The Gooner - Issue 305

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CONTRIBUTORS: Le Grove, Charles Watts, Kevin Whitcher, Steve Ashford – aka Highbury Spy, Richard Smith, Steve Pye – aka That 1980s Blog, Annabel Rackham, Peter Le Beau, Paul Brooker, Charlie Ashmore, Simon Rose, David Fensome, Mike McDonald – aka Coach Mike, Jeorge Bird, Stephen Pavelin – aka Highbury Librarian, Mike Slaughter – aka Mickey Cannon, Clock End Italia, Darren Berry, Freddie Cardy, Henry Waddon, Ian Mills, Alistair Coleman

ARTWORK: Mark Butler, Ruth Beck, Serge Braga-Mullin

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Layth’s TAKE

Hello and welcome to our brand-new edition of the Gooner Fanzine, issue 305, our Invincibles special.

First and foremost a message for our loyal subscribers whose support is literally keeping us alive – please, please, please let your direct debit payments roll over.

I made the mistake a couple of seasons ago of not reminding subscribers to allow their direct debit payments to follow into the next season during the cost-of-living crisis, and it’s been one long struggle ever since – mind you, it always is a struggle keeping the Gooner afloat!

More about this in our weekly Friday newsletters throughout April and May – (to join our mailing list simply add your email into the box provided in every story on our website) but if all our subscribers can keep their direct debits going – meaning payments for next season – by the time our final issue of the season hits the streets we’ll know more about the future of the Gooner.

I can’t stress enough – please do allow your direct debits to rollover. Thank you for such humbling support.

In the meantime, can I just say I am so proud of every single member of our Gooner Fanzine team for playing their part in what I think is the best issue yet under my editorship.

There are far too many people to thank here, but credit must go to every single writer for penning such top-quality Arsenal work that you’d be so very hard-pressed to find on such a consistent basis from any print publication in the entire world.

Not to mention our outstanding artists in Mark Butler – whose evocative front cover will strike a chord with so many of us – along with the superb Ruth Beck, whose work is equally and utterly as wonderful as Mark’s. Thanks also to our production genius Serge Braga-Mullin.

And of course, to my absolutely wonderful partner Faye - without whose love, support and understanding of what this increasingly all-consuming labour of love means to me - and so many of you as well - there simply wouldn’t be a Gooner Fanzine.

Last but certainly not least, to you, our incredibly loyal subscribers and match day readership for keeping us alive during relentlessly challenging times.

Here’s to Mikel Arteta’s red and white army, and what we hope will be a momentous spring.

Come on you Gunners, cheers, Layth.

CONTENTS

Le Grove

AsMikel Arteta’s excellent Arsenal side heads into the final throes of the Premier League season, it is worth reminding us of the remarkable nature of what is happening.

The youngest team in the Top 6 has delivered a title challenge whilst navigating the quarterfinals of European competition.

Arsenal have changed their goalkeeper, left sided No8, and the defensive midfielder.

We’ve been without Oleksandr Zinchenko, Thomas Partey, Gabriel Jesus and Tomiyasu for large chunks of the season.

Our defence is the best in the league, our attack is the best in the league, there is almost no metric you can find – including points on the board - that would suggest we are not the best team in the league as I write.

But it’s still a long shot to take a title against Jurgen Klopp on his farewell tour and an all-time great Manchester City side led by Pep Guardiola.

If we don’t win, console yourself with this: There is no team in world football with a better long-term outlook.

We have the best young manager in the world, the best young squad, a winning mentality, and a group of competitors peaking - or about to - in the face of some serious headwinds.

This Arsenal squad is built for titles, it’s going to bring home a UEFA Champions League before the end of the decade, and I am going to put it out there early… we have a Ballon d’Or winner in the ranks.

What we are doing now is ahead of schedule, we are third favourites against extraordinary competition, the fact we are even in the conversation is a win.

So take that underdog mentality and try and enjoy the rest of this season.

You never know what can happen… because you can never, ever, underestimate The Arsenal.

@LeGrove

Le Grove spreads positivity and highlights plenty of reasons to be cheerful watching Mikel Arteta’s enthralling Arsenal side –whatever happens this spring

Charles Watts

WhenI look back at my life so far there are very few years that mean as much to me as 2004. It was just basically one, long party.

It was the year I moved out of my parents’ for the first time. I got a house with three of my best mates and we just lived for the weekend, every single week.

I had no real responsibilities, apart from making sure I didn’t push it too much and end up losing my job, which at the time was my first as a junior news reporter at a local paper.

It was a bloody brilliant year, made even better by the fact that Arsenal were of course the best team on the planet.

I was a big time clubber back then. Almost every weekend you’d find me at Peach at Camden Palace. And if I wasn’t there I’d be at Turnmills, or Fabric, or Ministry of Sound.

So I’d constantly be stumbling out of some venue in London at around 6am on a Saturday or a Sunday with a group of mates knowing that I really should be looking to head home to get some much needed sleep.

But, if the Arsenal were at home, there was no chance of that. It didn’t matter how long I’d been up for, there was no way I wasn’t heading over to Highbury to link up with my dad to watch that side play.

There just wasn’t anything better than watching Thierry Henry tear teams to shreds within the first 20 minutes of games every single week, or seeing Dennis Bergkamp pull the strings, or Bobby Pires cutting in from the left and bending one into the far corner.

It really was the best of times. It was kind of funny in a way because as amazing as it was to actually live that unbeaten season, you didn’t really understand - or I certainly didn’t anyway - that you were watching history unfold every week right before your own eyes.

I almost wish I’d taken it in a bit more now because something like that just doesn’t happen and what we’ve all been through in the 20 years since shows that.

We were spoiled back then. That team, those players, the way we played. It was just a magical time to be an Arsenal fan.

My love for the club is as strong as ever and I’m so desperate to see them win the title again. Hopefully this team can do it and really think they can. This is undoubtedly the best side we’ve had since the Invincibles.

But even if they do, I still don’t think anything will get close to the feeling I had back in 2004.

When I look back that was probably the peak for me in terms of supporting Arsenal.

Charles Watts on having the time of his life during the Invincibles season

CHAMPIONS

On

the day that Arsenal won the Premier League title at White Hart Lane I was there in the stands - among the Tottenham Hotspur faithful. Behind the enemy lines.

It was a day I’d never forget.

Arsenal fans massed in the away end at ‘The Lane’ and hoped - no, longed-for - a result that would clinch the Premier League at the home of their bitter rivals.

On that gloriously sunny spring day Arsène Wenger was at the height of his powers. The Gunners were unbeaten in the league with only four matches to play.

In 1971, another Arsenal team had won the double at White Hart Lane in front of more than 50,000 fans. Another 50,000 were said to have been locked out.

Prior to kick-off on that afternoon, 33 years later, Wenger’s side were gunning for the league and their own place in history.

There might not have been the prospect of a double or even treble to consider after Manchester United had triumphed in an FA Cup semi-final clash three days before Wayne Bridge stunned Highbury to send Chelsea into the last four of the Champions League.

Many fans still believe that was the season that Arsenal could and should have won the one major trophy that eluded Wenger during his 22 years in charge.

Fortunately, the 2003-04 season delivered its own worthy climax. Pre-match shenanigans started when the Arsenal coach, containing the

Layth Yousif @laythy29

players who would conquer White Hart Lane that day, was subjected to a hail of missiles from angry Spurs fans.

Whether it was the usual derby day tensions, or fury at the fact their former captain Sol Campbell was excelling for the Arsenal after leaving N17 for Islington on a free transfer, it was hard to tell.

The defender’s move across north London, engineered by the wily David Dein, had shocked the football world.

As I watched the projectiles smash into the tinted windows of the coach as it edged to the ground down Tottenham High Road via Bill Nicholson way, I could confirm it was most definitely the latter.

Newcastle United had beaten Chelsea ahead of kick-off. That meant Wenger’s side required a single point to capture the league title for the 13th time in their history on their rival’s own turf.

With only 180 seconds on the clock, Thierry Henry collected the ball outside his own box to set off a passage of play that culminated in Patrick Vieira scoring past Kasey Keller from a Dennis Bergkamp cross. A sweeping move that lasted a mere 11 seconds, started and ended by two of the great icons of the Wenger era, with a third making sure of the final ball.

It was one nil to the Arsenal but it soon became 2-0 with 10 minutes remaining of the first-half.

Bergkamp, relishing his role as tormentor-inchief, again fed Vieira as he charged through Tottenham’s lines. Paddy doubled the lead.

Twenty years on, the story of the day Arsenal won the Premier League title at White Hart Lane for the second time

I was sitting in the West Stand lower near the dugouts and the press box as the ball hit the back of the net.

Although I had been to the majority of fixtures home and away that season I could not get hold of a cherished ticket in the away end at White Hart Lane that day.

Thanks to a bit of resourcefulness, I still managed to get in. With the home fans.

Tempting fate? Possibly. But as any Arsenal supporter who has booked a trip to Baku or any other European final before progress was secure will know: you have to have a Plan B.

Deep in enemy territory I needed to be careful. I simply couldn’t react on my emotions in the moment. The home crowd were eager to unleash their own feelings, mostly those of

frustration, I have been an obvious target for them to vent.

Unfortunately, had anyone been paying close attention, I did have a tell. My adrenaline levels were surging. I could feel my right cheek twitching involuntarily on sight of the second goal - something that had never happened before, nor since.

At 2-0 up, with the Premiership title in sight, 3,000 Gooners in the away end reminded their hosts, loudly, that it was 43 years and counting since they last won in the league – in black and white to boot.

Perhaps it was understandable that with the title all-but-clinched Arsenal’s intensity levels dropped.The lead didn’t last. Jamie Redknapp and a Robbie Keane penalty brought the game level at 2-2.

Rivalry runs deep in the North London derby and the Spurs fans around me were celebrating as if they had won the league - not merely staved off defeat while their rivals won the league in their home.

“We’ve done it, we’ve done it,” one fan behind me bellowed.

“Done what?” I asked myself, taking the opportunity to kick off a trainer so I had an excuse to disappear beneath the wave of celebration to retrieve it. Anything to not be part of the reaction to the equaliser that put everything at risk.

The jubilation was not confined to the stands. It was out there on the pitch too.

Argentinian defender Mauricio Taricco, who prior to the equaliser had suffered a torrid afternoon chasing the Arsenal forward line, somehow managed to pull his hamstring during the revelry.

On the final whistle a visibly angry Henry gathered his troops and pointed out what Taricco had done. Despite the warnings against doing so from the powers that be before the game, he took his team to the corner where the Arsenal fans had congregated.

He then told his men to celebrate long and hard on the White Hart Lane turf.

“We certainly made sure we celebrated after,” recalled Ray Parlour when I asked him about his reaction to the result years later.

“I knew how big the rivalry was between the two teams growing up as a young Arsenal player, and we knew how special a triumph like that was for the fans as well.

“So we made sure we enjoyed winning the league at White Hart Lane.”

Tottenham fans, mirroring their team, claimed that they had restored a semblance of pride.

But it was Arsenal who had won the league at White Hart Lane for the second time in the history of the North London derby – that was all that mattered to the visitors.

Arsenal fan John Williamson, who has attended more than 3,500 Gunners matches, was also present at the game and recalled how hairy it became for the visitors after leaving the White Hart Lane stadium.

“Spurs fans were furious that we had won the league at their gaff,” he said.

“They had congregated outside the away end after the game like they normally did so that they could try and attack Arsenal fans.

“Arsenal fans stayed in the ground celebrating with the team for a long time but many Spurs fans had waited.

“There was a big police presence that day and it was a bit hairy, but as soon as we got back to the red side of North London we could continue our celebrations that had started in the ground.

“It was a day I’ll remember forever. And that’s coming from someone who was at the 5-0 victory at the Lane in ’78.”

I was in the lower tier of the main stand, near to where the dugouts were and remember staying as long as I could to savour the moment, watching Henry and the rest of the team cavort in front of the away end.

Wenger himself joined in with the players afterwards, and in a shot which encapsulated the era, is pictured with his hands in the air in triumph in front of the celebrating Gooners.

In the background is a flag raised proudly by the fans. It read simply: “Arsene Knows.”

Yet when asked whether his team would be celebrating the title that night, a deadly serious scowl came over him as he insisted: “No champagne - just water.”

It was unclear whether the dressing room heeded his advice.

Parlour could only smirk when the question over what the players got up to after leaving the pitch was posed. “What did I do that night? I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember.

“I think I went out and celebrated for about three days afterwards!” But Parlour and his teammates knew that the manager’s goal was to achieve a feat that had previously been thought impossible: to go unbeaten throughout a full 38 match league campaign – an accomplishment which would turn an extraordinary season into an immortal one.

One which would see them labelled for all eternity as The Invincibles.

And yet the day that Arsenal secured the Premier League title at the home of their great local rivals will live long in the memory of fans in its own right, claiming glory on the most hostile of territories both on the pitch - and in the stands.

THE BEST OF DAYS...

KEVIN WHITCHER’S ARSENAL BLOG

Recalling Arsenal’s Invincibles Season by former Gooner Fanzine editor Kevin Whitcher

My first eight seasons of editing The Gooner Fanzine, starting in August 2000, were a real rollercoaster for the team, but the season in the middle of it all was 2003-04, when Arsenal achieved their unbeaten Premier League season.

It would be nice to think that our cover line - “Invincible” - on the first issue published after the season was concluded without defeat was the origin of the word to describe the team of that season, but the fact is that it came from nickname given to the Preston North End side of the 1888–89 season as comparisons were being made.

They played 22 matches as opposed to The Gunners’ 38. A BBC report on May 15, 2004 is headlined “Arsenal the Invincibles” although it didn’t catch on for a while. The club’s official end of season DVD was titled “The Untouchables” which does not feel quite the same.

The Highbury Spy maintains the Invincibles label only really caught on because of The Gooner, but it would take a forensic review of the media over the period from May until October 2004 and the end of the 49 game unbeaten League run to confirm that.

It was a busy enough campaign with significant cup runs in all three competitions, as Arsene Wenger’s team made both domestic cup semi-finals and the last eight of the Champions League.

It meant The Gooner producing eleven issues throughout the season and most of them sold out. Thinking back on it now, eleven issues in what was effectively nine months (given the final issue went to press before the end of April) must have kept me busy, but it was a joy to write about a team that was not only proving near impossible to defeat, but played some of the finest football anyone had witnessed in the English game.

The first choice Invincibles line-up was so strong that the likes of Ray Parlour, Edu, Kanu, Jose Antonio Reyes (RIP), Sylvain Wiltord and Martin Keown are not considered starters in the classic line-up.

It’s fair to say it was a strong squad. Everyone knew the team was a bit special.

The previous two seasons had seen three trophies collected with the feeling it really should have been more. It was criminal that the 2002-03 side were denied the league title, but the officiating that determined it was Manchester United that won the title doesn’t need detailing here.

That continued early in that unbeaten season with the match at Old Trafford which culminated in Ruud van Nistelrooy hitting the bar from the penalty spot.

I watched the game in the Bank of Friendship with friends and it’s fair to say we were bouncing off walls at the moment United were

Kevin Whitcher @KevinWhitcher01

denied an undeserved three points. Little did we know how significant avoiding defeat that day would be.

The spirit of the team could be seen at the final whistle – after being robbed of the title months earlier, they sent a message loud and clear to United that they had had enough. Yes, some bans and fines followed as the authorities continued their agenda against The Gunners, but the sheer quality of the side ensured that they were rightfully recognised as the best team in the land come May 2004.

Let us not forget this was the first season of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea. After a duopoly between north London and Manchester that lasted six seasons, suddenly there was a new contender to deal with, one that spent freely starting the moment the Russian bought the club, a policy that continues to this day.

Fortunately, some 20 years on, they are finally having to play the rules, although the damage to the competitions they have won is in the history books now.

The Invincibles held them off for a season, and Chelsea’s response was to make a ‘name your price’ offer for Thierry Henry. David Dein gave them short shrift in the Highbury Directors’ Box in the kind of language you’ll never hear him utter in normal circumstances.

It was a joy editing The Gooner that season, with triumph upon triumph and the most wonderful football. The portrayal of Arsene Wenger as football’s version of Comical Ali, the Iraqi Information Minister, for his belief that his team could go the season unbeaten back in 2002 provided Le Boss with the last laugh.

We all smiled to see him holding up the t-shirt lampooning him after the season was completed with the home victory against Leicester City.

They were the best of days.

It was a joy editing The Gooner that season, with triumph upon triumph and the most wonderful football

The

HIGHBURY SPY EXTRA

RECALLING THE ARSENAL UNBEATABLES OF 2003-04

Ah!

The Unbeatables. Where do we start?

Well, the club’s preferred name for the 2003-04 team that went undefeated throughout the entire season was The Unbeatables.

I’m sure it would’ve stayed that way, but for the Gooner’s front page banner which borrowed the name from Preston North End’s previous achievement over a hundred years previously, which labelled Arsenal’s unbeaten team as ‘The Invincibles’.

I have the ‘Invincibles’ cover issue in my loft somewhere, but my back won’t stand an hour trawling through boxes, crouched on all fours amongst a million other boxes all full of Arsenal memorabilia and programmes, so maybe Kev or Layth can dig it out and put a picture of it in this issue (Ed’s note – thanks to Kev for digging them out, see his article on page 11 and 12)

Not many people under 50 even knew what an invincible was, but I thought ‘Invincibles’ was a fantastic name for our team, so much better than ‘Unbeatable’ and gradually, because we used the title ‘Invincible’ in podcasts, in radio interviews and in posters and T-shirts, the name gradually overtook ‘Unbeatables’ and after the club adapted the name too, the ‘Invincibles’ were born.

If the Gooner is remembered for nothing else, I swear to this day they were responsible for the name our glorious team will always be known by… The Invincibles.

And that trophy. That glorious Gold replica Invincibles trophy that got handed to Arsene Wenger (or was it Patrick Vieira?) on the pitch at the opening day of the following season, will stay with us forever. No one else in modern football has that gold trophy and every time I see a picture of

Highbury Spy @goonerfanzine

it, I well up. It brings back all the memories of that beautiful unique season. I’m sure we put that on a Gooner cover too.

Mind you, not all memories of 2003-04 are full of joy. We had some heartbreak in the cups.

Drawing away at Chelsea in the Champions League quarter-final set us up for a victory in the home leg, but one of the most disastrous nights in our history was to follow. We went 1-0 up in the second leg through Jose Antonio Reyes and Highbury went delirious.

Sadly, Fat Frank Lampard equalised soon after half time and after loads of Chelsea time wasting and an Arsenal battering in the second half, Wayne ‘F*cking’ Bridge netted the winner in the 87th minute to send the Blues fans in the Clock End, wild. It was heartbreaking.

Before that we had been knocked out of the League Cup semi-finals by Middlesbrough of all people. Losing the home leg 1-0 and the away leg 2-1. It could only ever happen to Arsenal.

I also remember vividly the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United at Villa Park that season. We were red hot favourites and set to do the double for the second time in three years, but the Mancs showed us no respect and kicked us to pieces from first minute to last.

Arsenal fans were in the Holte End and we battered them, as we had in the semi-final at the same venue in 1999. Again, it was not to be.

That evil leprechaun Paul Scholes who, along with the Neville brothers and the entire United team had kicked and fouled us with impunity, scored the winner in the 32nd minute at our end and it ended up being a dagger through the heart.

Gooner’s star columnist recalls the magnificent Invincibles season - or Unbeatables as it was labelled before our fanzine stepped in...

We had absolutely no protection whatsoever from referee Graham Barber that day as Scholes viciously chopped down Reyes every single time he got the ball.

The Neville’s did the same to Robert Pires, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. A decent ref would’ve sent all three of the Manc hatchet men off, but Barber just smiled and let them get on with it.

Antonio Reyes was never the same again after that mauling by the Mancs. It seemed to dampen his appetite for the English game for good and who can blame him.

It was a horrible ‘win at all costs’ display orchestrated by Alex Ferguson against his then nemesis Wenger and to this day I blame Barber for ruining Reyes’ career and letting the Mancs get away with sheer murder.

We would have our revenge the following season, when Wenger, for the only time in his Arsenal career, sent his team out not to lose in the 2005 FA Cup final. We drew 0-0 and beat them on penalties. Outplayed, out fought, lucky, but OMG one of the

best moments in my life was watching Patrick Vieira score our last penalty and secure the cup for Arsenal. To this day it still brings a smile to my face!

I bet you’re thinking only the Spy could rain on the Invincibles celebration issue by focusing on the three cup defeats instead of the 26 wins and 12 draws that made us unbeatable. Not a bit of it. The league games were magnificent.

The standout game for me was Liverpool on April 9. Coming hot on the heels of the Chelsea Champions League knock-out and the FA Cup semi-final defeat by the Mancs, we just had to beat the Scousers (nothing changes) and maintain our position at the top of the table.

A disastrous first half saw us 2-1 down at half time - courtesy of Michael Owen who put Liverpool ahead in the 42nd minute. Disaster beckoned.

But wait! We didn’t have the best team on the planet for nothing and if any game sums up how brilliant the Invincibles team were, this was it. We came out for the second half on fire with our tails up and attacking the North Bank Stand, with a point to prove. No messing about for us.

The magnificent Robert Pires equalised in the 49th minute to send Highbury wild, but even better was to follow.

Straight from the kick off we attacked again and Henry, summing up his fantastic Arsenal career, waltzed around the entire Liverpool defence before slotting the ball past the keeper to put us 3-2 up.

Talk about pandemonium. The roof came off. Henry scored another in the 78th minute to complete his hat trick and we never looked back after that match.

Breathless, glorious, exciting, ecstatic. That game is one of the best Highbury ever saw and for everyone who was there, you were part of history.

Once the title was confirmed at Tottenham for the second time in our history, we had four more games until the end of the season in order to stay unbeaten and fulfil Arsene’s prophecy of “I believe this team could go unbeaten for an entire season” which every journalist and pundit from here to Timbuktu ridiculed him for.

Comments such as “what’s he been smoking?” and “he’s having a laugh” were not uncommon. Four games to make history and ram those comments down the haters’ throats.

We came close to defeat at Portsmouth going a goal down, before Reyes rescued us and on the final day at Highbury, when we were due to collect the trophy against Leicester.

Again 1-0 down at half time, Highbury was a collective nervous wreck in the glorious sunshine. “Surely we’re not going to lose the record now on the last day of the season are we?” was the thought on everyone’s mind.

We’d poured out of the tube station in the sun, in our fancy dress and decked out in red and white, with flags, banners and hats, looking forward to seeing our team collect the Premier League Trophy for the second time in three years, but we didn’t for one minute think “this could be the day…”

Thankfully forever Arsenal legend Thierry equalised soon after half time with a coolly taken

penalty and Patrick Vieira waltzed the ball into an empty net in the 66th minute after a Leicester mistake to score the winner and we were home and dry. Celebration football ensued until the final whistle was blown and history and the Invincibles were made.

We held the trophy high, had a fantastic day and went home at 1am drunk as sacks!

Whoever would’ve thought we’d have to wait another twenty years to win the title again…

Gooner Social

HAVE YOU VISITED THE ARSENAL FOODBANK

‘Are you selling beer here?’

No, sorry. This is a foodbank collection point.’

‘Can I get a sandwich, then?’

This is one of the stranger enquiries made to the volunteers at Arsenal’s match day Foodbank. Sited on the east side of the stadium, near the programme sellers beside Tony Adams, it does look a little like a pub bar or canteen servery. And it’s often mistaken for an enquiry point, with lost supporters asking for directions and, more optimistically, wanting to buy for tickets to the upcoming game!

There’s been a collection point at the Emirates for much of this season, receiving food and toiletry donations (and money from either cash or credit cards) from match-going supporters for the Islington Foodbank.

Yet Arsenal is not the only club to be doing this. Back in 2015, Liverpool and Everton

Richard Smith @AISA_Arsenal

Richard Smith on the Arsenal matchday Foodbank

supporters joined together to form ‘Fans Supporting Foodbanks’ and at the recent Premier League match against the Scousers (that we won 3-1!) the Liverpool CEO, Billy Hogan, made a sizable donation on behalf of his club. I understand that Arsenal plans to reciprocate next season, and that other clubs are following suit.

Yet it seems shameful that, here in 2024, foodbanks still exist. Islington’s was established in 2011 and you’d have hoped that the need would have decreased over the years. Instead, there’s been a 23% increase in demand during this year alone.

Getting behind the Arsenal match day Foodbank’s collections are supporters’ groups like Gay Gooners, Jewish Gooners and AISA, standing alongside the Islington Foodbank team every game.

‘It’s just great chatting to supporters, seeing their generosity and their happiness at

contributing,’ says Karen Pond, a volunteer and AISA committee member.

And it’s not just home supporters that bring in donations. ‘We had a donation from a Brentford supporter,’ another AISA committee member, Steve McCann, reports, ‘and we had a nice chat. I wished her good luck, thanking her for the donation while still hoping Brentford lost but, as she’d donated, not as heavily as Sheffield United and West Ham!’

Some leave a bag and run, perhaps afraid that their contribution isn’t enough or that they may have brought the wrong sort of food. They needn’t worry.

‘No donation is too small, whether it’s a single tin or a few pence. Whatever the doner can afford,’ a spokesperson for the Foodbank told me when discussing it.

And when asked what’s best, the answer was quite surprising. ‘Not necessarily what you like yourself. At Christmas, we often get Christmas puddings. They’re not the best. What we’re really after are staples for basic meals.’

‘Like what?’ I asked. ‘Baked beans, tins of fish like sardines and tuna, rice, pasta. Tinned tomatoes – they’re good as a base for pasta meals. Then there’s breakfast cereals, tinned fruit, vegetables like peas and carrots, and even hot dogs, meatballs and chicken curry. Plus toiletries, like toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and shower gel.’

And here’s something that surprised me. It’s quantity that counts. So, two tins of a store’s

cheaper own products are better than a more expensive single tin of a high-profile brand.

Donations are then sorted and bagged to meet the daily needs of vulnerable single people and families. And the work of the Arsenal match day collections is making an important contribution.

‘We have been overwhelmed by the generosity and support we’ve been shown at our fundraising days with Arsenal this year, when fans have hugely delivered for those in need,’ Islington Foodbank says.

So we Gooners can feel proud of our club and the supporters who come to the home matches and have donated food and money. Yet while Islington Foodbank distributes food to over 150 families each week from around 52 crates of donations, at an average Arsenal match, we collect around eight. So we’re making a difference, but we can help even more.

Arsenal’s collection point for the Islington Foodbank is open at all Emirates matches (excepting those played under floodlights) and is located opposite entrances F and G. For more on Islington Foodbank, visit islington. foodbank.org.uk

THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY

Dateline: Friday April 9, 2004, at approximately 120pm

As the Arsenal and Liverpool players head towards the tunnel at Highbury, a concerned air suffocates the majority of supporters inside the stadium.

Arsenal, fresh from a week of pain, are suffering the mother of all hangovers. This is Good Friday in name only.

Just six days before, Arsenal were still in the hunt for the treble. Unbeaten in 30 league matches in the 2003-04 season, the first ten days of April contained three mammoth tussles that would go a long way in deciding the fate of the campaign. Sadly, the course to glory did not run smoothly.

Losing to Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final was a crushing blow, yet it would be the loss to Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League quarter final that proved the hardest pill to swallow.

Three had become one as opposition fans gathered to laugh at our expense and the press vultures circled. Could Arsenal recover from these devastating defeats?

With Chelsea four points behind having played one game more, Arsenal were undoubtedly in the driver’s seat in the race for the title. But a defeat against Gerard Houllier’s Liverpool could potentially loosen another nut, adding fuel to the argument that the wheels were falling off an Arsenal league season as had happened a year before.

“If this hang-dog depressive state lingers then they will not win the Premiership,” Sue Mott wrote in the Telegraph. Others in the same paper did not agree. “There is a steel to this side which has not suddenly disappeared,” Henry Winter stated. “I expect to witness a defiant retort,” former striker Alan Smith added.

Steve Pye @1980sSportsBlog

Arsene Wenger knew his team could bounce back. “We have a great character,” he stated in the build-up to the Arsenal’s Liverpool match three days after the harrowing Chelsea experience. “You do not achieve 30 matches unbeaten without a special character. It would be stupid now to spoil what we have achieved.”

However, on a beautiful sunny day at Highbury, the first half did little to calm the nerves of anyone associated with Arsenal.

When Sami Hyypia headed Liverpool in front after five minutes, you could feel the apprehension growing. Thierry Henry briefly eased the tension when he equalised just after half an hour, but an old nemesis returned to haunt us once more.

Michael Owen latched on to a superb through ball by Steven Gerrard to hand Liverpool the lead at half-time, as Arsenal’s season threatened to implode.

Those of us in the crowd sense danger. Amy Lawrence, in her fine Invincible book detailing Arsenal’s historic season, sums the situation up neatly: “The season is at a crossroads. It will be defined by which avenue they take.”

Even Arsenal’s players expressed doubts in Lawrence’s book. Henry thought the stadium had stopped breathing. Sol Campbell wondered if the season was flatlining. But Martin Keown knew a few words were needed. “If we get that first goal then this ground, this crowd, are just waiting for us and it will turn on its head.”

Keown’s words would prove to be as accurate as one of Dennis Bergkamp’s passes.

Within four minutes, Robert Pires poked home an equaliser after good work from Henry and Freddie Ljungberg, as the tide began to

turn. And then just a minute later came the moment when you knew everything was going to be alright.

Picking up the ball just inside the Liverpool half, Henry glided menacingly towards the Liverpool box. Easing past Dietmar Hamann, the Frenchman then proceeded to twist Jamie Carragher’s blood this way and that, the Liverpool defender resembling a drunk at the end of a long session. Slotting the ball past Jerzy Dudek, Henry sprinted off in celebration that was ecstasy and relief combined.

Watching that goal at Highbury is one of my fondest memories at our home. The guttural roar as the ball hit the net will live with me forever. It was a noise that spoke of the doubt we had all gone through. It was a release of the worry that had understandably seeped into us all. I opened my arms out, looked skywards, and emitted a sound that I didn’t know I was capable of.

Henry had come into this match carrying an injury concern. But with 12 minutes left he completed a hat-trick that clinched a crucial 4-2

The guttural roar as the ball hit the net will live with me forever. It was a noise that spoke of the doubt we had all gone through that season

win and in turn got the season back on track. “It was as if he took the 1-2 interval score as a personal affront,” Winter wrote the next day. “The man who made the difference was Henry,” Houllier admitted.

After a 0-0 draw at Newcastle, Henry went one better in the next Highbury match, scoring four against a doomed Leeds side. But that almost felt like bullying.

It was the Liverpool match that truly demonstrated Henry’s worth and the character of that great side.

Thierry Henry scores his third goal of a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at Highbury that saw the soon to be Invincibles move closer to the Premier League title after one of the finest second half comebacks in The Arsenal’s long and illustrious history by beating Liverpool 4-2 on Good Friday, April 9, 2004. PICTURE: Mark

TRANSFER TRIUMPHS

Annabel Rackham praises Arsenal’s January 2023 transfers and the impact they’ve had

Watching from the stands at Arsenal’s Champions League game against Porto, I was reminded during one of the many breaks in the game that we had three players on the pitch who had all joined the club in last January’s transfer window.

Perhaps the timing of the arrivals of Jakub Kiwior, Leandro Trossard and Jorginho are more of a talking point due to us being so inactive in the most recent window, but after seeing how other clubs across Europe acted in this period, Arsenal’s transfer business, or lack of it, was hardly an anomaly.

A mixture of financial fair play considerations, inflated transfer fees in the Premier League and increasing frequency of injuries in squads could mean that we’ve seen the last impactful January recruitment period for quite some time.

And the reason why these three players are so important is because of the impact they have all had on the team and our recent success. They joined the club at a time when we’re lacking in strength and depth and perhaps it is only now that we are seeing the benefit of their inclusion in the squad.

There were rumours earlier in the season that 24-year-old Kiwior was looking for a move away from the club, but that narrative appears to have changed completely.

The Polish defender has been instrumental to the team in recent weeks and cemented his place in the starting line-up due to the lack of availability from Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Then there’s Trossard – who Arsenal’s sporting director Edu quickly pivoted to when a deal for Mykhailo Mudryk failed to materialise in early 2023. The former Brighton man has consistently made himself available in the year he has played for the club and scored the goal

Annabel Rackham @annabellimor

that helped secure the team’s first Champions League quarter final in 14 years.

Fans of the club could certainly see justification in these two additions – but one that raised a lot of eyebrows was the transfer of Jorginho from Chelsea at the age of 31. His signing contradicted the club’s youth policy, with some concerned about our track record with Stamford Bridge ‘rejects’.

But the midfielder has quickly become a popular figure, again impressing with his

TWO LOYAL ARSENAL SUPPORTERS’ STORIES ON SURVIVING PROSTATE CANCER AND HELPING OTHERS

In the UK a man dies from prostate cancer every 45 minutes – more than 12,000 every year

Here’s loyal Arsenal supporters and long-time friends of the Gooner Fanzine, Peter Le Beau and Paul Brooker to share their incredibly powerful journeys:

Our game against Liverpool back in February was dedicated to the fight against Prostate Cancer, writes Peter Le Beau.

The game had a great outcome but please ensure from a health perspective you get a good outcome too.

I’ve been writing for the Gooner Fanzine for 36 years but the article I’m about to write is probably the most important piece that I have ever written.

I’m currently undergoing treatment for Prostate Cancer.

I didn’t take much notice of the condition until recently but it’s worth considering a few facts about it.

In the UK every 45 minutes one man dies from prostate cancer – that’s more than 12,000 men every year.

One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and nearly half a million men are living with and after prostate cancer*.

I am 73 years old and have supported Arsenal passionately for 66 of those years.

I was last in hospital in 1980 to have a wisdom tooth out and I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy pretty good health for most of my life – that was, until last year.

I knew of friends and relatives who had prostate cancer. I had two uncles who died from it. Two years ago an old school friend of mine also died from it.

But the penny hadn’t dropped that it could affect me seriously - and I would occasionally repeat the mantra that people die with prostate cancer, not of it.

Well that isn’t true for at least 12,000 men a year is it?

My good friend and fellow Gooner (and fellow Gooner Fanzine writer) Paul Brooker is a North Bank Lower season ticket holder and a regular away fan.

Paul was unfortunately diagnosed with the disease in 2022.

I will ask Paul to tell his story later but I was aware of his situation and I started to wonder if the slight difficulties I was having in ‘the waterworks area’ (funny how coy we get about bodily functions isn’t it!?) might be sinister.

I was found to have prostatic enlargement (similar to the King’s recent diagnosis) but an MRI scan later found I had suspected prostate cancer

Peter Le Beau @GoonerFanzine

Peter’s story

I went to see our game at Craven Cottage last year and was aware that I needed to visit the loo more often.

A week later I went away for a family weekend in Derbyshire.

On the Sunday evening I was up most of the night trying to empty my bladder and my drive home to Kent was the most uncomfortable I have ever had.

On returning home I determined to sort the problem out as soon as possible and given the logjams at my practice I consulted a urologist privately.

He gave me some tests including a blood test, the PSA.

He phoned me the next day to say that my kidneys were under severe pressure with a retention problem. He admitted me to hospital

wearing his NHS hat and I was catheterised. My first night in hospital was spent listening to us subside 4-1 at the Etihad…

I left hospital but returned shortly afterwards because the kidney problems exacerbated a diabetic crisis.

I spent a week in hospital around the time of the Coronation and had multiple scans and investigations.

I was found to have prostatic enlargement (similar to the King’s recent diagnosis) but an MRI scan later found I had suspected prostate cancer and it was confirmed when I had an operation to reduce the size of the prostate.

I had a PSA of 30 (very high) and the biopsy confirmed I had an aggressive tumour.

Fortunately one which a CAT and bone scan had thankfully confirmed had not spread beyond the prostate. This suggests a much better prognosis.

Peter’s treatment

The treatment for prostate cancer is normally hormone injections to shrink the tumour by starving it of testosterone (in my case every three months) and they will continue for two years in my case.

I started radiotherapy in mid-January and am just about to complete the course of twenty sessions at Maidstone Hospital.

I’ve had quite superb care and have been enormously helped by the advice and preparation Paul was able to give me.

Let him relate some of his story.

Please have your PSA taken if you are over 50 or if you have unusual urinary symptoms

Paul’s story

In 2021 I noticed that it was taking me longer to pee at night. I went to my doctor, who gave me a clinical examination, which appeared to indicate a growth.

He ordered a PSA test which showed a value of 3.5 (3 is normal). He sent me to hospital where I had a biopsy.

This confirmed a tumour, first classified as a Gleason 6 (one of the more benign tumours).

I entered the NHS cancer programme, under a consultant. Normally, it would have been an option just to observe the tumour to see if it was growing.

However as I changed hospitals (to get specialist care) a new team of pathologists looked at the biopsy and upgraded the tumour diagnosis to an intraductal tumour, a much more aggressive cancer.

The observation tumour was now completely off the agenda. The tumour had to be removed before it spread from the prostate to elsewhere in the body.

The options were either surgery or radiotherapy. After discussions I chose radiotherapy.

The first thing was to start to get injections of an oestrogenic hormone, to run for two to three years. Three months after the first injection, I started my radiotherapy at Addenbrookes Hospital, which consisted of 20 daily treatments with weekends off.

The staff at Addenbrookes Hospital were terrific and made the process easy.

The first two weeks were easy, but I got progressively more tired as it got into weeks three and four.

The key test as to the success of the treatment is the PSA value. Straight after treatment, the value was undetectable, <0.1. It has remained at that low level in the 10 months since treatment.

According to my consultant, I am now in remission.

Paul’s advice

My advice is to listen to your body and, if something isn’t right, see your doctor. If you can, whether or not you have symptoms, ask your GP for a PSA test.’

Peter’s message

Thanks Paul - These are not the sort of stories Gooners come to the website or the fanzine to read. But I hope you appreciate the common threads of our stories and realise that Prostate Cancer is common and if not dealt with or caught in time, potentially fatal.

My neighbour in the next seat in the North Bank Upper had a very narrow escape five years ago when they caught his tumour just in time. He was a very fit man in his early fifties.

Please heed the message that Prostate Cancer is serious but that if you detect it early it and catch it in time it can be easily treated and controlled.

The treatment isn’t straightforward but it’s way better than the alternative...

Please have your PSA taken if you are over 50 or if you have unusual urinary symptoms.

The test is easy to carry out and can be arranged at your doctor’s surgery.

I hope to be going to Arsenal for many years to come but if I had delayed seeking medical advice my Arsenal supporting days could have been over.

It is truly frightening to think that you might have cancer.

You probably don’t but please don’t delay finding out.

It’s much better to know and deal with it than let the problem develop.

So please check your own situation if you have suspicious symptoms (frequency or problems in peeing),a family history of Prostate Cancer or if you are over 50 and haven’t been checked before.

Please don’t delay - taking a positive attitude and standing up to the problem is definitely the right way to go.

Peter Le Beau and Paul Brooker

*figures from Prostate Cancer UK.

THE CELEBRATION POLICE

Thisissue I want to write about the most miserable, po-faced, hypocritical parasites that feed off our game while betraying a lack of understanding of its emotional core.

Let me give you some examples:

2020 - We beat Newcastle away on the last day of the season to pip Spurs into a European place and Roy Keane misses the point entirely and accuses us of celebrating as if “they were 10 points clear at the top of the league” –though note when we were celebrating last season at eight points clear in the League that was no longer acceptable

2021 – Jamie O’Hara gets his knickers in a twist over Arsenal daring to celebrate a 3-1 win against his beloved Spurs – “like they’ve won the Champions League”

2022 – Gabby Agbonlahor trots out the now commonplace “they’re celebrating like they won the Champions League” after a last minute save keeps the three points with us.

22-23 – We turn around a deficit to win late against Fulham and are accused by serial offender Richard Keys of, guess what, once again celebrating “like they have won the Champions League”

22-23 – We beat Villa 4-2 with two injury time goals and are accused by Gary Neville of “overcelebrating”

22-23 – Even the FA get in on the act and “investigate” our apparently over-zealous celebrations after Reiss Nelson’s last minute winner against Bournemouth

23-24 – We beat Liverpool at home in a huge game and Odegaard engages in some harmless camera japes with club photographer and lifetime fan Stuart McFarlane only to be harangued by a frothy mouthed Jamie Carragher, who seems to think we are guilty of, yes, you guessed it, over-celebrating.

Rio Ferdinand goes even further suggesting Arteta had celebrated like “Arsenal had won the League title”, a view echoed by that most curmudgeonly of curmudgeons, Chris Sutton

Yes, I am of course referring to the selfappointed celebration police who love it when Klopp runs onto the pitch when Liverpool score in a derby, or gallops down the touchline punching the air at Anfield or when Roberto de Zerbi goes full knee slide (“great passion” and “that’s what the fans love to see” being typical responses) but seem affronted when Arsenal and Arteta are doing the celebrating.

And look, when these guys speak we need to listen because they are all fine upstanding members of the footballing community:

Charlie Ashmore has had his fill of the po-faced Celebration Police and lets them have it with both barrels in this utterly magnificent polemic

Charlie Ashmore @GoonerFanzine

Keys – forced to resign by Sky after his pathetic sexist discourse with Andy Gray

Carragher – spat at a 14 year old girl out of his car window

Carragher (again) – sent off at Highbury for throwing a coin at the crowd

Sutton – infamously ignored the sporting code of conduct about returning the ball when kicked out for an injury leading to Blackburn scoring, depriving Arsenal of two points and a Champions League place

Ferdinand – banned for missing a drugs test

Actually, you know what? We don’t need to listen to these muppets or anyone else who having spent a career celebrating goals and wins left right and centre now feels able to sit there with a straight face and deny the right of players and fans alike to celebrate in whatever manner they see fit.

They are either being wilfully obtuse or they seriously do not understand the game and the passions it arouses. Being a football fan is not easy. For most football fans their lives are vast expanses of hurt and disappointment occasionally punctuated by success.

It is a cliché that only one team can win the league every year but that’s because it’s true. These idiots would have you believe the only time for celebrating is at the end of the season when the title is won and of course only the winners can do the celebrating.

Last minute derby wins? No. Worldie goals? No. Winning a crucial “six-pointer”? no. You have to win something before you can celebrate according to them now that they have finished their careers and stopped having cause to celebrate themselves.

Well, b****** to them, is what I say. Football is an emotional game. The attachment we have to our club is an unbreakable bond that survives all the trials and tribulations that sport in general and football in particular throws at us on a consistent basis.

It is a weekly (increasingly twice-weekly) opportunity to engage with the most important unimportant thing in our lives. Part of that is the unbridled joy when something wonderful happens and we relish celebrating with the players when it does.

If these morons think they are going to stop me celebrating they have another thing coming.

So, my message to you all is ignore these sad miserable self-righteous idiots and celebrate events on the pitch whenever and however it feels appropriate to do so.

As a postscript (and to paraphrase the wonderful commentator Barry Davies) – you have to ask yourself how the celebration police will have reacted to the celebrations after the penalty shoot out v Porto……but frankly, who honestly cares???

THE REACHABLE STAR?

Arsenal winning the Champions League is my remaining football ambition.

We’ve done it all. We’ve won the league, 13 times all together.

Some clubs have never won it, some have only done it twice. Just think, a Spurs fan would have to be a good 70 years old to remember the last time they won the title in 1961. We’ve won the league unbeaten. We’ve done the double three times.

We were the first club to win both domestic cups in the same season, we’ve won more FA Cups than anyone and we’ve even won 16 Community Shields outright (Spurs have only won four).

But we’ve never reached the ultimate horizon: to win the Champions League. It’s seemed the impossible dream, but is it now the reachable star?

The European Cup is a beautiful massive trophy. It looks gorgeous on TV when other clubs win it.

It looked smaller gleaming in Paris in 2006 when we got 17 minutes away from lifting it and we’ve barely sniffed near it since.

I can make peace when Liverpool win the European Cup, I grew up with them winning it. That became normalised and we shall all be forever grateful that Liverpool saw off the unthinkable and unmentionable in 2019.

However I purposely switched off to avoid seeing Chelsea or Manchester City lift it and avoided all photos ever since: I have no interest

Simon Rose @thatsimonrose

to register their empty fake nouveau riche ‘success’. If I don’t see it they never did it.

Is winning the Champions League just too big an ask for Arsenal?

Are there always, in any eras, too many better wiser teams for us to overcome? It’s often looked that way, especially when we fancied our chances and then got humbled and rumbled by Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Arsenal as emasculated as when Bayern dissected us 5-1 at home in 2017, for 10-2 aggregate carnage – and I was at the 8-2 Old Trafford scene of devastation, among United fans.

Yet, this Arsenal has different tech in it. We’ve developed a young team of staggering talent mixed with experience and hunger. We’re good enough to challenge for the Champions League, but is it plausible to win it?

Here’s an interesting unspoken truth: it’s easier to win the Champions League than the Premier League.

To win the Premier League you must be the best team out of 20, home and away, for nine months. Drop points at the wrong time and you might be finished. The Champions League is intense, full of increasing quality with each round till you face the cream of Europe. But it’s only a cup competition.

You don’t have to play everyone home and away for nine months then finish top. Half the teams get knocked out every round. In the Premier League, you must be better than City and Liverpool to win it. In the Champions

Simon Rose on his remaining football ambition

League, the big names might get taken out and you don’t even have to play them.

I realised a long time ago that you don’t need to be the best team to win the Champions League – or any similar group tournament, like a World Cup - you just need to keep going through the competition.

I had that moment of enlightenment when we faced Bayern Munich in 2000-01. Bayern drew two games when they won their opening group. We went 2-0 up early in our later second phase match with them at Highbury and you thought “Wow! We’re beating Bayern Munich, 2-0!” The game ended 2-2. Another draw. Bayern were obviously too ordinary to be contenders. Six months later, they drew with Valencia too: in the Final, then won it on penalties.

The Champions League is a cup competition: you’re either in or you’re out. You don’t go through more if you win well. You don’t get a smaller trophy if you win the final on penalties.

Mikel Arteta is not messing about: Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool and Pep Guardiola cannot stay at City much longer. We are in pole position to take over as the elite Premier League force. Our level last season would have won the title 20 years ago, before Chelsea’s money ruined the league and City’s later destroyed it.

Now you have to be practically perfect to win it and we’re learning, but in the Champions League you could lose a leg in every knockout round and still go through.

You can draw the final and still win on penalties. City and Liverpool might yet be too much for us to overcome to win this season’s Premier League, but we eventually found a way to get past Porto.

We are now validated in the Champions League. We don’t have to be the best team to win it or beat all the big boys, the task now is to keep going through.

WELCOME BACK TO THE WORLD OF THE HIGHBURY SPY

Ihaveto say my world is a lot happier than it was when I composed the last column after we’d lost to West Ham, Fulham and Liverpool and had just endured the so-called mid-winter break at the end of January.

The Spy was at a very low ebb and I hope I don’t have to write too many more columns off the back of three consecutive losses and a two week break from football when the mind has time to fester with the stench of defeat.

By the time you’ll read this we’ll have endured yet another interlull which no one wants. At least this time, we’re on the back of eight consecutive Premier League wins and in the last eight of the Champions League having dispatched Porto in the round of sixteen, with the prospect of Bayern Munich, Harry Kane and all to come.

Whatever Mikel Arteta did in Dubai during that winter break, it has rejuvenated the team. You all know the results and you’ve seen the performances and it’s been brilliant. Please accept my profuse apologies for not keeping the faith in the last issue, It’s a funny old game isn’t it…

One of my issues was Mikel’s record in knock out cup ties in Europe. It hasn’t been great, but we put all those demons to bed when we knocked Porto out.

I actually thought we played better in the away leg and were very unlucky to concede that worldie in the last minute. Seeing Porto in the flesh at the Emirates, they didn’t even have a deep block, but still kept us fully at arms-length save for the brilliant goal we scored, when Martin Odegaard set Leandro Trossard up for the equaliser.

My goodness how we missed Gabriel Martinelli in the return game. We were caught between two stools. Go for it and leave ourselves open to a counterattack and possible goal, or sit back and go forward sporadically.

Pathetic Porto

That referee, Leandro Trossard lookalike Clement Turpin, gave the cheating Portuguese team every helping hand they needed, pandering to their relentless time wasting and play acting, leading to a stalemate and penalties.

Wonder how long the bloke on the stretcher will be out for? A day maybe?

Strangely, this was the first time a shoot-out had been needed in any Champions League game in eight years - and how we responded!

Although the weather and the opposition were similar, what a remarkable turnaround from last season when we lost on spot kicks to another Portuguese team in the Europa League.

What An Atmosphere

Last year, the penalties were at the Clock End of the stadium, this year, we won the toss and got them at the North Bank.

The noise created by the fans behind the goal and in the lower tiers was incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever heard noise like it in a football stadium.

The boos, the whistles, the scarves, the flags, the cameras, the walls being repeatedly bashed, the scene was set for the Portuguese cheats to fail and so it proved.

All Hail Raya

Our guys took brilliant penalties and David Raya was magnificent saving two of theirs from their best players. Fine margins when the first save hit the post, hit David on the floor and bounced to safety rather than in the net.

At the end. Ecstasy. No one can say they enjoyed that game, I was a nervous wreck, much like I am watching a final, but the relief when Raya saved that second penalty was overriding joy!

When I got home at 1am (thanks Piccadilly Line spoilers, how can you have a limited service after an Arsenal home game with 60K in attendance?) I watched the TNT Sport interview with David Raya on YouTube.

It’s the first time I’ve heard a Spaniard speak with a Lancashire accent! He obviously picked that up during his five years with Blackburn Rovers prior to signing for Brentford. Who’d have thought it eh?

Refereeing standards

We’ve not had much luck with referees lately, what with the two idiots we had for the Porto ties and the incompetent Rob Jones and Paul Tierney on VAR for the Brentford game.

The noise created by the fans behind the goal and in the lower tiers was incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever heard noise like it in a football stadium

There was a huge kerfuffle about whether or not Kai Havertz should’ve been sent off via a second yellow for diving in the box (and credit to Jones for using his common sense) but the odious Tierney fresh from gifting Liverpool two points the previous week at Forest, was installed as VAR man for the Arsenal v Brentford game. Some punishment!

He did his best to ensure Liverpool prevailed again, by not awarding Arsenal a penalty for the most obvious foul you have ever seen on Leandro Trossard, when the Brentford defender grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground as he was about to finish off a delightful cross into the box.

Tierney should not be allowed anywhere near a football match ever again.

Kai Havertz Scores Again…

I’m glad there was something I got right about Arsenal in the previous columns this season and that is the form of the colossus that is Kai Havertz.

Since the turn of the year, his form has been utterly immense and he’s one of the four or five players that are seriously irreplaceable if they get injured or suspended during the Premier League title and the Champions League run-ins.

He is great in the air, causes a nuisance, has a brilliant touch, brings the other players into the game and scores goals. Bet Chelsea fans cringe every time they see the player he could’ve been for them.

In fact, so good has Kai’s form been, we haven’t missed Gabriel Jesus as much as we might have and the German is currently the first choice number nine.

Same for Kiwior and Zinchenko. How time moves on. If you’d told me nine months ago Kiwior and Havertz were going to usurp last season’s incumbents in those positions, I’d have said you were mad!

Having said that I have a sneaking suspicion Gabriel Jesus is going to have a massive part to play in our last remaining fixtures. Bring it on!

Frank Kelly RIP

You may have read in the Online Gooner about the passing of our good friend Frank Kelly recently. You will have seen Frank selling Gooners for thirty years around Highbury and in Benwell Street, when we moved to the Emirates.

Always with a roll-up between his fingers or in his mouth, he was the most likeable bloke you ever met. Cockney rhyming slang was his forte and I never met him without him saying “I’ll have a glass of John Devine dear boy”. He called everyone ‘dear boy.’

As Kev alluded to in his online piece, any banter with Frank (and there was a lot) was met with a smile and the retort “you cheeky git”! He was a one off and I’m smiling as I write this, remembering so many good times we had together in various pubs from the early 1980s, when I first met him, until 2014 when he became a recluse and a devotee of Middlesex County Cricket Club.

None of us saw much of Frank after that when ill health stopped him selling The Gooner.

He must’ve sold many thousands of copies over the years, but I’d be surprised if he ever read one issue. He was too busy reading books about social history and biographies of his sporting heroes.

RIP dear boy “you cheeky git”, I’ll have a glass of John Devine and think of you walking up the apples and pears to the next life with a fag in your mouth, a tatty blue money bag bulging with one pound coins tied round your waist and a pile of Gooners in your hands.

You were the best and a complete one off. In the immortal words of the legendary Max Miller of whom you were a great fan, “There’ll never be another”!

[Ed’s note, see page 66 for Kev’s obituary on Frank to go with The Spy’s wonderful tribute]

INVINCIBLE

‘Invincible’ is a word that ends arguments; it closes down dispute and silences disrespect: there is no retort that beats it: it is itselfinvincible.

It is a label for a team that is so unimpeachable that it has bestowed a greatness that will endure; it bequeaths an immortality that means we will outlive the other teams who, well, fell short.

While there may be other clubs who define eras in the English game, some fabulous teams who reigned supreme, none of theirs ‘are gold’.

It is a standard, a benchmark that sets us apart: it tells the rest of football what we know instinctively, what we have always known - that Arsenal Football Club is different, special, and utterly unique.

David Fensome @DavidFensome

2004 saw an achievement that twenty years later is still talked about, still respected within the game and significantly – unequalled.

It stands as Arsene Wenger’s greatest achievement, the realisation of a target he set himself and his team that once drew ridicule: but no one laughs now though.

However the word ‘invincible’ alone, truly can’t begin to capture the fibre of that team, the quality of the footballers or the calibre of the individual men.

Patrick Vieira has spoken often of the bond that existed between them and that without that they would never have been invincible. It assisted them in getting through the tough times, the difficult moments – it meant they won together and resisted as one.

The Gooner Fanzine’s chief feature writer David Fensome recalls The Invincibles and other great Arsenal teams

Wenger pulled together the perfect group of individuals, complementing the mental strengths of one with the character of the other and then largely left them to it.

He famously for a time had only one rule: when Dennis Bergkamp had the ball everyone moves away from him.

It was a tactical credo Vieira happily bought in to – how many times did Bergkamp pick out the run from Vieira? Our captain referred to the mystery of how DB10 would instinctively pass the ball into a space before even he knew where he was going.

The goal at Chelsea finished by Vieira, constructed by Bergkamp was perhaps the biggest of several turning points that season.

To turn that game around, winning 2-1, after trailing meant we moved into March with the momentum of champions in waiting.

The quality of that side means often that one man in particular is overlooked when plaudits are being handed out – after David Seaman, Jens Lehmann was the perfect choice as goalkeeper.

There were arguably better ‘keepers around but none that came close to the pugnacious and combative German for simple ‘bottle’.

How he loved a spat, to wind up opponents, annoy referees – Arsenal ‘everyone hates us’ was always the perfect club for him and he seemed to revel in the notoriety; and to make sure we didn’t miss Seaman is to his enormous credit: United’s famous last minute penalty miss

The word ‘invincible’ alone, truly can’t begin to capture the fibre of that team

at Old Trafford I believe was largely down to Lehmann’s presence, his unbeatable-ness!

It is a testament to the potential that rested in that team that even in their invincibility

That fateful four day spell when we lost to United in the FA Cup semi-final, and then surrendered a winning position to Chelsea in the UEFA Champions

With Real Madrid being eliminated in the quarterfinals too, had we survived then we would have been very short favourites to lift it with all due respect to the other clubs left in – to have been invincible and champions of Europe: perhaps that was the title the first decade of Wenger’s reign ultimately,

I grew up with our 1971 double team being dismantled with an

unbecoming haste; and so it was to prove the case again after 2004.

Players retired, characters moved on, and stadiums were built (and paid for); and significantly Wenger put aside his faith in 4-4-2 and instead built a team around Fabregas that would lack the physical presence and mental strength of his earlier Arsenal creations.

It was truly a once in a century achievement, but the wonder is not that we did it once, but that we nearly did it twice!

For nearly as famous as the Invincibles of 2004 are, in their own way, the ‘almost’ Invincibles’ of 1991 – two teams as different as chalk and cheese who but for one game – and one hugely significant injury – would be joined together in history; as inseparable as the two sides of the Arsenal coin.

The fanfare of ’89 can deafen us to the power and resolve of 1991. Perhaps George Graham’s greatest achievement can be lost behind the compelling drama of Anfield that seems always and forever to define his era.

The fanfare of ’89 can deafen us to the power and resolve of 1991

2004 and 1991 - rarely can two title winning teams have been so different: the imagination, fluidity, and sheer verve of one versus the resolute shape, organisation and footballing indomitableness of the other.

They did share one aspect of their singular characters though – an unbreakable bond, the collective resilience that overcomes: Vieira said it of ’04, and Merson, amongst others, has said

it of ’91. “That team would run through a brick wall for each other”, said Merson.

He credited Graham for instilling that sentiment, “we wouldn’t have won anything without George”: tactical astuteness and the maintenance of a great shape being the modus operandi upon which George built an empire.

It was Chelsea again 1991. But for a 2-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge, when crucially, Steve Bould was injured – if Bould plays we don’t lose – we would have gone unbeaten again!

Undone in the cup semis once more in 1991 (as in 2004), means a once possible unbeaten double is consigned to the realms of ‘what if’ –football is so maddening that not even virtuosity of this magnitude can be left to grow old gracefully without the recriminations of ‘if only’.

However the two seasons may vary aesthetically and stylistically, in pure statistical terms they can look remarkably similar.

In 1991 we actually, amazingly scored more goals 74, to 73 in 2004; conceded a miserly

18 in 1991 as against 26 in 2004; winning 26 games in 2004 and 24 in 1991.

The 2004 points haul was seven points better, but remember in ’91 we were deducted 2 points for the fracas at United - and finally both teams won the title with games to spare.

George’s class of 1991 were street fighting dogs of war, for Wenger’s band of artists to go one game better speaks volumes for them.

Perhaps there are many ways to be successful, the issue is to be committed to however you try to achieve it – and commitment was never lacking in either the ’91 or ’04 campaign.

Two different Arsenal’s, two different managers and philosophers, but both serial winners doing it their own way – there is a reason why everyone else hates Arsenal.

Artwork by the fantastic Ruth Beck, check out more here:

@ruthbeckart buyruthbeckart.com

Arsenal and the Hatters

Peter Le Beau, Chief Rewind Correspondent

When the Editor informed me this issue would be published for match with Luton, my first reaction was there was little material for a Rewind column on the history between the two clubs.

But then I thought a bit further and realised there have been plenty of significant moments between us. Sadly not all have gone in favour of Arsenal.

The highest profile match was the 1988 League Cup Final which we went into as holders. We had a developing team who would win the league next season but Luton - who had a ghastly plastic pitch and banned away fans from Kenilworth Road - had undoubtedly their best ever team.

The game was bizarre. Luton started sharply and midway through the first-half took the lead through Brian Stein.

Arsenal were awful but when the second half began they were transformed. Martin Hayes scrambled in an equaliser and a few minutes later Alan Smith put us 2-1 ahead.

We forced their keeper Andy Dibble into a string of brilliant saves and were then awarded a penalty. We’d had a bad run of spot-kicks before the game. Hayes had missed in the semi-final and we decided to give the kick to Nigel Winterburn who was playing rightback in one of his earliest appearances for Arsenal.

His penalty was saved at full-stretch and a few minutes later Gus Caesar cemented his reputation by failing to clear a routine attack, and after a chaotic goalmouth scramble Danny Wilson scored.

Just before the end Stein notched his second from close range for the winner. It was a game that was great for everyone but those of an Arsenal persuasion. A totally unnecessary defeat.

1958-59

In my supporting history we first played Luton over Christmas in 1958. We lost 6-3 there on Boxing Day but recovered to win 1-0 at Highbury the next day. Can you imagine a scenario like that nowadays?

We had a strong side then and ultimately finished third. Luton were losing finalists in the FA Cup - the famous Roy Dwight final where he opened the scoring for Nottingham Forest and then broke his leg. His cousin Reg was yet to make his name as Elton John.

Debuts

Matches vs Luton have seen two significant Arsenal debuts.

In August 1983 on the first day of the new season Charlie Nicholas made his bow. Charlie didn’t play particularly well in a 2-1 win for the Gunners but got a brace two days later at Molineux.

I was amazed Charlie signed for us given the alternative options he had. He formed a very attractive and intermittently dangerous partnership with Tony Woodcock and it was Woodcock who scored our first goal heading in Paul Davis’ cross.

Paul Walsh equalised before half-time but Brian McDermott bagged the winner after the referee had ignored a scything tackle on Woodcock which was the clearest penalty you’ll ever see.

In February 1988 against Luton at Highbury we debuted a young right-back who joined from StokeLee Dixon.

In his first involvement as an Arsenal player he ripped through the Luton defence and had a storming debut. We won 2-1 with goals from David Rocastle and Michael Thomas. Caesar came on as our (only) substitute for Tony Adams. The game was a few weeks before that League Cup Final.

Our final home league meeting with Luton came in August 1991. We were champions and beat them 2-0 with goals from Alan Smith and Paul Merson.

We lost the away fixture 1-0 on Boxing Day but Luton were relegated and subsequently sank down the pyramid.

Their recovery has been an amazing story and although we’ve an excellent record against them at home we’ve never found it easy.

THE 1,500 PIECE PUZZLE

Have you ever considered assembling a 1,500 piece puzzle? To be more specific, one with an image of the beach, ocean and sky. The box looks enticing and exciting, but the experience soon becomes overwhelming. You instead opt to put it to one side and help your child with their simpler Postman Pat 30 piece puzzle.

This is how I imagine it feels for the opposition to play Arsenal in 2024. An exciting prospect, but an overwhelming experience.

Not only do Arsenal offer you few opportunities to score but they exhaust you by chasing the ball for at least 65% of the match. It must be miserable to experience. The feeling of utter hopelessness and a stark inevitability.

Prior to 2024, Arsenal were never guaranteed to put a game to bed and so hope staunchly remained for the opponent.

In almost every game in 2024, we have overwhelmed our opponent, sucking the hope away and been able to rest players for the run-in which would’ve been a game changer last season. So, what specifics have caused this happy change?

1. The arrival of variety

You will remember that if there was a criticism of this good version of Arsenal over the last couple of seasons, it has been that our play, and certainly our ways of scoring, have been somewhat predictable.

That has changed with two major adjustments in particular.

The most important one has been using the space behind the opponents defence. If you think back to 2023 and before, how often did we play a ball through the defence or go one on one with the goalkeeper?

We seemed reticent to play it behind as the risk of losing it was higher and therefore the risk of transition was too. Arteta’s new model is based on domination and so we seemed to have become fearful of even giving the ball to their goalkeeper or center backs.

All of our forwards are making runs behind. Sometimes it is a run for the ball and sometimes it

is simply because the midfielder that needs the ball needs time and space. If a forward moves behind the defence, then at least one and probably two defenders follow him which leaves the attacking midfielder wide open.

You will notice that Martinelli is making diagonal runs, Saka is jumping towards the ball and then darting behind and Havertz is positioning himself between their right back and right centre back for slot passes.

I don’t know if there is a metric for scoring simple goals, but I suppose that higher XG reveals this. That has risen dramatically and this will be because scoring in space is much more likely than a crowd.

The second big change coincides with the fantastic form of Jorginho and Havertz.

Jorginho sitting has allowed Rice and Havertz both to be in the penalty area. We are now able to cross the ball in the air. It’s important to look at what that does to opponents. When you have an aerial threat, who is also a threat on the ground, then this will attract two defenders.

As an example, if Havertz wanders to the back post, then their right back and right centre back will likely follow him. This is likely intentional to leave Declan Rice wide open in central areas and one on one.

Our previous problem was moving their defenders around and giving ourselves a one on one in and around the 6 yard box. You are always numerically greatly outnumbered and so there has to be a plan to move as many of them away from your intended crossing zone.

Coach Mike likens facing Arsenal this season to the overwhelming challenge of a 1500-piece puzzle

2. Jorginho

For a professional footballer one of the easiest passes is actually the clip over the top. Technically the rest of us regular humans struggle with this.

This kind of pass is vital to incorporate because slotting it on the ground rarely makes it through the defence. Defensive units are just too compact. Jorginho, in particular, has started to do this and with such backspin and fantastic soft feet from Havertz this is opening up other opportunities.

3. If we ever complain about Bukayo Saka, it’s extremely quietly.

We have great appreciation for such a nice person and an incredibly talented player. The quiet complaints have been over him not running behind and the loud complaint has been over the difference between his left foot and his right foot.

My best guess is that in Dubai he worked very hard on trusting his right foot. I would say since that time he has actually taken the ball to his right much more than his left and scored and assisted where he wasn’t previously.

15 years ago it was less important for a winger to have the ability to go both ways. People always praise players like Arjen Robben who defenders knew was going to his left, but couldn’t stop him.

The absolute truth though was that Chelsea and Munich were very direct in giving him the ball and he was one on one versus the one on three that Saka has to deal with frequently in this era of low blocks against elite teams.

Saka has successfully started to value the unpredictability of going both ways.

4. Formation

We are now getting to the Arteta dreamland scenario. The era where opponents can spend a whole week preparing to play Arsenal a certain way and we play completely differently.

We were inverting from the left, but have now been inverting from the right. Now that Zinchenko is back, this will only add to the confusion.

Saliba was ordinarily the defender who played as ‘point guard’ but Gabriel is fast becoming more comfortable in the position and we are now using him in this role also.

Sometimes we play with a sole defensive midfielder and sometimes a double pivot. Odegaard ordinarily plays close to Saka, but has been playing as a true number 10 on occasion.

Whoever knows where Trossard will be because if I can’t figure it out, then opponents who watch him far less than I do, probably can’t.

Havertz could be center forward or left eight. Saka has started to wander inside, which moves defenders with him, leaving the right wing for Ben White to get assists like he did in setting up both goals against Brentford.

With the reintegration of Jesus, who is our most unpredictable player, the confusion is real.

Confusion when preparing to face an elite team can result in a thrashing and this is what we’ve seen and these are the reasons why.

Arsenal are now not only very difficult to play against, but a head spin during preparation week for opposition teams. Lovely.

YOUNG GUNS’ DANGEROUS WIDEMEN

Arsenal Academy expert Jeorge Bird on a pair of young, exciting wingers to watch

Wingers are often the most exciting players to watch at youth level and some of Arsenal’s second year scholars have shown their worth out wide this season.

Although they have different playing styles, there are some similarities between Ismeal Kabia and Osman Kamara, not least because they both have Sierra Leonean heritage.

Kabia is capable of playing on either flank but is mainly used on the right. A direct runner who is able to deliver dangerous crosses with regularity, he has drawn comparisons with former Arsenal winger Nathan Tella, who is now playing for Bayer Leverkusen.

Having missed many matches through injury, Kabia now appears to be over his fitness problems and is excelling, as evidenced by the fact that he has stepped up to the Arsenal U21 squad in recent months.

In January Kabia scored on his first start in Premier League 2 against Middlesbrough and he has continued to be involved with Mehmet Ali’s squad. It seems likely that the prospect will be given an extended stay at the club when his scholarship expires at the end of the season.

Kamara is another player who has endured issues with injury, but the 17-year-old, who often plays on the left flank, has also been involved with the U21s.

The skilful youngster progressed all the way through the ranks at Hale End Academy and is the youngest member of the current crop of second year scholars.

Last season Kamara played a crucial part in Arsenal U18s’ run to the final of the FA Youth Cup as he often influenced games as a substitute.

Kamara is now demonstrating that he can thrive from the outset of matches with his ability to take players on prior to finishing adroitly.

It is anticipated that both Kabia and Kamara will step up to the U21 squad on a full-time basis next season and the experience they have gained at that level this campaign will have served them well.

Kabia and Kamara will be aware they will have to keep on progressing, especially with Arsenal having seemingly become a little more ruthless recently with regards to deciding to let youth players go.

However, it appears that both players have the correct mentality to succeed and it will be intriguing to see how they adapt to becoming

Jeorge Bird @jeorgebird

JEORGE BIRD IS THE GOONER FANZINE’S RESIDENT EXPERT ON ALL THINGS ARSENAL ACADEMY

mainstays in the U21 setup, especially when opposing defenders become more aware of their exceptional attributes.

If they remain at the club next season it seems likely that Kabia and Kamara will be afforded some opportunities to train with the first-team, while the UEFA Youth League could represent another chance for them to prove their worth (Kabia would have to be named as an over-age player if he is to be allowed to feature in that competition).

Both players are capable of performing well under pressure and are fully aware of the duties that they have to carry out defensively as well as in attack.

Having watched Amario Cozier-Duberry produce some dazzling performances for the U21s over the past couple of seasons, Kabia and Kamara will be looking to make names for themselves in a similar manner.

There is likely to be much competition for places in the U21 team, with another winger, Seb Ferdinand, having also impressed this season before suffering an injury.

Ferdinand is also capable of playing at rightback, and his versatility could prove to be useful for coach Mehmet Ali if he steps up to the U21’s.

A hard-working player, Ferdinand frequently gets into dangerous attacking positions and showed what he is capable of at U21 level earlier this season when he scored twice and provided an assist during a 5-0 victory away to Exeter in the EFL Trophy.

Both players have the correct mentality to succeed

Bukayo Saka and Reiss Nelson have shown that it is possible for young wingers to make it into the first-team squad at Arsenal after catching the eye at academy level.

For Kabia, Kamara and Ferdinand there is still some way to go in order to reach that stage but, despite the struggles with injuries, they have all shown that they deserve a chance to shine at U21 level and perhaps beyond that.

Eventually, if they continue to develop as expected, the trio will be considered for loan moves, which will be another step in determining who is likely to get closer to the first-team squad.

For now, though, the focus for this trio will be on avoiding further injuries and continuing to make an impact whenever they are called upon. They have all been presented with various challenges during the course of their scholarship deals but have shown that they are players that are worth persisting with.

Another winger, Romari Forde, has spent almost all of his scholarship on the sidelines but he is now back in action and will be determined to make up for lost time.

ARSENAL INVINCIBLES FOR FOUR REASONS

Highbury Librarian on the Arsenal Invincibles, with quotes taken from the book ‘Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch’

WhenJens Lehmann arrived at Arsenal in the run-up to our Invincible Premier League season, he joined a formidable backline

It boasted the likes of Lauren, Cole, Campbell, Touré and Keown.

However, when teamed with David Seaman in the preceding 2002-03 league season, our defence had conceded 42 goals, finishing second, five points behind Manchester United, who – notably – had conceded only 34 goals.

As newly-monied Chelsea were set to turn up the heat of the impending title race, there was an imperative for Arsenal to prioritise defensive improvement.

“Really, everyone had written us off already for the 2003-04 season, as Arsenal had given away the previous title carelessly and were now starting with a single new signing: an aged, crazed German goalkeeper.

As usual, Manchester United were favourites to win the league, joined for the first time by Chelsea, who had been reinforced by Roman Abramovich at incredible expense.

In fact, they were supposed to be solid rivals for the championship, but we were having none of it, deciding many games

Highbury Librarian @N5Librarian

in the first twenty minutes by taking a 2-0 lead and refusing to give it away.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.85

Arsenal brought a renewed dominance to their play, and Jens brought a new, pro-active high-intensity approach to goalkeeping.

“… on occasion, I had to take a lot of flak. Sometimes, I would play thirty or forty yards in front of my goal, where I was able to intercept 95 per cent of balls coming in.

It did also, however, lead to my making two mistakes in the Champions League, handing the opposition striker an assist with my head or similar.

Moments like that make you look like Mr Bean, and since the English, whether down the pub or in the papers, interpreted every single situation of play intensely as if it were a passage from the Bible.

The exegetes soon delivered their verdict; that keeper was bonkers.

‘The mad German is coming,’ The Times had written, even before my arrival in London.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.85

Though Jens had a long career across four decades and five clubs in three countries, he attained a uniquely high performance-level in 2003-04.

“My first season there was one of the best in all my life; I did not make a single mistake in 38 Premier League games.

On English soil, Arsenal were virtually unbeatable.

At the end of the campaign, we had registered a record that may never be repeated:

26 wins, 12 draws, and no defeats.

The last time something comparable happened was 1888/89, when Preston North End remained unbeaten; although, a complete season at the time only comprised 22 games. We

had accumulated 90 points, and I had conceded a mere 26 goals.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.86

Unique achievements resist explanation. Why would this mix of ingredients result in such an outlandish outcome? One can point to the fickle finger of fate or the magical thinking of superstition. Not Jens. He chose to apply logical reasoning.

“Thinking about the reasons for this incredible run today, I recall a few things in particular: firstly, the squad had been put together perfectly, a fantastic mix of young and experienced players, who all had one outstanding quality and ended up playing themselves into some sort of frenzy.

Secondly, our fitness: Chelsea, our fiercest competitors, ran out of steam

towards the end, so that we were confirmed champions three days before the campaign had even finished.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.85

So much for the first two reasons: we had a talented, balanced squad that was as fit as a butcher’s dog. The third reason is a little less obvious and speaks to an emergent, behind-the-scenes revolution in football. Moreover, it places Arsenal at the forefront of innovation.

“Thirdly, perfect analysis of all game parameters: that season was the first time that Wenger’s coaching staff made use of Prozone. A computer program that allows examinations of both the opponent and your own game down to the last detail. It delivers data on possession periods, sprinting abilities, fitness, distribution of players on the pitch, and so forth.

Additionally, it produces animated recordings of every attacking move. Wenger knew how to use Prozone to turn both his own and the opposing side into transparent teams.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.86

The fourth reason reflects the genius of the gaffer.

“Finally, the matter of tactical education; a computer system alone is of little use if managers cannot get the findings across to their players and have them be applied on the pitch. Specific training methods exist that practise this flow of the game; at times, we would play 11 vs none.

Alternatively, warm-ups could consist of 11 vs 11: one team does not defend but merely gets in the way of the other, who practises forms of passing for five or ten

minutes, with a change of sides after each goal scored. Everything revolves around continuous play, as if you were circling slalom poles.

Yet a different version would see the forwards and attacking midfielders play against a back four. All the while, the manager corrects every single wrong path, every pointless pass, every error. To me, Arsène Wenger was the unrivalled master of developing the offensive game.”

Lehmann with Siemes (2017), The Madness is on the Pitch, p.87

In a (perhaps, out-of-character) fit of humility, Jens neglected to include a fifth reason: his own goalkeeping brilliance. Though we are quick to recall the attacking power and flair of our Invincibles, their defensive solidity should not be overlooked. After all, an unbeaten run must be earned at both ends of the pitch, and – bonkers or not – Lehmann was a supreme contributor to a legendary backline.

I’msure this will be a very upbeat issue, it covers a period of time when the recent talk of signing a forward has been forgotten, well almost, such has been the free-flowing high scoring spell in which our previous issue 304 has been available.

It’s true that some of the teams we have beaten have been poor - Sheffield United and Burnley will almost certainly be playing in the Championship next season.

West Ham and Newcastle played badly on the day - but don’t let that take away just how good we were in those games.

I think most teams would have struggled, so yes the highlight has been beating Liverpool in the league, but we have also played some of the best football we have seen in years.

The run-in

With ten league games to go, I feel and fear we will have to win nine of them and probably need to draw the other match to win the league, such is the strength of our two challengers.

That is a tough ask for any team, but especially one that is already on such a long winning run.

Winning eight on the trot is very difficult, whilst stretching that to seventeen or eighteen may be impossible.

It is such a shame that our home game against Chelsea has been postponed due to their involvement in the FA Cup, it would have

been a great opportunity to create a little gap at the top, no matter how briefly.

It’s so frustrating that a club who have been so crap for most of the season suddenly win a game when you least want them too.

It’s little things such as playing when the rivals don’t that can go a little way to helping swing the balance in our favour.

Little victories like that, plus having more rest time between games, playing teams with opposition players suspended plus having some players get a rest during international breaks (Ben White) are all going to play an important part in the run in.

Injuries will play a huge part in the title run in, we can all see how more powerful the Manchester City subs bench is in comparison to Liverpool’s and ours is now looking strong too with the return of a few players.

Saliba had made more successful passes in the match at Bramall Lane than the whole of Sheffield United put together

Our legendary Gooner Fanzine columnist on the title run-in, Ben White, Porto, Emirates Atmosphere and Arsenal Women

In Praise of Ben White

I think if you were to ask me what player would be the worst one to lose to injury, it would not be Bukayo Saka or William Saliba, but Ben White.

This is because the drop down in skill to his replacement is probably greater than any other player. He has been so good this season and was underrated last season too.

I don’t hold out much hope for Takehiro Tomiyasu to ever be fit enough to play half the games as White does.

It’s also not fair to expect Jurrien Timber to do anything more than make a few cameo substitute appearances in the last few games of the season.

Credit must also go to Jakub Kiwior too as he has really improved and impressed me this past month.

Some amazing stats have been made recently, I loved the one about how Saliba had made more successful passes in the match at Bramall Lane than the whole of Sheffield United put together and also how at that stage, our goal difference was a higher number than Manchester United’s points total.

It could of course all end without silverware, which is something these players do not deserve, but we have to remember we are still ahead of schedule.

We didn’t expect to be able to challenge Man City as soon as we are, and we must remember that, whatever happens in the next two months.

Reflections on Porto

The Porto home game which was another superb night at Ashburton Grove. Porto were as hard to beat as most of us expected, if anything they were more attacking than I expected and the penalties led to a dramatic tense finale.

If anyone was still thinking Aaron Ramsey should be playing instead of David Raya, well I think that conversation has now ended.

Arsenal atmosphere

It’s not just the team that has got much better recently, the atmosphere at home and away has too, it has noticeably ramped up and the club are sending out good communications to the fans before each game.

I am still waiting for the club to help arrange a tifo display for one of the European games.

If you watch the European highlights show on TV you will see that most clubs have done this at least once this season with cards and banners, hopefully that will happen with us in the next round of the tournament.

The club made the most of the feel-good factor by announcing the ticket price increases for next season.

Without us having a home game in the League Cup this season and only one home game in the FA Cup, I fully expected this price increase to come.

The club know that anyone who cannot afford to buy a ticket can easily be replaced.

Whilst that might be the wrong attitude, it’s one that every other club would be doing in the same situation.

Arsenal Women

A lot has been made of the attendances at Arsenal for when they have staged the Women’s home games there.

I think they are playing at Ashburton Grove six times this season instead of staging them at the 4,500 capacity stadium at Boreham Wood.

I wonder at what point might the club consider building a stadium for them?

DIAL SQUARE DIARY

DIAL ON THE CUSP OF MAKING HISTORY

Since featuring non-league Dial Square in our February 2024 edition, the club has gone from strength to strength.

At the time of The Gooner going to print, the club is potentially just one match away from winning the Surrey County Intermediate League (Western) Premier Division – and by a sizable margin too.

Under the stewardship of chairman Tony Hurley and manager Steve Brown, the Chertsey-based side has been all guns blazing, with rapid progress on and off the field.

When The Gunners travel to Brighton & Hove Albion (6 April), The Dial will have topped the table for a colossal 30 consecutive weeks – a feat that few cubs in English football can match.

Furthermore, the non-leaguers have already netted well over 100 league and cup goals, with striker Harry Rice tipped to reach halfa-century; something no Arsenal player has achieved at senior level in 150 years.

If Dial win their league game at home against rivals Farncombe on 6 April, it could signal the first in a treasure trove of silverware. The north

west Surrey club has its sights firmly set on being part of the National League System (steps 1 to 6) within the next two years and to enter the FA Vase competition.

It will also be Dial’s third consecutive promotion in their first three full seasons, which no club (with the records available) has achieved. Even AFC Wimbledon and Dorking Wanderers haven’t managed three successive promotions, albeit their elevated status is nonetheless impressive.

So, the next time The Gunners are away, or you cannot get a ticket, take advantage to watch The Dial in action; you’re guaranteed to see goals. Match entry is free and the clubhouse at Alwyns Lane (home of Chertsey Town) offers a range of cold beverages that you can enjoy while watching the game.

Check out their website and social channels, which rival most Isthmian, Southern and Northern League clubs, to keep fans at the heart of the action. There’s also an opportunity to purchase replica shirts and merchandise from the club’s online shop.

@dialsquarefc20

@dialsquarefcofficial @dialsquarefc

ALL HAIL THE PROFESSOR!

I’lladmit very candidly, I didn’t truly rate the signing of Jorginho from Chelsea, one year ago or so. Going from the youthful, muchcoveted, exciting Moisés Caicedo to the seasoned Italian midfielder was too big of a leap for me.

I could definitely see all the good reasons for bringing him in, last January, but the flaws and deficiencies looked just bigger and overwhelmed the obvious qualities of the former Napoli and Chelsea metronome.

Could he cope with the intensity levels demanded by Mikel Arteta?

Wouldn’t he become immediately the defensive liability all our opponents would target – especially the big ones?

How would he adapt to a fast-

A very useful team player, a mentor for your youngsters and surely an upgrade to Mohamed Elneny, who was out for the season when the Italian was acquired from Chelsea, but not an element capable of displacing Thomas Partey, or even effectively deputising for him once the Ghanaian midfielder would inevitably pick up another injury.

In my mind, one thing was the Italy national team’s setup, in which he would thrive and shine, and another thing was Mikel Arteta’s setup, especially in a season when we would often go gung-ho from the opening minutes and simply not get off the gas until we were completely cooked.

He was instrumental when Italy pulled the ultimate surprise and won the Euros, but he wasn’t as influential in the Chelsea teams that won the Europa League, Champions League,

Clock End Italia praises the intelligence, efficiency and brilliant mind of Italian midfielder, Jorginho Clock End Italia

of seeing the right passing lanes, pick up the correct positions and make the games tick when the pressure is at its maximum and the space and time on the ball are scarce.

Reports from Italy and from Colney tell the story of a guy who understands football faster and better than most of his colleagues, sometimes better than some coaches.

While his background history of a skinny boy with no apparent outstanding skills is one of a determined, driven, intelligent kid who found solutions for every problem that he was presented with.

When questioned about his work rate and running stats, Italian legend Roberto Baggio once famously said that he “let’s the football do all the running for him, because the football doesn’t sweat.” and Jorginho seems to have adhered to the same philosophy, with his runs becoming more and more efficient, while the ball flies around with speed and acceleration.

At the Arsenal and under Mikel Arteta, Jorginho has found the ideal setup to make his qualities count and his weaknesses limited, mostly thanks to a tactical setup that sees the whole team stay compact and squeezed within

minimum distances, and also thanks to the athleticism of the players surrounding him, like Declan Rice, Ben White, Thomas Partey (when fit), Martin Odegaard and many others.

In a team that rarely leaves players with acres of spaces to cover, except for the two centrebacks, Jorginho can do what he does best – let the football run sharply and help his teammates to find time and space on the ball.

When you compare him to his so-called direct rivals for a starting spot in the first XI, Jorginho doesn’t possess Declan Rice outrageous engine and isn’t as quick on the half-turn as Thomas Partey, but the Italian can anticipate the plays like no-one else – perhaps on par with Martin Odegaard – and pick up the right option for almost every play.

He might not be very flashy, but he knows how to split up the defensive line when the occasion arises, and how to make opponents commit to the press and create gaps in the middle or final third.

His arrival might not have been very exciting, but it is now quite obvious why Mikel Arteta and Edu did not hesitate to bring him to north London when they had the chance.

IS YOURS GOLD?

Author Darren Berry recalls the Invincibles season in his brilliant book

May 15th, 2004. I watched from the North Bank as Patrick Vieira lifted the Premiership trophy in the North London sunshine thinking to myself “this will never be done again.”

Paddy wasn’t merely lifting the Premiership trophy; he was lifting it as the captain of the only team in Premiership / Premier League history to go through an entire league campaign undefeated.

20 years on, that feat is yet to be repeated.

A couple of years ago, I began to write a book celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Arsenal Invincibles.

From the first time I fired up the laptop, I was back there in 2004. Those memories began to flood back. Game by game, emotion by emotion, I was able to immerse myself in that incredible season….

Van Nistelrooy’s last minute penalty miss at Old Trafford.

That Henry goal against Liverpool on Good Friday.

Winning the league at White Hart Lane.

Even watching on my own in a pub in Walton-on-the-Naze as we scraped a draw at Portsmouth to leave us just two games from being Invincible.

And, of course, that glorious afternoon in the Highbury sunshine as we secured our place in the history books.

I’m rapidly approaching half a century on this planet and, with the way the world is right now,

Darren Berry @GoonerFanzine

most of my days are taken up thinking about keeping up with the bills and simply doing my best to get by.

Modern life leaves little time for stopping to remember what happened 20 years ago!

So, writing this book was the perfect way to escape the day-to-day and transport myself back to the Invincible Season for scant a few hours at a time.

I hope the book has the same effect on anyone that reads it. The feedback I’ve had so far certainly suggests that to be the case.

So, if you feel like taking a trip back to that glorious season, now is the perfect time, as we prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Arsenal Invincibles.

Is Yours Gold? The Arsenal Invincibles 20th Anniversary is available now through Legends Publishing, and you can get 20% off for a limited time. Place your order using the code GOLD20 at checkout. The book also includes a foreword by Ray Parlour & a FREE, EXCLUSIVE GOLD TROPHY BADGE while stocks last.

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ARSENAL WOMEN ACHIEVE BACK-TOBACK EMIRATES STADIUM SELLOUTS

Arsenal

Women now hold the record for the six highest attendances at Women’s Super League matches, following consecutive full houses at the Emirates

The Gunners sold-out Emirates Stadium for games against Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, and Jonas Eidevall’s side rewarded the thousands who were in attendance with two important wins.

February’s match against United marked Arsenal’s first Emirates sellout in the WSL, and Arsenal Women’s second in their history having done so for the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final against Wolfsburg last season.

Both matches saw Arsenal Women boast the second-highest attendance in English football on the weekend of the fixture, only surpassed by Tottenham playing at home in the Premier League.

Arsenal head coach Jonas Eidevall said before the Spurs match: “It’s incredible, it’s great, and it very much shows that it’s not a one-off. It’s less than 12 months ago that we sold out the stadium for the first time for the Women’s team against Wolfsburg in the Champions League semi-final. Everyone felt what a huge achievement that was and now it’s about having a great football team.

“We’re not only searching for the highs, but we’re also searching for consistency, we’re searching for sustainability, we’re searching for creating a culture at Emirates Stadium week-in, week-out, and this shows great progress in doing so.”

On the pitch, Eidevall’s side bounced back well after losing to West Ham in the WSL and then exiting the FA Cup at the hands of Manchester City.

Despite losing impressive January signing Emily Fox to the Gold Cup, Arsenal beat Manchester United 3-1 in style in N5 thanks to goals from Cloé Lacasse and Kim Little, and a Geyse own goal.

The in-form Lacasse then followed eventual champion Fox to the Gold Cup, along with Sabrina D’Angelo, but Arsenal were able to right the wrongs of their narrow defeat to Tottenham in December.

Alessia Russo scored the only goal to colour North London red once again

Arsenal also sealed their place in the Conti Cup final after beating London City Lionesses and Aston Villa, and will face Chelsea at Molineux on Easter Sunday. The Gunners beat Emma Hayes’ side 3-1 in last year’s final.

If you were in attendance for the Spurs win, you may well have spotted that an all-female ground staff were in action working on the Emirates pitch, along with an all-female tech team. We’ll have more on this trailblazing story very soon.

FROM THE DARK END OF THE STREET

Waddon

You p*ss more money up the wall as you tap your card at the tube station barriers.

You pass the bizzies stationed, in their highvis, helping stem the steady flow of steaming, streaming football fans.

You do your best to traverse the busy intersection without getting mowed down while your mate chews your ear off about City’s runin and about our best option at left back and about some goal some hero netted twoscore years ago.

You pass the winners and the losers dropping flutter after flutter at the bookies on the corner, in a vain stab at mitigating the chance of a rough day. Be lucky, boys.

And you turn the corner onto streets you recognise as your own.

Henry Waddon @GoonerFazine

On the baron fields and chrome cobbles, passed the terraced houses that have stood and watched utterly delusional football fans march past them for decades upon decades upon decades.

Passed the hot dog stands, and the unbearable childhood nostalgia that lies in the smell of sizzling onions and warm bread and tomato ketchup and freshly printed matchday programmes.

Passed the punters having one or two or three before they make their way to the ground. Something to take the edge off. Something to heighten the senses, or to numb them.

Passed the touts that swim against the tide, trying and failing to remain inconspicuous as they whisper promises of buying or selling any matchday tickets.

Stories of the timeless walk from Finsbury Park to the Emirates, by Henry

Passed the stands selling pumped-up paraphernalia that will one day gather dust at the back of some young man’s closet, a silent reminder of the boy who managed to forget his troubles for a while.

Passed the brutal, immutable reminders of the world that keeps on spinning outside of this bubble. The pair who, whatever the weather, stand resolutely and shake their tins for children with cancer. A vital lesson in perspective.

Passed the street preacher, with his mic and his board and his moralistic judgement. “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day”, he says. “Momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” .

“I know, pal”, I think to myself. “I’ve come to watch the Arsenal.”

Then there is nothing but to break the line and ascend those famous, hallowed steps. Those beautiful steps of brick and stone.

The odd, brave soul sends out a shout of “Red Army”, or “What do we think of Tottenham?” Some catch alight, and send beautiful, impossible choral echoes bouncing off the walls. Others peter out, a reminder of the futility and transiency of this entire, incredibly bizarre spectacle.

As long as these stone steps have existed, they have been trodden by clueless, romantic fanatics, the ghosts of Highbury still hiding among these heady waters. Gentrified flats and high rises. The manor might be changing, but the people still remain. A sea of red carrying like-minded bodies.

And they make their way across the bridge, and to the immortal ground that we’ve come to call our home. Passed the bronzed statuettes that eternalise treasured memories. Titi, Dennis, Tony, Arsene and the like.

Under the lofty, watching gaze of the corporate tiers, who absorb the concrete theatre from the boxes, prawn sandwiches in

hand. In the stalls below, some commemorate their first trip to the Emirates with a photo, redand-white-scarf aloft.

Others stomp intentionally towards their seat. The same seat they have occupied for years, and will continue to haunt for years to come.

Bag searched, patted down, QR code scanned. Through the turnstile and into the concourse.

Six-pound-fifty pint in a plastic cup and the reliable wheelhouse of chants. Pure joy. Belonging. The hope that the Arsenal pull through for you. That it’s all been worth it.

It’s only, maybe, thirty minutes from start to finish. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I may get to do it twice a month. But that cumulative hour is the very best of all the seven-hundred-and-fortyfour hours that any month can throw at me.

The walk from Finsbury Park to the Emirates is relatively short. But it feels massive to me, you know.

LEO, LEO TROSSARD ON THE WING!

On March 1, 1988, Arsenal signed Brian Marwood from Sheffield Wednesday for £600,000 somewhat out of the blue.

Marwood was 28 at the time and upto that point had enjoyed a steady if unremarkable career having played for Hull City prior to his move to the Owls.

Marwood was a tricky winger with a decent goalscoring return registering 53 goals in 191 appearances on Humberside.

He quickly settled at Wednesday and in the 1985-86 season he finished as joint top scorer alongside Lee Chapman helping the Yorkshire side to a fifth placed finish in the old Division One (Premier League for the younger readers) and to an FA Cup semi-final. He added a further 27 goals in 128 appearances.

Marwood made his Gunners debut versus Oxford United on March 30, 1988 and scored his first goal for the club from the spot against Coventry City at Highbury on May 2, 1988.

The club had endured a disappointing campaign following the silverware that had arrived in George Graham’s first season as manager in 1986-87.

Graham’s side were shocked in the 1988 Littlewoods Cup Final as their defence of the trophy was ended by Luton Town at Wembley. The side finished 6th in the table. The club were 18/1 to win the First Division at the start of the 1988-89 campaign.

Marwood started the season in tremendous fashion scoring in each of Arsenal’s four league games – away to Wimbledon, at home to Aston Villa, away to Spurs and at home to Southampton – the latter a dramatic penalty deep into stoppage time to rescue a point when the Gunners seemed destined to lose having trailed 0-2.

Ian Mills @ianafc71

Alan Smith, Golden Boot Winner in both 1988-89 and 1990-91 seasons cites Marwood as the best provider of assists during in his eight years as a Gunner.

Marwood made 38 appearances in all competitions that season contributing 10 goals and despite being ruled out by injury for the final five league games, he watched on at Anfield as Michael Thomas’s injury time goal clinched Arsenal’s first league title for 18 years.

His rise to prominence that season earned him his solitary England cap as well as his own song from the North Bank and Clock End faithful ‘Brian, Brian Marwood, Brian Marwood on the wing’.

Fast forward to January 2023 and after a very public pursuit of Mykhailo Mudryk, we were beaten to his signature by Chelsea leaving all connected with Arsenal somewhat deflated. Our attention turned to Brighton’s winger, Leandro Trossard.

At 28 a Premier League proven player and experienced Belgian international who signed for the Gunners on January 20.

Trossard won the Belgian First Division A Title and the Belgian Cup with Genk and the Belgian Second Division with Westerlo before moving to England.

He arrived with a good goalscoring record on the South Coast (25 in 116 games) and scored his first goal for the club on February 11 vs Brentford.

He ended the campaign with 10 assists including three vs Fulham (in so doing he set a new Premier League for three assists in the first half of a game away from home).

Arsenal pushed Manchester City for the title however injuries and dropped points ultimately

Ian Mills recalls Brian Marwood and sees links with ‘bargain’ Leandro Trossard

cost them as we finished second, five points adrift of the eventual Treble winners.

The 2023-24 campaign began at Wembley where Trossard’s late equaliser ensured a penalty shootout to settle the traditional curtain raiser in which Arsenal would prevail.

He scored the winner at Goodison Park to seal the Gunners’ first win at Everton since 2017 and scored a late equaliser at Stamford Bridge to salvage a point after Arsenal had trailed 0-2.

He added goals in the Champions League versus PSV and Sevilla and since the turn of the year has been in fine goalscoring form with strikes in the big wins over Crystal Palace, West Ham and Burnley.

Most significantly of all he claimed the crucial third goal in a seismic victory versus Liverpool

at the start of February. Trossard has 10 goals and two assists as we go to press.

He can operate on the left flank, as a false No9 and has been used as a No8 by Mikel Arteta. Anyone that doubted Leo’s signing no longer has any questions over it – he has been a ‘bargain’ at £27m given today’s world of ever inflated transfer fees.

There are several factors that link Marwood and Trossard - their comparatively low key careers before becoming Gunners, both being 28 when they joined the club which in turn has fuelled a hunger to hugely impress and their ability to both score goals and create chances for others particularly to earn crucial points.

Let’s hope come May they each have a further thing in common by way of a League Championship winner’s medal.

Arsenal v Crystal Palace, 20/01/2024 - Leandro Trossard of Arsenal celebrates their third goal. Photo: Jacques Feeney / Offside. Arsenal v Aston Villa, 03/09/1988 - Brian Marwood celebrates his goal. Photo: Mark Leech / Offside

THE INVINCIBLES SEASON DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?*

The diary of a cursed Gooner

Our esteemed editor-in-chief Layth, has asked The Gooner’s regular contributors to write about our memories of the Invincibles season.

And here lies the problem - I have virtually no memory of it.

It must have happened because I have the end of season DVD (I can see it on the shelf next to my Doctor Who discs “Chap with wings there, five rounds rapid”), and there is absolutely no way it could be a work of fakery playing with the long-term memories of the fans of this mighty football club.

My 2003-04 memory hole comes from the fact that I was living a long way from London, and every last penny went toward an unnecessarily long commute at the mercy of South West Trains.

Guys, I was permanently knackered and at the mercy of rail replacement buses, and I regret to report that The Greatest Season In The Club’s History somewhat slipped my mind.

I know exactly where I was when we won the double in 2002. I, the loyal but very cursed fan, was enjoying a spectacularly ill-timed family holiday to Disney in Florida.

You might have been there to see Arsenal lift two trophies, but I met Buzz Lightyear and yer big hairy fella out of Monsters Inc, so I think we all know who the winner was here. Yeah, you.

However, there is one very good reason that I know the Invincibles Season happened, and that it was not a figment of my imagination - my pal Pompey Kenn (he’s called Kenn and

Alistair Coleman @alistaircoleman

he supports Portsmouth), will never, ever shut up about Robert Pires’ alleged dive at approximately 3.40pm on the afternoon of September 13, 2003 winning that penalty in a game that could have killed the Invincibles run stone dead only five games into the season.

To say Pompey fans are still furious about this over twenty years later is an understatement. I’d go as far as saying that their unremitting anger at this supposed travesty of justice is their entire reason for existing.

To prove this, I contacted Pompey Kenn to ask about The Pires Penalty Against Pompey and his reply can be roughly translated as “FUUUUUUUUUUU…”

Anyway, the first team seem to be doing rather well and winding up the usual suspects, as evidenced by the fact that the Celebration Police are out in force, tearing us off a strip for daring to celebrate hard-won victories that they say only warrant a 1930s-style hearty handshake and a ‘jolly well done, old chap’.

Now forgive me if I’m entirely making this up, but did those days of Charles “Charlie” Charles even exist at all?

Celebration Police - arrest this man

After all, wasn’t Paul Merson’s “lager lager” celebration of 1993 merely a tribute to exactly the same as one done by the entire 1930 FA Cup winning side?

No footage of this so-called “incident” exists, as cameras were famously banned from Wembley Stadium for the match, but my witnesses to the fact are totally imaginary.

So, who can tell us - the famous Arsenalhow to celebrate? No-one, that’s who.

In fact, the club can win this otherwise pointless debate simply by issuing all pitch-side stewards with a hi-viz tabard which they don as the final whistle blows, with “CELEBRATION POLICE” in big letters on the back.

Then, it will be easy to point out that a lack of intervention by our highly-trained Celebration Police means that they have decided that team celebrations did not cross the line, and that will be the end of it.

And finally, a word on half-and-half scarves, after Half-Arsenal-Half-Spuds scarves were spotted selling for £20 outside the WSL North London derby recently. A total travesty, and those responsible should be horsewhipped.

Having said that, I may have to purchase one, just so I can test it to destruction, like a responsible scientist. However, there’s a stumbling point right at the start of the process, in that it involves buying one, where people might see me, judge me, and put me on a list.

If you feel the urge to spend £20, may I suggest buying the Invincibles end of season DVD and the 49 DVD of the entire unbeaten streak in all its glory?

You’d still have £15 left over to buy the same again for three people who have made poor life choices such as supporting Spurs, Chelsea or West Ham.

*Yes. Yes it did.

Harry Kane’s Brief aus München

Guten

Tag, Hallo, wie geht’s? Everything’s coming up Harry here!

Bayern Munich are so desperate to help me to settle in that they are actively trying not to win any trophies, just so it makes me think I’m still playing for Spurs!!!

It’s as if they know I have carefully plotted my career so I can own as few medals as possible, due to my crippling phobia of shiny things, as well as playing for Spurs.

In fact, they’re so dead keen to make me feel like I’m playing for Spurs, they’ve fixed it so we can get beaten by Arsenal in the Champions League - and I couldn’t be happier!!!!!!

And the amazing thing is that it’s working! I’m absolutely banging them in, but the rest of the team is playing like they’re wearing massive clown shoes.

Clown shoes that they’ve bought from the Tottenham club shop, along with the Gazza brand plastic t*ts, which are now compulsory for the rest of the squad (but not me!!!).

It’s even funnier because they’ve made Eric Dier wear three sets and he looks like a cow.

Herr Tuchel (his real name is Thomas, but he likes to draw attention to his excellent haircut) says he’s very pleased to have me in his arsenal, and I think that means he knows of my undercover status of looking brilliant but not actually winning anything.

I promised Arsène not to tell anybody about it when he recruited me 20 years ago, and I’ve been good to my word.

My reward (as much Haribo Tangfastics as I can eat) seemed like a good idea when I was

eight, but I’d really like to swap for Starmix now please.

Anyway, I’m so popular here that I heard a song some guy called Neil Young wrote about me called ‘Like A Harry Kane’.

It’s apparently about all the up-and-coming players who are - like me - actively avoiding silverware by rocketing vital penalties over the crossbar in major international tournaments.

As the lyrics say ”I’m getting blown away” - just like the Kane Trophy Cabinet which is useless in gusty weather because it’s completely empty and is in fact a tent.

Today’s German word is Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister, which means “head district chimney sweep”, which I used in the VIP lounge at the Bayern Munich VIP training centre for VIP players today, and given a funny look before being told “Oh ja, Dick van Dyke!” and made to order lunch from the children’s menu.

Anyway, my kiddie-sized fish fingers chips and beans “für der englischen Kartoffelkopf” (it’s apparently the nicest thing they can call you) has arrived, and if I don’t eat it all they won’t let me have a Calippo for afters. “I don’t make the rules,” says Herr Tuchel and his great hair. He’s right. FIFA make the rules.

Your pal

Harry Kane (the current professional footballer)

PS please write soon, I’m beginning to think that these letters are being intercepted and used by a popular north London football publication to make fun of me. Ask Victoria to let you have the crayons.

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So, to recap, here are the two options

United Kingdom:

Gooner Gold Subscription £45 – includes access to our digital edition (gift it to a friend) and your name in print in our forthcoming Gooner Fanzine Hall of Fame

Gooner Standard Subscription £30 - for those on a budget - price frozen for yet another season

Rest of the World:

Gooner Gold Subscription: £65

Standard Subscription: £49 - for those on a budget - price frozen for yet another year

All payment options are available through our online shop at WWW.ONLINEGOONER.CO.UK

BANK DETAILS

Account Name: Gooner Publishing

Account Number: 24354295

Sort Code: 60-11-10

CHEQUES

We know that online banking isn’t for everybody so we will be able to accept cheques again this year

Cheques should be made payable to ‘Gooner Publishing’ and posted to:

Gooner Publishing, Paynes Park House, Paynes Park, Hitchin, SG5 1EH.

Please enclose a note with your full name, address, phone number and Email address or use the template template below. As with previous years, cheques won’t be cashed until we reach our target 1000 UK subscribers. If we fail to reach our target, cheques will be destroyed. Please do not send cash!

Yes please sign me up for the 2023-24 Gooner Gold subscription at £45 to help ensure our future

I’m happy with the standard subscription at £30 to help Save the Gooner

We will accept a photocopy of this form if you do not want to cut this page out of your Gooner. Or simply send a cheque for £30 or £45 to the address above with you full name, address and postcode.

Or visit our online shop at www.onlinegooner.co.uk

OBITUARY

FRANK KELLY

Many Arsenal fans that attended games at Highbury and the Emirates would have encountered a character called Frank Kelly, writes Kevin Whitcher.

If they didn’t know his name, there’s a good chance they’ll recognise him from the photo with this obituary.

Frank sadly passed away aged 68 at the beginning of February, and he certainly made enough of a contribution to The Gooner story for his sad death to be marked here.

Myself and my pal Dave started selling stuff at Arsenal matches at the start of the 1989-90 season, and by the end of it we were effectively distributing The Gooner to relieve editor Mike Francis of that duty from our ‘fanzine wall’ on Gillespie Road.

We knew Frank from the Highbury Barn pub, and the idea of him selling The Gooner to help him with beer money was mooted by mutual friends.

Now let’s not beat about the bush here. Frank both drank and smoked heavily and certainly continued smoking until the end of his days.

He didn’t look after himself physically and had to stop selling The Gooner after over 20 years in 2014 as a consequence of declining health.

However, we gave him a chance back in the early 1990s and over the years he both sold The Gooner for us and in the final seasons at Highbury manned a stall that sold fanzines and memorabilia at the top of Aubert Park.

At the Emirates he sold from a spot in Benwell Road for eight seasons, until it became a bit too much of a struggle and he called it a day.

He used to go to the pub while the game was on in the years when he was not manning a stall and gravitated towards The George when Arsenal moved from Highbury.

Frank had some particular passions in life – outside of Arsenal and cricket, he enjoyed his music, most notably the Who, and his TV, none more so than ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and his conversation would be littered with Del Boy phrases.

Now Frank wasn’t so much of a wide boy in that sense, but he was a charmer.

He seemed to get on easily with most people and had a certain charisma that you don’t see too often, the kind that meant you could forgive him for a lot.

I know a lot of people warmed to Frank and regularly had a chat with him and that he was missed once he stopped coming to the matches.

This is to inform those people who knew him that he has watched his last Arsenal match on TV, listened to his final Who record and smoked his last cigarette.

He died peacefully on the sofa in his flat and was found the following day by concerned family when they hadn’t heard from him.

I’ll retain fond memories of the old sod, and I am sure I won’t be alone.

RIP fella

Kevin Whitcher

ARSENAL SUPPORTERS’ TRUST

Ownership, Representation, Influence

For just £20 annually, you can be a voice in making Arsenal a stronger club with true custodian values.

You can attend meetings with guests including representatives from the club, football experts and leading journalists. You’ll get the latest news on all supporters issues at Arsenal and a full overview on club finances.

The most important poart? You’ll be a voice that is actually heard by the club. Our surveys, meetings and feedback forms give you a direct input to the Fans’ Forum and Advisory Board.

The proof is in what we have already done:

Helping to stop the European ‘Super League’

Securing Government support for independent regulation of English Football. Safe-standing to be introduced at the Emirates Stadium for match-going fans, including facilities and atmosphere.

More than £45,000 raised for the Arsenal Foundation and Islington charities.

And we won’t stop there. Be a part of the club and its future. Be more than a fan.

To join the AST from £20 a year, go to: www.arsenaltrust.org/join