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Football
fandom – as opposed to football femdom which is a whole other
magazine and website - is a strange thing. I’ve always been
vaguely aware of most of its absurdities; the rituals, the superstitions,
the blind faith, the eternal pessimism.
Those, I guess, have been core elements of the English football
experience for a long time, probably as long as the competitive
game has existed.
But there’s a new kind of peculiarity aboard these days, something
which could ultimately have a huge, catastrophic effect on the game.
Football has always been a game of dreams, the “Roy of the
Rovers” ideal that all things are possible, that a non-league
club could, eventually, go through the divisions, win the FA Cup,
play in the Premiership – the Wimbledon experience essentially.
The problem now, to paraphrase the Chinese proverb is that if you’re
careful, you will get what you wish for. And once you get that,
that’s when the rot sets in. As a fourth generation follower
of West Bromwich Albion, things are pretty grim at the moment, with
relegation peeking at us from over the horizon. But to be honest,
that’s not the problem for most of our fans.
For fifteen long years, a team that once won the League itself,
claimed five FA Cups and one League Cup languished outside the top
flight, even enduring a two year spell in the old Third Division,
our lowest ebb. Few of us ever believed we might actually make to
back to the top flight.
Yet in 2002, it happened, we got there. Relegation, then promotion
followed, but after two more seasons in the Premiership, the dream
is over. Not our dream. The dream. Life in the top division stinks.
A trip to Arsenal last weekend brought it all into sharp focus.
It was our farewell Highbury. And farewell to any romantic illusions
that might have lingered with us about life in the Premiership.
In the three years we’ve been battered from pillar to post
in the search for points, we’ve gone from wide eyed naivety
to disenchantment with a competition that is so deeply and so deliberately
skewed in favour of the moneyed few that the rest of us are playing
a part no bigger than the “Third man in restaurant” whose
name flicks past on the credits of a big Hollywood movie, in spite
of the fact that you can barely remember he was even there.
Arsenal is a football club that has such resources it can place
Pires and Bergkamp on the bench, a football club that doesn’t
need to rush the likes of Fabregas back from injury, a football
club that is already awash in money, a football club about to move
to a new stadium where their income will double overnight, a football
club that lives on a different planet to most of us, a planet that
is spinning ever further away from the orbit of the at least a dozen,
probably more of the other Premiership teams who are supposedly
their competitors but are, in reality, no more than the supporting
cast.
Disenchantment is setting in around the country. Thousands of empty
seats at the Villa, Birmingham fans openly calling phone-ins to
say that if their side can’t compete in the top half, they’d
rather go down, Charlton and Boro fans complaining that they’re
stagnating in mid-table.
Outside the big boys, the only fans who seem happy are at Wigan
and West Ham, but will that prevail next year – remember the
way Ipswich crashed and burned after getting into Europe?
So what then of Albion’s last trip to the real home of the
Gunners, a side historically so influential that it reached the
top flight simply by being elected into it rather than winning promotion
into it?
Whatever else you might say of it, and by modern day standards,
it genuinely is ready for the Antiques Roadshow, it’s a proper
football ground, no two ways about it. And to our credit, Albion
gave a proper footballing performance against a side who a month
ago shredded both Real Madrid and Juventus.
Albion were intelligent, rotating the forwards in a manner that
kept Arsenal guessing, a sophisticated, fluid game that kept the
game in the balance until it’s final minutes when real money
and the real class it buys finally won the day. They should feel
pleased with their graft, their endeavour and certainly the quality
of their play at times, at both ends of the field, quality which
could have won an 11th minute lead after Diomansy Kamara swooped
on a loose Senderos pass, Kamara playing a pass into Jonathan Greening
who lost his footing, Nigel Quashie quickest to latch onto the loose
ball before firing a shot just wide from the edge of the box.
Neil Clement was next to try his luck from similar distance, popping
a free-kick just over the bar as Albion settled into a solid pattern
of play. We were 23 minutes in before Arsenal created a semblance
of a chance, Henry and Van Persie leaving the ball for one another
in what some might term an “After you Claude” moment,
Reyes eventually getting tired of watching, getting the ball himself,
only to see his shot deflected wide. Then it was Albion again, Paul
Robinson putting in a routine cross that Lehmann almost contrived
to throw into his own net.
Arsenal were constantly looking to release the pace of Henry, but
the Frenchman’s Va Va Voom was no match for Curtis Davies who
was busily playing him out of the game, Tomasz Kuszczak also alert
to the dangers he posed, darting off his line to cut out one through
ball by heading it away from just outside the area. Even so, quality
will out eventually, and on 28 minutes, Arsenal looked set to score
when Gilberto played a perfect ball into Henry’s path.
The covering Clement did well to force him wide but as Henry pulled
the trigger, we all knew what was going to happen next. Except we
didn’t, because for once, he got his angles wrong and dinked
the ball wide of the post instead of inside it.
Albion had all but done the hard part, getting to the break still
on level terms, when a momentary lapse had the consequence it generally
does against Arsenal – a goal. Hleb received the ball about
30 yards out, central, with a yawning gap opening before him.
A lovely one-two with Henry later, he was in position to drill a
vicious rising drive past Kuszczak and into the roof of the net.
Albion still had time to create a chance, Greening’s cross
skimming off the head of Kanu and wide, one of the last contributions
from the Nigerian who endured a frustratingly ineffective day at
the home of his former employers, replaced by Kevin Campbell early
in the second period, Campbell immediately causing Senderos and
Toure more problems.
Arsenal were ready to make their own changes midway through a becalmed
second half, Henry having gone earlier to be replaced by Adebayor.
This time, it was Pires and the peerless Bergkamp who joined the
fray, Bergkamp an especially welcome addition for the Arsenal fans,
enjoying another of Highbury’s themed days in its last year,
this one in honour of the Dutchman, the crowd a sea of orange T-shirts
handed out by Arsenal, a further subtle reminder of their financial
clout.
For a moment, it looked like we’d wreck the party for Bergkamp
had barely been on a minute when we were level, Quashie giving him
a lesson in finishing, latching on to a header won by Campbell,
bustling to the edge of the box before unleashing a left foot belter
into the bottom corner. A crucial point in our hands?
Yes, for all of four minutes, the time it took for Flamini to put
Adebayor in the clear down the right, the youngster having time
to pick out a perfect pass to the advancing Pires who shot fierce
and low to Kuszczak’s right. The pole could only parry, Bergkamp
picking up the rebound, skipping around the ‘keeper with impressive
coolness, heading for the by-line before threading the ball back
to Pires who lobbed the ball into the bet at the second attempt.
You just can’t keep genius down.
To ram home the point, a minute left, Eboue wins the ball in the
middle, wriggled it through to Bergkamp 20 yards out and with a
trademark flash of the foot, he curled the all around Kuszczak and
into the corner, a fitting end to a fitting day for a player who
has illuminated the British game for a decade.
And that underlines the problem with the Premier League. I don’t
like seeing my team get beaten, just as you don’t, as Blues
fans don’t, as Sunderland fans don’t. In which case, just
what is the Premier League for because, dream all you like, everybody
from 7th place down is cannon fodder for the Gunners. You can get
a rare result but rare is the operative word because the playing
field could hardly be less level. Winning ten games a season and
classing that a good year really isn’t much fun.
So how do you travel to Highbury? With hope in your heart? Or do
you go there hoping that Henry will be at his magical best, that
Bergkamp is sublime, accepting the worst in terms of the result
but willing to be in the presence of majesty, as if you were going
to a concert or the theatre?
The dream is that one day, we’ll be an Arsenal, the dream that
sustains us, Reading, Wigan, West Ham, Birmingham, Aston Villa,
Portsmouth, Southampton, Charlton, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United
and on and on and on. But like most dreams, it’s unlikely to
come true.
There are a lot of clubs in the queue waiting for the day the fair
play shop opens and we all get a crack at it. The trouble is, only
Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United know where the
keys are kept. And they’re not telling.
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