Written by Anna Boyles Monday, 09 January 2012 15:40

GunnerTalk Blog

By Anna Boyles (@ginghino)

I think it’s fair to say that recent events surrounding Liverpool Football club have been disconcerting at best. General consensus from inside and outside the football community has been that they have handled the situation appallingly from board level through to the team manager, the players themselves and the supporters.

This put me in a reflective mood and made me think about my club and what it (and us as supporters) represents. Can we hand on heart say that The Arsenal or its supporters have never done anything to bring embarrassment on the club as an institution? What have the major flashpoints been since I started visiting Highbury as a kid in the late 1980’s?

I have always thought (or liked to think of) The Arsenal as the “good guys”. You know....progressive, forward thinking, cuddly even. The type of club that would help old ladies cross the street, adopt a tiger, donate a sizeable amount to a worthy charity direct from their pay packet each month before going to buy their organic duck burgers from Waitrose. Bit middle class and always has a default setting of righteous indignation but their heart is in the right place and will always try to pick the, morally, right path.

I think it’s important to make the distinction between being embarrassed of team performances and the actions of the club itself. We all have our own list of team performances over the years (sadly, most of which are all too recent but that’s another story!) where we have been frustrated, angry and even ashamed but that goes for every other club too. The events I can recall not relating to team performances are things like the “battle of Old Trafford” (part 1 in 1988, part 2 in 1990 and part 3 in 2003), Tony Adams drink driving charge and subsequent ban, the confessions of Merse, George Graham’s bung, Wright v Schmeichel, passport “problems” with our popular Brazilian left back Sylvinho, more recently, the behaviour of one or two of our middling (but high earning) squad players in the glamorous surroundings of West end night clubs/ toilets/dancefloors/gutters/taxi ranks.

From memory, the club dealt with the majority of these issues swiftly and came to the right conclusions. Bungs? Sacked. Drug or alcohol abuse? Supported and given counselling as long as there were no further offences.  Potential passport issues? Moved on. Pulled your pants down in public? Sent to Sunderland on loan.

Racism is, quite rightly, high on the agenda at the minute. Even in the dark days when racism was rife, I can’t remember ever hearing of (and certainly not witnessing) Arsenal having problems in this department in terms of team or supporters. Our fans, I think, are generally considered to be a tolerant inclusive bunch who embrace players and fans alike from all walks of life, albeit slightly quiet and a bit moany. This is one of the many reasons I love the club. The only pejorative term I have ever heard used at Highbury or the Grove is “Yid”. I have always been uncomfortable with the use of this term and don’t care if Spurs fans use it or not, it should not be in our vocabulary. You can argue about the nuances of the term, but dropping the “Y” bomb should be eradicated from the grove matchday experience, in my opinion.

What of our rivals?

In terms of supporters, Chelsea are generally considered to be fairly....how can I put this....a bit light in the “full head of hair” department and slightly nationalistic? Their board and management since the oil money rolled in (and before) have consistently shown a tolerance to behaviour at their club that I just don’t see Arsenal doing. Frank Lampard and John Terry making airplane gestures while drinking in a hotel bar on the evening of 11^th September 2001; Dennis Wise assaulting a taxi driver; the countless off field extra marital activities of John Terry; their captain taking bungs for training ground “tours”; an established first team player shooting a trainee with an air rifle. Can you see Chamakh bring an air rifle to training (cue “he’d miss anyway punchline”)? Neither can I.

The Manchester clubs have had their fair share of events that have tarnished the reputation of their respective clubs. Rio’s drug ban; Balotelli (x10 incidents!); Rooney openly disrespecting his club and his wife; training ground fights; board airing dirty linen very much in the public eye; manager in court arguing about horse spunk; Micah Richards parking where he likes and racking up hideous amounts of fines. No good guys to be found there.  Look at the Arsenal crime sheet....I don’t see behaviour like this there. You could argue that Cesc damaged the reputation of Arsenal when he agitated for a move away from the club, but I will always maintain that was a unique circumstance. He did not produce a Rooneyesque statement in the media for example.

Liverpool have always been a respected, if slightly self pitying and prone to navel gazing, club. Recent events have damaged their reputation and only time will tell if they can recover. They have been shambolic in their handling of the Luis Suarez affair.

In all fairness, I think that Spurs have gained a lot of respect as a club over the last decade and particularly since they narrowly missed out on Champions League football in 2006 *vomits in own mouth*. However, their actions over the proposed Stratford move have been less than classy. They are a staggering drunk in a dodgy nightclub at 3am looking for someone (anyone!) to take them home.

In terms of behaviour in the transfer market, again I think The Arsenal act in the right and proper manner. Have you ever heard Wenger or a board member talk openly about purchasing a player under contract with another club? Both Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Spurs (‘Arry in particular takes every opportunity in every transfer window) and Liverpool have all done this in recent seasons. On that subject, Chelsea and Manchester City have an obscene amount of wealth but will sooner or later find out that the path of excess does not lead to the palace of credibility.

This is a bit rambling and the fact that these comments come from an Arsenal fan relating to Arsenal can be seen as consciously or unconsciously biased but hey, my gooner tinted glasses are firmly attached and won’t be removed anytime soon. When all is said and done, I like to think that we are backing the good guys.