So Paddy Got Up - an Arsenal anthology by Andrew Mangan

Author:Andrew Mangan [Mangan, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Portnoy Publishing
Published: 2011-12-08T17:00:00+00:00

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Tim Bostelle is paid to do something other than write about Arsenal at 7amkickoff.com but he finds a way to do it every day regardless.

14 – ARSENAL’S STANDING IN THE MODERN GAME - Stuart Stratford

As football changes, the standing of a club in the modern game becomes more obscured. There is a proliferation of information with the global, and seemingly endless, reach of the Internet. Any club can be deemed to be the biggest in the world using one yardstick or another. Life was not always this complicated. Rewind a century and Arsenal were on the cusp of “negotiating” their way into English football’s top flight, a place they still occupy. The arrival of Herbert Chapman would take the club to another level altogether.

By the time the 1930’s had finished and the world was at war, Arsenal had become The Establishment Club. The rise had been prolific. The club were crowned Champions in 1953 for the seventh time, then a record. As well as the titles, there were three victorious FA Cup Finals. Not bad for a club whose first major honour came with a 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town in the 1930 FA Cup final. Since those times, success and failure have been equal bedfellows. If the period 1955 – 1967 was the nadir, the reign of Arsène Wenger has been the peak. In between, glory and fallow periods were close cousins. Football is a cyclical sport; few other clubs have a history as illustrious or which proves that as emphatically as Arsenal’s.

Before the 1950’s, it was easy to measure a club’s standing in the game. Parochial administrators ensured that their personal fiefdoms were unchallenged and uncomplicated by journeys to foreign shores, save for pre-season tours. How good was your team? Where did they finish in the league last season? Did they win the FA Cup? How many times have they won both competitions? Answer those questions and you found out how ‘big’ your club was.

But football is changing. Records created have become ghosts of a game that has taken to discarding the past with relative ease and a total lack of conscience. Many records have been created in the club’s 125 year existence. Some, such as The Invincibles, still stand, as does the near century tenure in the top-flight of English football. Others, such as becoming the first team to win 7 league titles back in 1950s, have been surpassed and ground into the dust of football’s past.

The modern game is light years away from its ancestors. Money swirls in and out of the game, caught in a typhoon of greed and glory. The past is suppressed and consigned to obscure satellite channels, packaged in highlights bundles for the midnight hour. Football’s face has been surgically altered and botoxed beyond recognition. And where does this leave Arsenal?

Boundaries are being wiped away. The Internet means that fans in geographically disparate locations can chat as easily about the match as our forefathers did in the pub following the final whistle. As club sides go, Arsenal has one of the most internet-active sets of supporters.

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