I have been watching Arsenal matches on television (I'm a Yank and since 2002 have had little in the way of a travel budget) since the 2000 Uefa Cup final versus Galatasary. Little did I know that that match would come to epitomise the vast majority of my Arsenal watching. It was excruciatingly painful and not something I ever wish to repeat. It concluded with a group of very overly-demonstrative Turks jumping on tables in a pub in Atlanta, Georgia, screaming and shouting, and a group of Arsenal supporters (almost entirely English ex-patriots segregated quite purposefully from the Turks, need I say why?) staring at the screen in disbelief after a fruitless penalty shootout.
13 years ago there were very few ways to watch Europaean football in the USA. 13 years ago, Uefa scheduled tournament finals in mid-week during the afternoon in the USA because nobody in Europe thought anybody in this hemisphere gave a shit about those tournaments. 13 years ago, ESPN did not televise various Uefa association club matches, nor international tournaments, nor friendlies, and such a thing as "Fox Soccer Channel" did not yet exist.
But 13 years ago, Arsenal contrived to lose a match they should have won.
Fast-forward 13 years and you find one of the "Big 4" American networks paying an outrageous sum of money to the Premier League for the right to televise EVERY SINGLE LEAGUE MATCH FOR AN ENTIRE SEASON. There are such things as "GolTV," "BeinSport," and of course some leftover version of "Fox Soccer Channel" that still shows matches. Thierry Henry has been plying his trade in the USA for years now. David Beckham did the same. Players from the States have been let loose all over Europe.
All across the 50 states and probably some territories as well, bars and pubs have established large and loyal customer bases by advertising themselves as "soccer bars" which will open at obscenely early hours to cater to an now almost-exclusively native population that has grown from fractional and marginal to a group with considerable buying power.
What has caused this explosion? I have my ideas but that's going to wait for another blog entry.
Today is to recall that day over 13 years ago when I literally thought there was going to be blood shed at the end of an Arsenal match between Englishmen and Turks. And how during the Arsenal v. Aston Villa match on Saturday, I literally thought there was going to be blood shed between...two groups of Yanks.
So it has come to this, eh? "Down at my local," the Arsenal supporters group is well-known as the largest, most loyal, and most respectful of all the club fans. We are the ones who bought drinks for the old Birmingham City supporter after the League Cup final as he shed joyous tears and said "I've never seen my club win anything before!"
So on opening day, a group of "Liverpool Supporters" (we'd never seen them in the bar before), a Man City "supporter," (sure, he bleeds sky blue and would be doing so if they'd never won a thing!) and a Fulham "supporter" decided that it was far more important to antagonise the Arsenal group than anything else they could do that day--and went about accomplishing this by loudly cheering when Arsenal players were either injured (Gibbs) or appeared to be so (Sagna) or had the shite kicked out of them (Wilshere, Ramsey, Ox, etc.). These cunts stayed at the bar for that express purpose.
My, how popular the sport has become here.
I'd like to thank Arsene Wenger and the club for taking what used to be a very pleasant past time and getaway from my regular life, something I've been following since 1996, and turning it into one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had watching any sporting event. Thank you. You've ruined the club and by extension soured the experience of millions of us on this side of the Atlantic who have little hope of ever seeing the Arsenal in person (since you also refuse to tour the United States, which I assume is yet another example of one of your peculiar prejudices, like spending money or playing sound defence).
I've made many good friends through being associated with the club. We enjoy each others' company, and generally I've found Arsenal supporters in the USA to be educated, humourous, and well-spoken. We use the matches as an opportunity to get together, share a pint or two, and have a day (or morning) out.
After Saturday, I sincerely don't want to do that anymore. I don't care to pay for the privilege of wondering which tosser at the end of the bar is going to kick my head in. I don't care to spend more time during the matches fighting with "third party" supporters who didn't even lift a finger to insult anything during the MUFC match that followed ours. Arsenal are shit, they play like shit, and they invite this kind of behaviour through their shit play and shit behaviour in the transfer market and childish "40,000,001" quid bids and stupid talk of "spirit, quality, belief, determination" and whatever other shit handbrake nonsense that "our" manager spouts.
I have nothing else to say about the match. It sucked whale cock. The end.
