New Season, New Beginnings

Welcome back listeners and podcasters. It’s been such a long time, please enjoy our first podcast of the ’12-’13 season!

 

Badge Kisses aren’t Contracts

“After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between loving a player and loving a club,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaving

And loyalty isn’t always returned.

And you begin to learn that badge kisses aren’t contracts

And P.R statements aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your teams on today

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…

That even success can burn if you get too much.

So you support your team and love your club,

Instead of waiting for some player to bring you joy.

And you learn that Arsenal really can endure…

That the cannon is mighty

And Victoria Concordia Crescit really does have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.”

 

 

The original version of this poem can be found here. Hopefully Ms Shoffstall doesn’t mind the Arsenalisation

“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters”

Being an avid social media user, I have had the displeasure of seeing many different types of infighting between Arsenal fans. Foreign vs local, the Arsene Knows Brigade vs Wenger Out Brigade, pro-snood vs anti-snood, and the list goes on. What struck me recently and inspired the idea of reaching out to fellow female Gooners was that I’ve had very little interaction and experience in the debate of male vs female supporters.

Most of my experience in relating to fellow fans has been online. When I first started supporting Arsenal in 2008, I found a community of fans on a site called LiveJournal. I spend the majority of my time on ONTD_FOOTBALL and later branched out into ArsenalBBS. I didn’t conciously notice at the time, but all the fellow fans I interacted with and spoke to were female. While there was infighting that us Gooners have become accustomed to (you haven’t seen an online war until you’ve seen the fallout after a Sergio Ramos hair cut; I’m firmly in Team Long Mane) no-one ever questioned my knowledge or support of Arsenal based on my gender.

When I left the cozy confines of LJ to venture further afield to the new frontier of Twitter, I began to interact more with male Arsenal fans and for the most part it has been a good experience. In fact I never even considered the fact that I was female fan amongst male fans until recently. The majority of topics I discussed with my fellow female Gooners also extended into similar conversations with male Gooners. We talked about tactics, new signings, Pat Rice’s shorts, Arsene’s water bottle hatred and his often inexplicable substitutions. I’ve met male Gooners who are bigger fans of individual players than I am, who created parody accounts with us, who debated the merits of our One True Pairings (OTPs) and shared our collective sobs and heartbreak when that man Fabregas left. Over time I learned the art of the subtle unfollow for Gooners whose tweets I didn’t enjoy and I remained content with my eccentric and eclectic group of Gooners.

Then Robin van Persie happened, and in the midst of my shock, tears and crushing loss of faith in loyalty in football, I began to notice a different kind of reaction. Other Gooners began to tell me how to feel about Robin. I was told my opinions weren’t valid, that I needed to get over it and to “stop being so emotional already!” I noticed this happening to other female Gooners and the majority of the people doing the admonishing were male. I had my first experience in being told my thoughts weren’t valid because I was female. It isn’t an experience I’d want to endure again, but like most unpleasant experiences it pushed me to learn and to grow. I decided to reach out to my fellow female Gooners and listen to their experiences, hear how they became Gooners and discuss their experiences. It has been moving, informative and eye opening. There has been a lack of Victoria Concordia Crescit in our club lately – especially in the boardroom – so maybe it’s time for us supporters to show them the way.

Remember to check in tomorrow where I discuss the road to Goonerhood with @mimsicality,  @GreenieJules  and @SandraHelena39 and others.

Should a love of a country stop at the border?

As many of you can guess from my “Oranje_sky” username, I am of course a devoted fan of the Dutch National football team. This has been a painful Euros for me as you can imagine. What caused the most pain for myself was not the infighting and lacklustre performance of the Dutch, but the negative and often cruel comments and attitudes of my fellow Gooners on Twitter.

I can appreciate banter, and Holland deserved every bit of criticism they got, but the personal attacks, the questioning of my support of Holland, Arsenal and the Canadian Men’s National Team were all surprising to me. I understand internationals can be tense, fans who are normally supporting the same team are divided and it can cause tension. If you are wondering why people get so sensitive around international tournaments or simply don’t understand those who support a country, allow me to share why.

Watching football became special to me because it was something that I shared between my grandfather and myself.  Growing up in Canada it was difficult to watch international football and impossible to follow a club. Together we would make the effort to follow and track the Dutch national team as best we could.

As I grew older and we watched games together that would be one of the few times my Grandfather would share stories about living in an occupied country during WW2. Although the stories were always humorous and related to his football antics, they were tinged with the sadness and desperation of that time.  He threw himself into practicing tricks and developing techniques to avoid being in a house that was often used by German soldiers as a food base because of the large garden in their backyard. Football started as an escape and blossomed into a passion, which he was determined to pass on to me.

Being an Oranje fan has never been easy. Loving a team that is hell-bent on selfishness, drama and self destruction can be painful at best. They have traditionally shown the world incredible football allied with a legion of colourful and devoted fans.  My Grandpa taught me to appreciate the skill and vision needed to complete the perfect pass, the incredible talent and intelligence it takes to direct a midfield and the strength required to constantly probe and attack a solid defense. We always rooted for the players who not only showed great skill but were full of passion and drive. We were mutual fans of players like Edgar Davids and the de Boer twins. But it was Dennis Bergkamp who I fell in love with.  We watched his now famous goal against Argentina together and it has become one of my favourite football memories.

Fans who argue that club is more important than country often fail to recognize that, for quite a few of us, our Country lead us to our club. For me it was Dennis Bergkamp and Robin van Persie who attracted me to Arsenal.  Although I have come to love Arsenal in its own right, I wouldn’t be a Gooner today if it wasn’t for the Netherlands NT and my Grandpa.

When you see people like myself – a Canadian with an Oranje heart – take a minute to ask them their story. It’s so easy to judge and criticse people’s love and passion for a National Team, but to me Holland is so much more than just Robben’s selfish behaviour, World Cup finals or fans in goofy wigs. The team carries the legacy of my grandfather, my introduction to football, and the start of the journey to being a Gooner.  Hup Holland Hup!

Farewell to the Season: LPG End of Season Awards Results

Post-Blackburn!

Celebrate a return to form post Blackburn!

Thanks to @goonerkal and @gabiboyd for this week’s topics/questions. During our recording we also addressed @Zac_Brown‘s question about Arshavin, but had to cut out the shoutout due to time constraints. You can follow them all on twitter for regular quality tweets.

Zara asked a question that none of us could adequately answer: What was your favorite goal? Remember, we have a myriad to choose from (SEVEN!). Let us know in the comments.

 

ARSENAL DRINKING GAME: 2011-12 season

I like watching Arsenal. Sometimes they don’t like me back, so I also like drinking! These are two tastes that taste great together.

Have a drinking game! I also wrote one last season.

Please don’t sue me for any damage this might cause if you follow all of the rules simultaneously.

——–

Take ONE drink if…

• “One Man Team” is mentioned.
• You yell/want to yell “shoot!” at the team. (This is more last season than this season, but it still applies sometimes.)
• You find yourself going “come on, Gervinho, Gervinho— awww, Gervinho…” a la Szczesny playing FIFA.
• Cesc Fabregas is mentioned.
  • Take another drink if Barcelona’s dreamy football is discussed.
• Unlucky Theo. (OR, alternately, every time you yell/want to yell “GOOD DECISIONS!” at Theo.)
• The commentators are obviously biased against Arsenal. (an extra long drink if it’s Stuart Robson)
• An Arsenal player looks injured.
  • Another drink if they have to be subbed off.
  • Maybe finish your drink if it’s one of our defenders.
• Arsenal score a goal!
  • Take another drink if it’s somebody who isn’t Robin!
• Alex Song takes off his glasses and suit to become SONGINHO.
• Arsenal don’t score from a corner.
  • Order a shot if they do score directly from a corner?
• Someone is wrongly ruled offsides/onsides.
  • Take another drink if it leads to a goal scored or conceded.
  • Ditto for uncalled handballs.
  • Oh, hell, if you want to get really pissed, drink every time there is a bad refereeing.

Finish your drink if…

• There’s even a hint of an injury to Robin van Persie.
• Almunia is in goal. Then order a second round and down that as well if Squillaci is in front of him.
• Arsenal win!
• Arsenal lose. (Well, you’re going to need a drink either way, so why not?)

 

BONUS POINTS:

• Before every match, take a shot for every starting XI squad member we have out injured. Wilshere counts.
• Take a shot, however, if all of our back four is actually playing in position!

Visual interpretation of Arsenal’s injuries: COMPLETE

Hi, folks! At long last, I return, after abandoning the podcast for greener, more lucrative pastures (AKA a promotion with crazy hours; I really do miss the girls). It’s earned me the nickname of Di£i. Shame on me.

Remember this post? Depressing, right?  Well, here’s the whole, sad thing:

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, and as my previous post states, by the end of the season it didn’t really matter who was injured. We do better with our preferred starting XI, obviously, but after the Carling Cup final… it all went downhill. I’m mainly posting this here for posterity’s sake. I think it’d be really cool and interesting if I created one every single season from now on!

How about this season so far, you ask?  Well, let’s take a look.

So beautiful. So perfect. What a flawless starting XI.

Ha, just kidding. Will post a real one around mid-season!  Up next: an updated and revised version of the good old Arsenal drinking game.

What Else is There to Say?

Join us with guest @Sianymacalarny of http://ibelieveinarsenal.arseblog.com for some interlull fun

27 Seconds

Hello again, and welcome back to club football! The LPGs are excited to be back after a much-needed win against Sunderland.