One of my recurring dreams is being a DJ and not being able to find the next record to put on. Obviously I’m re-living all the times that nearly happened to me as in my previous career in nightclubs and on the radio. So I felt annoyed in my dream last night when Dara Ó Briain expertly played the same song over and over again at a nightclub he was DJing at (because he and Dennis Bergkamp shared the same birthday?!) and nobody complained.
“How are you getting away with this?!”, I asked as he played a 12″ of S’Express for about the 12th time.
“Ah they’re all drunk, they never notice”, he said.
“What about the ones that don’t drink?”
“Then you just spray them in the face with this!”, he said and showed me a large version of a minty-mouth fresh spray. And when I looked back at the dance-floor everyone was dead as if they’d been killed in a chemical attack. Now that’s how you get away it.
Obviously that has little or no reference to Arsenal but I felt like documenting that dream all the same. Is it going too far to suggest we might use the minty-mouth fresh spray on the team to teach them a lesson? Obviously not the point where they all die gasping for breath, but maybe just causing them enough discomfort – perhaps via a power-itch right in the middle of their back that they can’t scratch and there’s no available pen or knitting needle to get at it – so they remember not to do the shit they did against Monaco the other night.
There’s talk of the players being kept in the dressing room after the game on Wednesday for a telling off. Unless they were all given a sound thrashing with a cane – players, manager, coaches, owners, the whole lot of them – I’m not interested. There’s only so many times you can watch a group of people do the same thing and be forgiving.
It reminds me of the time when, as a kid, we used to play three-and-in around the corner using a wall as the goal but the ball kept going into the garden behind. At first we’d ring on the door and ask for the ball but the man who lived there got very grumpy at having to go out into his back garden and find his flowers all splatted by our football so we decided we’d just climb over ourselves but then one time when Peter was coming back over the wall collapsed and fell on his leg and I can still hear his shrieks now as we all ran off because we knew we’d get into trouble.
Sometimes the wall collapses and it makes you forget about the point you were trying to make but I think it was about doing the same thing over and over. Either that or you should help your mates when they’re hurt by cement blocks. But then maybe it doesn’t matter. The wall is still broken and you can sign the cast that’s on his mangled leg when you go over and play on his Commodore 64. Life goes on.
And so it is with Arsenal. We’ll prepare ourselves for a game against Everton on Sunday and we’ll hear talk of responding, bouncing back, doing better, improving, staying concentrated, great disappointment, and how we are, quite literally like Freiheit, Keep The Dream Alive for the second leg, even though we all know it’s highly unlikely.
We’ve got to to put it to one side for the moment but when the time comes, oooooh we’ll be ready don’t you worry, but in the meantime we have to focus on the next game, the game in front of us, the game against Everton on Sunday.
And all that. Meanwhile:
Arseblog 13
On this very day 13 years ago I wrote the first Arseblog post. Now Arseblog is a teenager. Who’d have thunk it, eh? Not me, that’s for sure. A lot has happened in those 13 years, chief of which is that I’m somehow 13 years older than when I started it.
I don’t quite know how that happened. One day you’re sitting in your shorts in Spain, the next you’ve got a gigantic fleece hoody on because it’s much colder in Dublin and your beard has far too much the Captain BirdsEye grey in it. I put that down to all the years writing about such an exasperating team. You might suggest that’s the natural passage of time when you start something at 30 years of age but I know better.
I’ve lived it man.
There have been ups and downs (I always wanted former reading boss Wally Downes to manage former Gunner Matthew Upson so we could break out the old Upson Downes headline at some point), probably more downs than ups from a footballing point of view, but that’s just the way it goes with the Arsenal. I don’t imagine that will ever change, regardless of how crotchety people get.
My introduction to Arsenal was glorious triumph in the 1979 FA Cup final, losing two cup finals the following year, seeing my favourite player leave for Italy, then waiting until 1987 to see us win something again. Having documented a 9 year trophy drought, 365 days a year, well … it leaves you appreciating the good times even more.
Anyway, as ever I just want to say thank you for being here. Some of you right from the very start, but I do what I do not just because I love doing it, but also because you lot keep reading it, listening to it, emailing me to complain about it, and all the rest. All of which is very much appreciated.
Breakfast cake and birthday bourbon the order of the day. Here’s to the next 13, maybe with a few more trophies thrown in.
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Right then, time for this week’s Arsecast and to discuss the week that was and the joyous midweek events, I’m joined by Ian Stone. We look back on the Monaco game, discuss those old familiar failings, the nightmare of Olivier Giroud and much more. As well as that, amidst all the usual waffle, I reminisce about starting the site 13 years ago today.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too (this is a much better way to do it as you don’t experience the delays from iTunes).
To download this week’s Arsecast directly click here – 34mb MP3. The Arsecast is also available on our SoundCloud channel, as well as via the SoundCloud app for iPhone and Android. You can now also find it on the Stitcher podcasting app for iOS and Android. Or, you can listen without leaving this page by using the player below.
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Right, news and all the rest from the manager’s press conference over on Arseblog News. More from me tomorrow, The Gent will be here later.
Too early for a bourbon? Maybe just a glug in the breakfast coffee. Have a good one.
