11.4.17 | Arsecast Extra episode 169:
I listen to the Arsecast and Arsecast Extra podcasts as created by @Arseblog and @Gunnerblog, this week’s episode came the morning after our 3-0 loss to Crystal Palace.
Week-in week-out Arseblog does its best, specifically creator Andrew Mangan does his best, to provide some clarity and discussion on the club’s happenings, often with some wit and humour as well as being endearingly sincere about the love for the club. And this week’s episode was no different, despite our trying times, and I found one question posed by a listener to the podcast, and the subsequent answer, particularly struck me. I thought it would be worth writing up a transcript and sharing it with you all:
Question from: Christian Strömberg | @NaprapatChris
What is "The Club"? I've always said in rough patches before, that at least we have "The Club". [But what is “The Club”?] #arsecastextra
Andrew of @arseblog: That is a tremendous question. The club is... a business. The club is a franchise. The club is a marketing tool. The club is part of a portfolio. The club is a long way from what it was - and that’s not to blame everything on the club, because I think the modern game and modern football dictates that things have changed fundamentally from the time that I started supporting Arsenal Football Club.
You know what I remember, really vividly as a kid, that somehow...when I lived in Yorkshire you had like a London...no you know what it was, there was like a Rothmans stats book that you used to get, that used to tell you all the football clubs, and it was Arsenal “highest ever attendance”, “highest ever win”, “highest defeat” you know, all this kind of stuff, the records... but it had the club information, and it had the phone number of Arsenal, it had the phone number of Arsenal. And it was maybe a five-digit number, maybe I had to dial 01 to dial London from where I was in Yorkshire. I can remember picking up the phone and dialing Arsenal Football Club when I was about...8 years of age. Not saying anything, but being absolutely amazed that I could just call up Arsenal Football Club, it was amazing.
And that sort of thing is gone, obviously because I’m older, because I understand how things work, but I think there is a very clear difference between what the club is and what people want the club to be, and what people want from the club.
There are still things that we can look at, and the way that Arsenal do certain things, and be quite proud of those things. But there are other things that...it’s very difficult to identify with. Who gives a f*** who our washing machine sponsor is in Indonesia, and that’s not to criticise Indonesia or fans in Indonesia, but simply the concept of having these commercial sponsorship partners that are held up as some kind of thing that we should be in to. Why? Why should we give a f*** who our crisps sponsor is...in Australia, or whatever. You know? [...]
What I mean is: The things that the club now hold up to us as being something to be proud of - operating profits, sponsorship deals, kit deals, naming rights, cash in the bank. All those kinds of things, that they hold up as examples of why this is a well-run, super efficient business, a big massive corporation, with turnover in the hundreds of millions of pounds and this is something that Arsenal fans should get behind, it’s something that they can you know... net spend, let’s talk about- f*** off with net spend, f*** off with profits, f*** off with all of that stuff.
Because,when it boils right down to it, nobody cares.
Because all we want to see is a team that is competitive, and I’m not talking about a team that wins every year, because if that’s the baseline you consider acceptable then you’re always gonna be disappointed.
And that...that...there’s far too much focus gone from football. It’s Arsenal Football Club, that’s what the club is. It’s a football club, it’s not a business to most fans, and it is in the general sense - it has to operate like that, but we don’t see it like that. We shouldn’t care about all these financial results, we shouldn’t care about how much we’re getting from this company or that company. Doesn’t make any difference to any of us really. Doesn’t make anybody’s ticket any cheaper. Doesn’t make it easier to watch games like we saw at Crystal Palace... “Well, we lost to Crystal Palace but we’ve got a fantastic new... speaker sponsor in the USA” whatever it is.
You know, what connects people to the club is disappearing, it’s disappearing, and it’s a football club in name but it’s a long way from being the football club we all want it to be.”
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