Month: February 2017

Sleeping with the enemy

I has a thoroughly enjoyable evening last Thursday at Wembley watching the Spurs v Gent game. Many Arsenal fans would have turned up their nose at attending a neutral game involving Spurs. Maybe I’m getting a little mellow in my old age.

But even as a teenager, I often attended matches at White Hart Lane. In those days, you have the archaic experience of waking up on Saturday morning when Arsenal were playing away, scanning the fixture list of the stand-out games in London and selecting the best match to attend. Pay-on-the-gate was the norm in that era and I enjoyed watching games as a neutral. Even though there was a fair amount of hooliganism during those years, my group of friends were young enough to prevents us being a target. Furthermore, proceeds from your paper/milk round would more than cover the cost of the day: travel, programme, burger and entry into the ground. You could have to deliver papers to half of Camden’s homes these days to cover the expenses of a match day at the Emirates. So I spent my happy days at Fulham, Chelsea, QPR, Crystal Palace and White Hart Lane. I was more than happy to stand on the home terracing, but for Spurs games I was headed to the away end. A late, late Peter Beardsley equaliser was particular special memory from a visit to WHL. It was raining a thunderstorm during the game but the day standing in an uncovered Park Lane end had a happy ending.

Pre-match on Thursday was spent in the Allsop Arms near Marylebone Station. From my many visits to Wembley, I’ve enjoyed the build up to a game all over north and central London and Marylebone is my favoured choice. The quick journey from Marylebone station to Wembley Park is often stress-free as you avoid the madness and congestion of walking up Wembley Way. The Spurs fans I met in the pub expressed amusement as to why I wanted to attend the match. I guess a few hours later, if anyone could have sensed my suppressed joy Gent’s equaliser, that question would have been answered at a stroke.

I guess I have softened my rivalry when it comes to Spurs. I try and maintain my intense dislike of them and my hatred for what they represent. But I am at an age whereby it would be pretty pathetic if I carried on as if I was a teenager. Saying all that, I have been motivated to knock up a site www.laughatspurs.com, so there must still be a little of that burning dislike of the second biggest club in north London.

I enjoyed the game from Club Wembley and I sat back to enjoy the game, without too much tension. Sure I bristled at little at Eriksson’s opener but I kept on looking up the Europa Cup branding in the stadium to remind me we weren’t watching Europe’s premier competition (not that I want to stray too close to that subject….). The Gent equaliser was fun and Alli’s challenge (which was clear red all day long) ensured the night was going very well. Wanyama’s goal merely gave some futile hope to the home crowd and I always sensed the first leg defeat would prove the undoing of Spurs. Gent’s second goals was joyfully scored at my end and the mass evacuation of the home fans was another highlight of the evening.

Now if Spurs had gone on to win the tie, it would have proved a more difficult evening but I would not have been overly fussed. The increased fixture commitments made had helped Arsenal and I never really believed they had it in them to win the tournament. I strolled home listening to Spurs fans rage on TalkSport; Levy’s got to spend, Harry can’t do it all, Alli has to learn his lesson and the squad lacks the x-factor. Happy listening. Sure they have a crop of young, promising youngsters, an excellent manager and plans to move into a pretty impressive new stadium. But for now, I’m not losing any sleep. So far it’s a lot of noise, a lot of potential. But until they win anything substantial, I still intend to continue looking down on them.

From the Sublime to the Visual Studio Code

It’s the little things in life which often give you the most happiness. It’s often claimed you don’t have to spend money to attain happiness and I’ve come across something which will cause me many hours of happiness. And I’ve not spent a single penny. I have been spending much of my spare time in recent years coding and I have found a toy which will make my time battling with functions, components, frameworks and modules a lot easier and more enjoyable.

I’ve been a sublime text fan for a good year. It seemed to tick all the boxes for what I needed from a text editor. But I recently completed an Angular 2 tutorial and the teacher highly recommended using Visual Studio Code. It’s been a fantastic switch for me. Visually stunning and a set of tools which really makes coding a pleasure. The guys at Microsoft have done a great job. It’s free, lightweight and so easy to install.

There are so many features which I find so useful. The side-by-side editing, user friendly Command Palette, help with creating your functions, debugging tools, close integration with Git, the scope of third-party extensions and the support for ECMAScript 6 is fantastic. The prompts caused by IntelliSense will bring a huge smile to your face. It’s been a great help to me as I increase my mastery of Angular 2.

I have no reason at all to switch back to Sublime Text. I would highly recommend you giving it a go. Now, I’m off to experiment with the color themes…….

Arsene Wenger

I really should be calling for Wenger to go. His detractors have been queuing up to have their say. Claiming he’s lucky to be in a job. A barren spell of 13 years without a title. Building teams with no leaders. Always losing the big games, especially away from home. Being far too loyal to under performing players. Not being willing to sign the really big players who win you the major trophies. Unwilling to spend the huge resources at his disposal. A lack of tactical flexibility (he rarely makes any substitutions until the 70th minute, regardless of match conditions).

But there is no way I’m going to demand his resignation. I’m going to the Hull game and I’ll be backing him. I’m not the most vocal fan at the best of times (I guess there are many of my ilk at the Emirates) but I’ll be making it clear on Saturday whom I’m backing. I guess I must be as stubborn as Wenger. The amount of abuse he has taken is shocking.

And I’m not talking about the fans here. They are entitled to have their say. The regulars on ArsenaFanTV are an embarrassment to themselves (they are not an embarrassment to the club as who really thinks they speak for the wider fan base??!) but these are guys who attend games week in, week out. The time and expense they blow on the club gives them license to liberally spread their views (however arguably misguided). If I had travelled up to Everton recently for a midweek game and watched us meekly give up an early lead, I would be pretty upset.

No, it’s the parasites in the media who look for some precious publicity as they gleefully launch into attacking Wenger in the most personal manner. I know who they are. I have the newspaper cuttings. I have a long memory. I could list them, but the list would be endless. Oh go, on, here are the main disparagers. The ex-players: Savage, Owen, Sutton, Collymore, Murphy, Shearer, Brazil, Redknapp, Cundy, Jenas and Hargreaves never fail to pass up on an opportunity to savage Wenger. They appear obsessed by us. Where would be they without our club? All played at the highest level of the English game. They know how tough the rigors of our season are but they appear blind to how difficult it is to perform week in, week out. Every club struggles. Players have a dip in form. It seems they can’t wait to tear into our players whereas other teams and opposing players are given a free pass when they have an off-day.

And then there is the case of our ex-players. What has happened to the likes of Merson and Wright to demonstrate such a dislike of Wenger is beyond me. In Merson’s case it’s baffling. The club supported him throughout his drug/gambling problems and Wenger helped him secure an excellent deal when he left for ‘boro. Wright manages to scream out his love for the club, while the next minute he happily dismantles all that Wenger has achieved. Mystifying.

Then you have the journalists. Boy, have they got it for Wenger. Have they got nothing else to do with their lives than to trot out the same old dirge, time and time again. Ashton, Holt, Durham, Custis (x2), Ronay (who can be a knowledgable reporter), Dunn, Glendenning, Lipton, White, Kelly and Kay are the worst examples of lazy, tired and warped journalists. The lack of respect show to Wenger and our club is a disgrace. Would they have treated Fergie the same way, during his early barren period at Utd? They routinely demonstrate a total lack of self-awareness and an astonishing disregard for the consequences of their actions. Now in the era of twitter, many of them see themselves as celebrities and they feel the need to pander to the populist agenda of the day.

I agree that it’s not an easy job. Competition is fierce but the number of well sourced, quality articles has unarguably been declining. Would the likes of McIlvanney and Glanville ever thrive in such an era?? There are a few exceptions, players such as Keown, Souness, Hartson, Carragher, Neville and journos such as Barclay, Burt, Samuel, Winter, Lawrence, Taylor. They have all criticized Wenger in the past but they have displayed a perspective and balance in their opinions which are lacking elsewhere.

What I’m getting at is the complete inability to see the bigger picture. It’s not all black and white. We need a little depth to the reporting. A touch more analysis and thought. Things are far from right at Arsenal. But are we really a club in crisis? We have not gone 27 years without a title (Klopp is still a genius by many accounts) and we haven’t gone 25 years without a major trophy (No Spurs, the League Cup is not a major trophy). We are one of the best run clubs in the world, we have an excellent squad, a global fan base and we always, always play in the biggest club competition in the world. Our approach to running a club should be lauded. I do understand this is not enough for many fans who pay thousands of pounds to support the team every year. They are entitled to be a little irrational during their post-match rants. There is no excuse for football journalists however to be so baseless and unreasonable in their reporting.

But time for me to be a little irrational. Wenger is not going to change. He will still put out teams and play beautiful football. But I do fear he may fail at the final hurdle to win the title or CL. But I want him to sign that contract extension. Just to royally piss-off his many detractors.