BLOGS! HUH! What are they good for? …
It’s probably best if I don’t complete the next line. It’s a question I have been pondering for a little while now. Arsenal has a proliferation of bloggers and writers, probably more so than any other club. Blogging has picked up the baton of the fanzine movement of the 1980s as the alternative view of the football club. The guttural cry of the fans. Club literature has become so much more corporate in recent years that there has been a thirst for football literature that is not soaked in neutrality.
In the 1992-93 season, the Arsenal programme ran a feature called ‘Your Say’ in which they would devote an entire page to a letter sent in by an indignant fan. One such issue saw a page devoted to a gentleman’s complaint about Sky TV choosing to reschedule matches to Monday evenings. I also recall one that featured a supporter’s bitter tirade against the Football Association for their uneven treatment of Ian Wright. It is impossible to imagine a club publication carrying such unredacted musings nowadays.
We live in more sensitive times. Such a feature in a club publication in 2013 would result in some delicate flowers demanding a mealy mouthed apology. Put simply, blogs can provide an unfettered outlet that the club is just not able to give you through its official channels. Much like the fanzine movement, blogs have a solid punk rock aesthetic behind them. It takes 2 minutes to start a WordPress site. If you don’t like what you’re reading, you can begin aggregating your own content in an evening.
This is what Positively Arsenal have done for instance. They weren’t satisfied with the tone of the content they were reading, so they birthed a site with a community of writers dedicated to changing that. Of course, like a punk rock band that signs to a major record label, this does come with inherent philosophical difficulties. It becomes difficult to criticise “the bloggers” as a destructive hive mind when you yourself become A. Blogger.
It’s something I am acutely aware of whilst writing this article. I am trying to objectively assess “them” knowing full well I am one of “them.” My journey into blogging began as a total accident really. From childhood, my two obsessions (and I don’t use the term lightly) were Arsenal and writing. I was a habitual journal keeper. It didn’t take me long to start keeping journals about Arsenal. On the opening day of the 1997-98 season, my two obsessions married in a very meaningful way.
Arsenal were playing away at Leeds United and I decided to document the game. I wrote, by hand, in a little red notebook the team news, the match day squads and squad numbers of available players, the team line ups and substitutions, the formations, a match report and overall player ratings. I also took down all of the Premier League results from that weekend. I continued to do this for every single competitive Arsenal game until the end of the 2010-11 season. All by hand, in biro and all on the exact same style of Rymans A5 notepad. (Always in red or yellow).
In February 2011, I was given this column and I became too busy to keep the hand written journals up. My online activity increased and that was a fair replacement as a living document of my Arsenal reflections. When I began the journal in 1997, I had little or no idea that a tool called the Internet would enable me to share them. For 14 years I was quite happy to write for an audience of one and had the internet never taken off, or the germ of blogging had not spread, I daresay I would have been happy to continue entertaining that audience of one indefinitely.
Social networking has propelled the concept of blogging into a new galaxy of prominence. Even the club has taken notice. Selected articles from amateur Arsenal journalists are now carried on the front page of arsenal.com. Whilst it is true that the articles that say “VENGA IS A CUNT” aren’t usually selected (much to the dismay of the pen-smiths, I’m sure), they’re not often edited or filtered to my knowledge. Perhaps we are coming back full circle to the age of the angry men being printed in the official programme.
Opinion is the new news after all. You cannot watch a news broadcast nowadays without being badgered to text, tweet or e mail your opinions, no matter how banal. Arsenal have engaged in an open dialogue with Arsenal bloggers. Some would cynically suggest it’s their way of abating the hostility of their critical friends. Some think it’s just a neat way of cascading key messages to the fans that don’t always travel through more official media channels.
Arsenal were criticised heavily (and speculatively it must be said) over the quality of their medical care due to the volume of injuries suffered by the first team squad. The club invited a few bloggers and supporters club representatives to view the medical facilities and help correct some of that messaging. Many would argue that such privileges and the increased profile of blogging about Arsenal beget greater responsibility. To many, being one of the club’s checks and balances is part of the job description.
Certainly there exists a perception that Arsenal bloggers form a cabal or a hive mind. An self-appointed mafia, drunk on self importance seeking to present themselves as the voice of the supporters. Just punch ‘Arsenal bloggers’ into your Twitter search field every once in a while if you don’t believe me. Much like “the fans” or “the media” or “the board” it’s easy to group people together as a lightning rod for all of the club’s issues when you’re frustrated, no matter how diverse that group of people actually is. I’ve lost count of the amount of times an irate correspondent has addressed me as “you bloggers” on Twitter.
Yet just as many complain that “the bloggers” are weak willed and beholden to the club. I admit to being uncomfortable with the idea of ‘holding the club to account’, not because I care greatly about these perceptions. But because I don’t ever want to delude myself into thinking that what I write is important. I hope it’s entertaining, interesting and informed. But it’s not important. I don’t ever want to arrive at the point where I start to consider the perceived ‘consequences’ of what I write. I want to represent me and me only. As such, when I speak with the club, I confess to feeling conflicted.
I don’t really know how to act. Am I there as a sounding board? A representative? A conduit? A critic? I don’t really feel qualified to be any of those, but I still go. When I do, I totally admit that it feels somewhat surreal. When it comes to Arsenal, I struggle to part myself from the 7 year old me that fell in love with the red shirt and white sleeves and the dashing wing play of Rocastle and Limpar. Maybe that’s cowardice on my part, to reject having that responsibility vested in me but going along for my own curiosity anyway.
The wider media have embraced bloggers to a degree. I sheepishly admit to having done radio and television slots. What is this if not an exercise in self importance? It is precisely that. Ego. Much the same as setting up a Twitter account or commenting on an article really. Doing so presumes somebody gives a tiny rat’s arse what we think. (Twitter’s creators christened their invention a “microblogging” site after all). I would like more than anything to make my living writing about football, so since my solitary, biro scribbled journal efforts became a digital concern, an element of self promotion has of course crept in.
Ultimately, in a few years, some other innovation will arrive that will replace social networking and blogging and everything and everybody will move on. You’re probably expecting a neatly condensed conclusion at this point. A light bulb of self realisation to flash above my head. I don’t have one. I asked what blogs were good for at the outset of the article and having rambled on for 1400 words, I still don’t know the answer. I’m still not clear if even considering this question for blog material is the single most pretentious thing any human being has ever done. Oh well, till next week. LD.
This is the space where I invite tell you to follow me on twitter. Somehow, this week it doesn’t seem so…..oh fuck it @LittleDutchVA.
