It’s safe to say I’m feeling a bit tired this morning but if there’s a good kind of tired then this is it. I’m back in Dublin now after an amazing few days in London, which just flew by.
Between the book launch and the FA Cup final, it’s a whizz and a blur of faces and memories that will last as long as my aging brain allows, but it was one of those weekends where you don’t want much of it to slip by. Due to my flight time yesterday I didn’t get to see the parade, but what a day it was for it. The sun was shining on the Arsenal, and the players and fans looked like they had a great time.
Between Jack Wilshere leading the chants and Arsene Wenger looking 10 years younger all of a sudden, it was a reminder that for all the trials and tribulations that winning is the best feeling there is. We’ve had some difficult times as fans in the last few years. I know you can qualify that by saying others would love to be in our position most of the time, but standards were set and expectation level raised during the manager’s tenure.
It has been – let’s be brutally honest here – quite unpleasant to see league seasons falter in the opening months, cup chances squandered for various reasons with some painful exits against teams that never should have beaten us, and losing finals when we’ve almost had that long-awaited trophy in our grasp.
I’m sure that for some fans whose first generation of following the club coincided with the arrival of Arsene Wenger, it’s been even more difficult to find the perspective needed to cope. When all you’ve had is caviar, it can be very difficult to go back to sausage. Especially when the sausage is made out of ear wax and befouled entrails.
So, after a nine year wait, even if you’ve seen us go through periods as long as this (if not longer) without success, it feels especially sweet. And what’s important is to enjoy it for what it is without letting anything get in the way of that. On the Arsecast on Friday, Philippe Auclair mentioned the 2002 final as a ‘day of pure Arsenal joy’, and the same goes for this one.
Someone put together this gallery of fans in cities every everywhere, and you can the faces are the same the world over. Arsenal may be many things to many people but most of all it’s something that should unite us. For too long that’s not been the case. We’ve been divided into factions. In-fighting has become the norm, a consequence of not fulfilling our potential, I understand that, but doing what we did at Wembley was simply the essence of being a fan.
In the stands on Saturday it seemed to me that something was re-lit under us. At 2-0 down there was disbelief and despair, but little anger – certainly where I was anyway. Some groaning, of course, how could there not be? But what followed played a big part in pushing the team forward. Arsenal fans in one voice behind the team and it was loud. A cacophonous choir of red and white (and some yellow and blue!), fully behind their team and their team responded.
It is, I realise, naive to think it will always be like that, and there is always a time and a place for the critical voice, but to me it was something special to experience that togetherness with the 40-50,000 other Arsenal fans in that gigantic stadium. That it can then be shared with people from all over the world, from those who came to North London (with or without tickets), or online made it even more so.
I’ve long said that the bad times are inevitable, but they also serve a purpose. It makes days like Saturday mean even more. Did it feel good to win the cup? Of course. Yet did it feel better because we could finally put an end to the tedious stuff about how long it had been since we’d tasted success? You better believe it. Does victory taste sweeter because so many people hated us lifting that famous old trophy? YES YES YES!
The morning of the final I was looking at Sky Sports News and they’d gone to the trouble of putting together a graphic of exactly how long it had been, down the second. They also talked about how many other things had happened, and for some bizarre reason thought it was in some way relevant that over a billion babies had been born since the 2005 FA Cup success. Maybe it’s supposed to be light-hearted trivia, but it’s simply inane bollocks. Who gives a shit about a billion babies. It’s irrelevant tosh and that tired trope can be put to one side, set on fire then thrown off a tall building.
Now though, the itch has been scratched, they can turn their attention elsewhere, and we can now concentrate on building on this. It’s not something I want to get into today, because we’ve got plenty of time this summer to deal with all that. Now it’s still time to bask in the enjoyment, the sheer pleasure of winning the cup, and I intend to do that. I’m going to bask like a bastard and I hope you all do the same.
To everyone involved in this weekend (and there are too many to mention), thank you. It was genuine delight to share it with you, and I look forward to doing it all again at some point in the not too distant future.
We did it!
—
In a quick round-up of other stuff, if you want to relive the final again in a slightly different way, Mrs Blogs’ cup final live blog is worth a few moments of your time. With most of the Arseblog ‘people’ at the game itself, she volunteered for duty but man, did she knock it out of the park (even if do say so myself). The description of Steve Bruce on the sideline is so perfect.
Meanwhile, all the papers this morning are going big on the Arsene Wenger contract story. I think it was always going to be a case that he’d stay if we won the cup, and now that we have, the contract will be signed. This really does come under the auspices of the the building work I mentioned above, so we can talk about this in more detail later in the week, or as and when it happens.
However, I just to have say that on a personal level I was delighted for him on Saturday. The cup is for the players, the fans, the club, the Arsenal community, but he plays a key role in all of that and while he’s made some bad decisions in the last few years, I’ve never doubted how hard he’s worked to bring success back. If you’re going to be critical when things don’t happen, you have to give credit when they do.
Even Bacary Sagna, on the verge of leaving the club, got choked up talking about how much they wanted to win it for Wenger after all the faith he’d shown in them. I think that was evident in the way they acknowledged that on the pitch at Wembley, by soaking him in beer and giving him the bumps, so now that the monkey is off his back, perhaps that will encourage or allow a bit more freedom in what he does because the pressure must have been crippling at times.
—
Righto, I’m sure there’s loads more I can say, or loads that I’ve forgotten, but there’s plenty of time to catch up. There will be an Arsecast Extra today, but slightly later in the day than usual. Probably late afternoon. As always, if you have any questions, fire them to @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter using the hashtag #arsecastextra.
Until later.
ps – Due to server issues yesterday, the Mailing List today will include today and yesterday’s blog posts.
