So just a bit of light
hearted fun for a Sunday afternoon. I hope it will help take you mind as of
whether you will be able to bring yourself to cheer a man in red and white with
animal fur squashed on his head. In short whether Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas
or any other superstar is arriving in N5 or otherwise I can 100% guarantee that
this blog will shed no light on the subject.
Some
of you may recognise this as a slightly updated version of a piece I wrote for
1ND2OU this time last year. Apologies but most will not have seen it and it may
just make you smile and give some perspective at the same time; Call it a
Father’s Day Special.
Got One
Not got
one
As Arsenal fans, we are all pretty quick to bemoan our
lack of trophies these past eight years. For crying out loud we are the
Arsenal, do we not have a divine right to win all the time? Well sadly no we do
not. Spare a thought for the fans of all the clubs who have never won the
Premier League, which given that only five clubs have done so, is most football
fans. In fact we are one of only seven sides, from memory, who have
graced the Premier League every year since its inception.
I consider it an honour to follow Arsenal FC and when I look
back at how may lean periods there have been since I began supporting them in
the mid 1970’s, the present barren run is no real hardship. Of course I want
more and I feel we are close but in the grand scheme of things it could be so
much worse.
For example I could be a truly top-flight international footballer,
plying my trade in the greatest league of them all, for years and years in some
cases, never to win the glittering prize. I know there are huge financial
compensations as a professional footballer in the Premier League but how must
it feel to play week in week out, season in season out and never to win the
league. It is frustrating as a fan to wait seven years, but some of the
greatest players we have seen in this country over the past 20 years have never
had the feeling we as Arsenal fans and many Arsenal players have relished on three
beautiful occasions.
So for our amusement let’s consider this greatest Premier League 11, never to win the EPL. Not a bad little team as it goes but trust me there are numerous big names I could have included, so play the game at home and send you team in via the comments of twitter @GunnersTown
When you have finished laughing at all these sad, non
Arsenal, largely Spurs and Liverpool, so called greats you may be feeling a tad
better about our eight-year Premier League itch? Not yet. You are hard to
please but I virtually guarantee you will feel better, you will be grinning and
you may even laugh out loud when you compare the above table with the next one.
However let me set the scene for you:
A living room somewhere
in the world in 25/30 years time:
Young lad walks into room and approaches old man in armchair and
says: “Grandpa, my dad says
you used to be a professional footballer. Is that true?”
Grandpa: “Why
yes lad that is indeed true.”
Young Lad: “Wow
Grandpa who did you play for? Was it anyone good and did you win anything?”
Grandpa: “Well
sonny let me tell you something. I played for the greatest club in England,
called the Arsenal. I played for their greatest ever manager, a French genius
named Arsene Wenger. I played in the toughest league in the world for the
Arsenal, called the English Premier League and what’s more I won it in their
famous Red and White.”
Young Lad: “Grandpa
you played for Arsenal and you won the Premier League. Wow that is so
cool, I am so proud of you!”
Grandpa:
“Thanks lad I can tell you of other things I did in my career but nothing ever
topped winning the Premier League with the Arsenal. I just wish I could have
played more in the famous red and white laddie. After my time
amazingly there were other players who chose to leave Arsenal and I
never understood them at all, but that is for another day.”
Introducing a table of 11 potential Grandpas all having achieved
something the above players can only dream of:
Hughes; so promising a
left foot team mates called him ‘Chippy’ a winner in 98
10 appearances in 03/04
makes Jeremie Aliadiere a forgotten ‘Invincible!
Not bad for our Arsenal Grandpa EPL winners 11. Only 518
Premiership appearances for AFC and 13 Winners Medals to show for it. This
represents combined total of 9 less than the league’s record appearance maker
David ‘Calamity’ James, who has not even come close.
Just a bit of fun really but I hope my Daily Sports Picks made you smile. After all
if you win the Premier League with the Arsenal and had the medal hung
around your neck, no one can ever take it away from you can they?
Until next time thanks for reading.
Dave
Seager
Cole Ryan is a guest writer from BangTheBook.com, follow him daily on Twitter at @coleryan9.
Passionate 50+ ST holder who has been making the journey to N5 regularly since the early 1980s – although his first game was in 1976. Always passionate when talking about The Arsenal, Dave decided to send a guest blog to Gunnersphere in the summer of 2011 and has not stopped writing about the Gunners since. He set up up his own site 1 Nil Down 2 One Up which he has now sold and since the summer of 2013 with a friend he launched a new project to offer new and aspiring Arsenal writers a home. Gunners Town is that platform and Dave writes here too. He is also the author of 2 Arsenal related books.
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