all those years in the same place its been a tough one to deal with. I had to get rid of most of the old furniture and much of my wife’s things–that was a real sore one for me. It was great comfort to still be able to look over at her chair and imagine her lively, witty conversation. You would have liked her.
There’s a widowed late middle aged social worker, Mrs Partridge she calls to see if I’m alright and has a natter, and some of my family are close by but its not the same. Finally life and time and age caught up with me; ignored on the street and ignored in life. Unwanted, But to me its just another thing to take in your stride. Plenty have experienced this before I wound up in this situation, no need to make a fuss.
Then I lost my faith. All those years with the Arsenal, 80years is a long time. It happened sometime before the Cup final, (it was maybe even a year before) and that all seemed a right old to-do, not really a cup final, more of a practise game, but even when he dropped the Cup old Aubameyang has that winning smile that could charm anyone and get through the worst storm. Its never one thing in life that breaks a situation, but many things together. My Grand Nephew comes over and shows me things on his phone and funny flat pad thing. I saw again the Arsenal fan television people, and thought what a load of silly sods, but then they would think the same of me. Not very sporting are they, getting so hot under the collar about it all, yet happy as Larry when Arsenal win. I used to think they were just potty but then I saw the poison working its way deeper and deeper into the clubs veins. I’m not sure what a man of my age was doing looking at them but I simply was always interested in Arsenal and what was happening, but some trains I dont want to climb aboard. The computer world just seems another human dream gone wrong. But that’s just my opinion, Im sure it has great things too—like old PA for instance!
But looking around all my old Arsenal friends have gone on ahead so its just a new generation I suppose, but what a load of much ado some young-uns make about things? I then looked at the owners and like most dealings today they seem concerned to only make a profit? They forget, yes the object of the game is to win, but we play and watch for the sheer excitement and enjoyment of it all, not some bloody profits! Old flyby nights I call them! I’m sure you like the manager, he was a decent player but he’s not my cuppa, I still reckon he needed a few years before taking the job, yes I know we grabbed the Cup, but Sheffield United were formidable with that home crowd, could we have beaten them under such pressure from their noisy fans? Sometimes I wonder if old Wenger walked off with the clubs soul under his arm when he went, just to keep it safe for sometime in the future? I know its state of the art but the shiny stadium seems a bit sterile for me, and seeing it empty isn’t so bad but its seems a bit hard and characterless. But for the new ones Im sure its home just as Highbury was to me and my friends for all those years. Trouble is I just started looking at what I was still following. I saw it was unrecognisable! Who would have believed that Arsenal could have changed so much. I then stopped feeling connected with a lot of the players, they seemed distant, like I’m too old to be doing all this, at my age, the old heroes have all died or gone into obscurity: fame, is only obscurity waiting! For Arteta’s boys time will also come too. When you look back it makes you feel sad really, all that effort and doing your best to just become a memory or just plain forgotten.
I then stopped looking at the results, and just tried to get through each day. It was bad enough losing my wife, but losing your faith in life, your friends, your community after 80 years is no mean thing. It sort of led me to black moods and a strange hopelessness. 
Then one day a few weeks ago, I was going through some of mine and Joan’s things, and I found a book she gave me when we got married as a wedding gift, it was the Little Prince by Antoine Saint de Expury. I think there’s a bit of an accent somewhere, but my French wasn’t too hot, Joanie could speak it though. So I dusted it off, and the inscription brought a tear to my eye: “To my darling Frederick, on the occasion of our wedding, April 1956. Only with the heart can one see rightly, what’s essential is invisible to the eye. Ever your wife, Joan”
I found myself thinking about this, and I sat down and thought for a bit. And recalled of all those years, those eighty years of Arsenal, not just the Rolls Royce that Wenger built, nor the new hope George Graham gave us or Terry Neill but way back beyond Bertie Mee and the 70s glories and mishaps, but back the 50s and old Billy Wright and Mr Whittaker from when I first went, my first loves and my first identification with something. Nobody talks about those days and all those faces, all those goals those moments of joy and sadness, the years of frustration, how things changed from rosettes and rattles and jokes on the terraces to the crumbling old lady that Highbury was in 70s and 80s and the shocking fighting and then the new building work, how clean it was on the new North Bank. My last game was Feb 1999. Ha! I was still a young -un then!
 I thought of my old mates and the laughs we had, and my old Dads mates, some of whom went to the old Invincta ground, old gaffers but nice fellows who worked at the Arsenal but later still made the trip up North to Highbury, till it got to difficult. All those laughing faces, red shirts and white sleeves and stubble came out of the mists of time and were as real for me as Henry is perhaps for you. I saw them with the heart, Arsenal, my second greatest love. Not the same as the love for my wife but a love  as deep as any other you can have for things. My loves were my wife, Arsenal and growing things in my garden. Joan’s last gift to me was re-reading the dedication in the book, even if things are falling apart or no longer what we want we can still see with the heart and hold on to another day.
 My Arsenals gone, but its still your Arsenal, and new dreams will be made and hearts broken, in life’s big, daft relay race to who knows where, will carry on?
Well, time for a cup and a slice of jam and bread. All the best to you. Keep your faith as best as you can, do it for me if you cant find another reason. One day it will all pick up again. Take care of yourselves.
Cheerio!

Good morning all.

This week @shotta_gooner and I look at the West Ham game , discus the chances of a top 8, 6 or 4 finish and for once I stand up and defend Arteta for his selections and tactics.

This afternoon at 3 P.M. Arsenal make the trip across London to take on West Ham United with a fully fit squad to pick from. Quite who Arteta will pick is beyond me, I suspect that Saka and Willian, both of who were doubts, wont be starting, As this is our last outing before the interlul we could see Mikel choosing who he thinks is his strongest eleven, Who those players are, beyond Leno and Xhaka, I’m not sure, and I’m not sure Arteta is sure either.

Common sense tells me we are competing with Leeds and Villa for 9th 10th or 11th come the end of the season, but you never know who above that could slip up and if we are to take advantage of any collapse, 3 points today is a must.

Arsenal are 5 places and seven points behind our opponents today. Moyes has his team playing solid stuff and it will be a difficult ask to come home with the points. However, we have seen improvements recently in our play and we do have the better players. We might not be riding on the crest of a wave but we are astride a decent ripple. Although we qualified for the quarters of the EL, it was anything but impressive. Hopefully that wont have dented our fragile confidence.

The way I see it is that if we play well, we will win, So let’s do just that.

Enjoy the game and stay safe.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

On this podcast with @shotta_gooner I start swallowing some of the humble pie that Arteta has been serving and talk about the performance, the marked recent improvement and Xhaka’s dominance in our midfield.

Good morning all.

At 4.30 P.M. Arsenal take on Spurs in the battle for the best midtable team in north London. We are 10th and just 7 points and 3 league positions behind them with 11 games to go. It’s a sorry state we find ourselves in but today is an opportunity to start putting thing right. Ok, if not right, a bit better and this particular game means more than 3 points, it always has. If we lose, our bitter rivals will have done the double against us for the first time in 30 odd years. Pfft.

Fans are clinging on to the idea that “the process” is bringing about an improvement, but many are struggling to hang on to this hope, and a slapping for us today could easily turn the tide against “the process” and those in charge of it. So, it’s a huge game for Arsenal, because there will come a point where fans with goodwill will say enough is enough and with the prospect of fans returning to the stadium it could get ugly very quickly.

Unfortunately for us Spurs are on the midst of a mini revival, while we are up and down like a fiddlers elbow. Home advantage seems to count for nothing this season, for all teams, so any advantage that would bring is absent.

The good news is that Arteta has a fully fit squad to pick from. Quite who he will pick is anyone’s guess. Beyond Xhaka, Bellerin and Leno, it could be anything, any set up and any tactics.

I feel we need a win and a good performance today, as much, if not more, than any game for years. We have the players to do it and I think those players do have the spirit that will be required.

No need for me to bang on about silly mistakes being cut out, that’s a well trodden path across all media platforms, and those platforms are enjoying battering us with this new stick, so every individual error will be highlighted by gleeful critics.

Just win lads, please, pretty please. We need you today, not sure we can take another kick in the nuts

Pedantic George

Good morning.

In todays podcast @shotta_gooner and I look at the daylight robbery at Burnley, the wasted opportunities, the good play and the disastrous mistake that cost us 2 points. We credit Arteta for recent improvements and blame him for being in the position that we found ourselves in.

Good morning all.

Another early start for us away at Burnley, and another different type of test for our fragile form. They beat us at The Emirates but we cant be that bad again. It truly was a horrible display, but we have improved recently and are playing much better than we did then. Then again, it’s away at a real lump it and kick e’m ground, so it could be a battle. That said, if Spurs can brush them aside, why shouldn’t we?

There are some fans still holding on to the prospect of a revival good enough to get us into European places, personally, I can’t see that, but you never know. If such an upturn is possible, a win today would look like a necessity.

It appears that we have a fully fit squad with only ESR being a doubt, so Arteta has no problems there. Burnley , on the other hand, have all sorts of injury woes. Let just hope at the final whistle we still have no injury problems as we have a lot , if not all, of our eggs in the EL basket and we will need a full strength squad for our encounter with the Greeks.

Anyway, best of luck guessing the team selection and best of luck to those selected. I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a comfortable 3-1 win for the lads.

Pedantic George.

Earlier today I saw a Tweet from Blackburn George asking his ‘followers’ who their current favourite player was, as well as proclaiming that Granit Xhaka was his. Certainly few could dispute that Xhaka has been one of, if not the, most consistently good players since Christmas: his appetite for hard work, his on-the-field leadership and his game changing performances at the heart of the midfield have all played a part in the gradual climb towards a more respectable league position. But not many, I suspect, would have him as a favourite – and certainly none of those who manufactured outrage and abuse against him, and then spat their own dummies as he responded in kind. He is a player many fans love to hate, especially those who have been influenced by anti-arsenal pundits.

As is one of my almost favourites, Hector Bellerin, guilty in the eyes of many for no less a heinous crime than suggesting that some of the louder and more prominent supporters make a living out of negativity. Guilty too for taking a while to come back from a serious ACL injury. And guilty, I suspect, for not conforming to stereotypical footballing virtues, such as short back and sides and unambiguous masculinity.  Perhaps it is certain fans’ dislike of him that is one of the things that George likes most about Xhaka, that I like most about Bellerin. And indeed there can be a certain smugness about going against popular opinion, or of believing that you see qualities missed by others.

But having football favourites or sporting heroes is not just about point scoring – and I think it is certainly far more than being a ‘fan boy’, that pejorative term thrown in the direction of any one who dares to voice support for a player not currently the flavour of the month. I got to wondering what makes me side with one player over another, and what qualities they have that elevates them to favourite status. And from there I began to wonder whether it is because they show qualities that I recognise, that I perhaps have something in common with – or whether it is because they have abilities that I may only dream of, so far beyond my abilities they are. 

Of the current lot I like Bellerin, but that is mainly because I remember watching his debut game and enjoyed seeing him progress from there: I happen to think he is a fine player (I prefer him to Cedric Soares) and I always want to see him do well, but he doesn’t really qualify as a true favourite. Should he leave and return to Spain it will not sadden me unduly. I can certainly understand why Tierney is admired by so many, but great though he undoubtedly is I suspect he will never be a favourite, whereas Nacho Monreal was (and I can’t quite explain why, something about rooting for the underdog maybe). Chambers is a favourite but I doubt I’ll see any more of him in an Arsenal shirt, whereas I think that ESR has enough brilliance to become a favourite player of mine. Ozil was definitely a favourite, given that he possessed many of the qualities I look for in a sporting hero (sublime but fragile and inconsistent – in old fashioned cricketing terms a Gower rather than a Gooch) and I had a ridiculous soft spot for Danny Welbeck, who never quite managed to live up to the extravagant hopes I had for him.

So I begin to realise that to qualify as a hero of mine a player must either have frustratingly mercurial brilliance, or feet of clay that occasionally transform into match-winning ability. I am aware that any half decent psychiatrist would make much of my enthusiasm for vulnerability, which is perhaps why I almost prefer the Arsenal in its post 2005 state than in the years of its impossible pomp. But I would also love to know who are the ones that you support more than others, and what it is about them (and you) that makes them stand out as especially worthy of your support. This is not a call to debate who are the best players, merely an opportunity to reflect on the absurdity of investing our hopes and fears in those we will not only never meet, but who will never ever know of our existence!

In Today’s podcast @shotta_gooner and I wax lyrical about everything, including Arteta, This is what we have all been waiting , for ,surely? We saw everything come together against a good team. Arteta made some big calls and was vindicated, if we can moan when it’s bad we have to cheer when it’s this good.

What stood out was how well the “deadwood” played, For me this showed that we do have a very good squad, with depth, and that the rebuild is nowhere near as big as many people think. For the first time since the restart, I’m full of hope.

Marveous.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

Early blog for an early start start, high noon in fact.

This is a hard game to call, we go into the game feeling chipper following our late winner in the Europa League, while Leicester have their tails between their legs having been dumped out of the same competition. On the other hand they are doing well in league, while we are struggling big time. So in short, anything could happen.

Normally I can at least hazard a decent guess about the line up, but not today. I seriously have no clue what Arteta will send out to start the game. We have some players seriously in need of a rest, Saka, Xhaka, Bellerin for sure, but can he afford to rest them, or even some of them? Even one of them? The cheer up that Thursday gave us will soon disappear if we lose our 12th PL game, he has to turn our league position around, because putting all our eggs in the Europa league basket is a dangerous business. People are clinging to the hope of winning the EL, but if we get dumped out of that and are stuck in 12th or 13th place, the cat will be among the pigeons.

Make no mistake, this is a big game and in difficult circumstances, unless we win questions will be asked about selections and priorities. We can all understand why players should be rested and other given game time but that understanding will fly out the window should we lose again. That’s the nature of hindsight management. I don’t like Arteta, but I don’t envy his task over the coming weeks. He has to go on a good run or things will get nasty, and with the chance of fans returning to the stadium, that nastiness will become very vocal.

Anyway, we shouldn’t forget that we have some very good players, no matter who is selected and at least Maddison isn’t fit, so that should help.

Pedantic George.