George Orwell, 1984
'All that I know most
surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.' –
Albert Camus
'In football, everything is complicated by the presence of
the opposite team.'-
Jean-Paul Sartre
'Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh
day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football.' –
Anthony Burgess
'And life is itself but a game at football.' –
Sir Walter Scott
'I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love
with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain
or disruption it would bring with it.' –
Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
'Rugby is a game for barbarians played by gentlemen.
Football is a game for gentlemen played by barbarians.' –
Oscar Wilde
Perhaps it is a little harsh to say that, try as he might,
Jon Spurling will not reach the literary heights of the authors above; this
book, which includes 15 interviews and forty other contributions, is
nonetheless a well-written and researched piece of social history that examines
the dark side of Arsenal Football Club.
Spurling's examination of the so-called Arsenal rebels, both
on and off the pitch. Spans almost 120 years, and it is a million miles away
from the sanitised version of the game today. A game, it must be said, that is
not so much a competition as a playground for the increasing number of
oligarchs that own the game. In the past, the team with the most points won the
league; now it is the team that spends the most money. This season belongs to
Liverpool, who have just spent half a billion on new players.
Spurling’s book situates Arsenal’s checkered history against
a backdrop of volatile social, political, and economic change. While it is hard
to pick a favourite piece of Arsenal history, Spurling’s focus on the founding
of the club is my favourite. Both owners and players alike belonged to a rogues
gallery, each outcompeting the other for skullduggery and violence.
Arsenal’s founders were David Danskin and Jack Humble. The
so-called '20s soccer Tsar, Sir Henry Norris, was the first to bring
free-market economics to Highbury, a hundred years before David Dein.
Despite being a fan for over 50 years, the names from Arsenal’s
early years were only vague in my mind., Henry Norris or Wilf Copping were
planted in my mind by my father, who first introduced me to the Arsenal family.
Like Spurling, I have long known that we were a hated club, and not just by
Tottenham fans. Although having been the cause of Tottenham's relegation back
in 1928 did raise a laugh. Reading this book, it becomes clear why hatred runs
so deep. Millwall fans were not the first to sing, 'No one likes us, we don’t
care.'
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Another name mentioned by my father was Ted Drake. According
to my dad, Drake was one of the most gifted players ever to wear the red and
white shirt. On this occasion, it is correct that Spurling calls him a Highbury
legend who said of Highbury ‘For all the thirties grandeur of Highbury, it's
still only bricks and mortar at the end of the day. Magnificent stands provide
the backdrop to a splendid house. But it's the people within – the fans and
players – that have made Highbury a marvellous home for the Arsenal. And for
me, that is really what Highbury is all about.”
The writer Brian Dawes has a similar arsenal of history to
mine, saying, “I've visited and worshipped at the stadium regularly for nearly
fifty years now and have invariably regarded it as my second home. I've always
felt comfortable there, and it's always been so much more than just a place to
watch a game of football. It's that rarest of places, one that you know was
meant specifically for you the first time you view the lush turf and admire the
symmetry of the classic east and west stands. You may share it with thousands
of fellow fans and the generations of Arsenal followers who preceded you, but
Highbury is your spiritual home. The history of the place grabs you by the
throat in a way that compels you to learn all there is to know about all the
great players who've ever graced the hallowed turf. Highbury is an ongoing home
shared by players and fans alike, and each cares for the place with their own
personal memories.”[1]
My first season supporting Arsenal was the 1970/71 season.
Many things attracted me to Arsenal. I mentioned its rich history, but what got
me hooked was not only the atmosphere and the smell of fresh hot dogs, but
Highbury was a thing of aesthetic beauty, so much so that its Art Deco design
is still a listed building.
I watched my first game, coincidentally, near where the
Arsenal fan and writer Nick Hornby sat when his dad took him to his first game
in the West Upper stand. The film Fever Pitch, starring Colin Firth, shows
Hornby's amazed look as he takes in his first game. I had that same feeling. I
always thought from that moment on, it seemed that Arsenal had a classy way of
doing things and embodied the mantra “ Play up and Play the Game”.
From my standpoint, one of the most interesting chapters of
the book is entitled “Cold War”. According to Wikipedia, “In November 1945,
with league competition still suspended, Arsenal were one of the teams that
played a Dynamo Moscow side touring the UK. With many players still serving
abroad in the armed forces, Arsenal were severely depleted and had to use six
guest players, including Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen, which led Dynamo
to declare that they were playing an England XI. The match, at White Hart Lane,
kicked off in thick fog and Dynamo won 4–3, after Arsenal had led 3–1 at
half-time. Although the score is generally agreed upon, accounts of the match
diverge thereafter; even the identity of the goal scorers is disputed. English
reports alleged that Dynamo fielded twelve players at one point and tried to pressure
the referee into abandoning the match when they were losing; in turn, the
Soviets accused Arsenal of persistent foul play and even alleged that Allison
had bet money on the result, a claim that was later retracted. The acrimony
after the match was such that it inspired George Orwell to write his 1945 essay
The Sporting Spirit, in which he opined on the nature of sport, namely that in
his view "it is war minus the shooting".
I was already five years into my love affair with Arsenal
when, at the tender age of 16, I started devouring the books of George Orwell. But
I never knew he was a Gooner. Born in India, Orwell became a fan in the late
1920s. He also watched the great Arsenal side of the 1930s. His The Sporting
Spirit is one of the finest pieces of “sports writing” of any generation, and
his political evaluation of the game itself is worth a quote.
Orwell writes, “Now that the brief visit of the Dynamo
football team has come to an end, it is possible to say publicly what many
thinking people were saying privately before the Dynamos ever arrived. That is,
that sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will, and that if such a visit as this
had any effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations, it could only be to make them
slightly worse than before. Even the newspapers have been unable to conceal the
fact that at least two of the four matches played led to much bad feeling. At
the Arsenal match, I was told by someone who was there that a British and a
Russian player came to blows, and the crowd booed the referee. The Glasgow
match, someone else informs me, was simply a free-for-all from the start. And
then there was the controversy, typical of our nationalistic age, about the
composition of the Arsenal team. Was it really an all-England team, as claimed
by the Russians, or merely a league team, as claimed by the British? And did
the Dynamos end their tour abruptly to avoid playing an all-England team? As
usual, everyone answers these questions according to their political
predilections. Not quite everyone, however. I noted with interest, as an
instance of the vicious passions that football provokes, that the sporting
correspondent of the Russophile News Chronicle took the anti-Russian line and
maintained that Arsenal was not an all-England team. No doubt the controversy
will continue to echo for years in the footnotes of history books. Meanwhile,
the result of the Dynamos’ tour, insofar as it has had any result, will have
been to create fresh animosity on both sides.[2]
This is a fine book and well worth a read. While it will
appeal to Gooners all over the world, fans outside the Arsenal world will
appreciate it just as much.
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