Not ‘AKB’ or ‘WOB’ the new Fashionable Gunner Acronym is ‘MA’ – Get on that Fence

Where is your other had Jim?

DB’s Season Dairy is back

Well, that’s another transfer window done and dusted then.

It was a bit of a weird one really seeing as for most of it, it seemed we were in for the meltdown of all meltdowns, then we signed a couple of players before the Sky Sports sponsored Transfer Deadline Day Extravaganza, people calmed down a bit, most of us didn’t even bother watching Jim White masturbating himself unconscious over the ridiculous sums of money that were spent, and some other bloke standing in front of a graphic indicating who had spent what, as if a transfer window can be measured as successful due simply to the fact that someone spent more than someone else, and as if said ridiculous sums of money flying about are something that football should be proud of.
There is, of course, no way to possibly judge if a club has had a “successful window” or not until the end of the season. Not until they start handing out trophies for it anyway.
As far as Arsenal’s window went, we’ve added in areas we needed to add, and the squad looks a bit better equipped than it did a few weeks back.
It remains to be seen if we have done enough, obviously, but seeing as Arsenal were “in for” around 8,000 players and that around 7,990 of them “snubbed Arsenal” as we “dithered” etc. etc….. I’m just glad it’s all over with.

When I first started writing for Gunners Town, I did something called the “Pre –Season Diary”, a weekly piece that covered the trials and tribulations of being an Arsenal supporter during the summer, or the Transfer Window, as it’s more commonly known.
It wasn’t long before I had renamed it the “Silly Season Diary”, the reasons for which I’m sure don’t need explaining, especially seeing as I began writing it during “The Summer of Suarez.”

I didn’t write much during the summer last year, and this year I knocked it on the head completely, as the “Have We Signed Anyone Yet Oh FFS Arsenal If We Don’t Sign Someone Today I Think I’m Going To Sit In The Corner Rocking Back And Forth Like Arthur Fowler When He Stole The Christmas Club Money Diary” has the same ring to it. (One for us older ones, that…)

Poor Arthur!

It’s become more and more of a circus every passing year, both in the way that Arsenal seemingly go about things (and to some extent how the media will have us think Arsenal go about things), and the way the fanbase react to it, and it does make me wonder sometimes if the whole club is on a wind up at our expense.
“Okay Arsene, go out there today and say something about transfer fees that will wind them up, we’ve got a book running on when @spendsomefackinmoneygooner1886 will burst a blood vessel.
You, Social Media guy, give it five minutes until after the boss’s press conference has ended then tweet a compilation of Giroud’s best goals from last season, and only retweet the replies from overseas, that should do it…..Oh, and don’t forget to wish former Gunner Mikael Silvestre a happy birthday..….”
Jeremy Beadle would be proud.

With all this, I’m sure you can see why I knocked the Pre-Season Diary on the head.
But…..the Season Diary is back, and I’ll make it as regular an occurrence as possible.

I say “…..as possible” because I write this diary as a way of looking at the highs and lows we experience throughout the season as fans, which involves a lot of looking into what people are saying on the internet, more specifically good old Social Media, which is becoming more of a minefield by the season.

It gets to the point where you just stop, have a look around and wonder if we’re taking this football lark TOO seriously. I mean, I get that we are passionate about our club, passionate about the game, and nobody has the right to tell anyone else how to live their life, but at the end of the day is football not supposed to be a release?
I guess the danger of anything that’s used as a release is that it can consume you to the point that it takes over, and ends up being quite the opposite, as the lines between the social media world and the “real world” become increasingly blurred.

That does quite often seem the case in this day and age of internet and social media saturation.
Back in the good old days, the only thing you had to get your football fix while waiting for the next day’s back pages that’s anywhere close to what we have now, was teletext.
Nowadays however, thanks to the internet and social media in particular, it’s there every minute of every day, and however much you may want to stay away from it, there’s always the temptation to open Twitter and see which journalist is winning at the long running quiz show Arsenal Fan Clickbait Bingo, or perhaps to tune into today’s episode of the popular sitcom Have We Signed Anyone Yet?

Have we signed anyone yet?

And that’s what it’s like between actual football matches, it’s like daytime TV when you’re off of work; it basically consists of people shouting at each other about nothing whatsoever, with the occasional break for the news.

It’s not all bad, of course, and it is still possible to have a reasonable conversation or debate, I’m just talking extremes here, and the problem is that it’s the extremes that stand out and get noticed the most.
Obviously, the biggest example of all this is the divide over the manager, where the extremes that both “sides” go to are so bizarre that I sometime find myself genuinely worried by some peoples Twitter bios.

This has almost led us to a point where, for some, an opinion can’t just be seen as a standalone opinion anymore; there is this constant need to compartmentalise every little thing.
Sometimes it’s like people are not actually capable of forming their own genuine, original opinion through fear of unwittingly straying over to the wrong “side”, and if you ever reach that point you’ve really lost the ability to enjoy football any more if you ask me.
You’re not allowed to change your opinion over time either, not with Twitter archaeologists around to dig up your tweets from five years ago, reminding you that you felt differently about something back then.
Listen mate, I’m not sure I liked lager the first time I tasted it* and now I literally sh.t the stuff.

All this is quite hard to put into words, but I’m sure most of you get the point.

Oh well, if you can’t beat them join them, so I’ve decided to start up my own acronym based faction.
That’s right, you can stick your AKB and your WOB malarkey where the sun don’t shine, and come and join me as a MA (Moderate Arsenal).

So, what does it mean to be a MA?

I love my MA

Remember when you were just an Arsenal supporter?
No acronyms, no compartmentalisation (it is a word, I checked….)
well, this is for those of us who refuse to be pigeonholed.
You can go and shove your pigeonholes up a pigeon’s hole for all we care.
We are an acronym, yes, but we have bucked the trend of three letter acronyms and used just two letters, so that we are as close to just being a noise as we are an acronym. Revolutionary.
There are no extremes here.
We don’t sit on either side of the fence, as we don’t acknowledge the existence of any “sides.”
We don’t even sit ON the fence.
We ARE the fence.
You see that line down the middle of the new home shirt? That’s us.

WE are the line in the middle of new home shirt

We won’t judge you, but we don’t mind if you judge us. In fact, we welcome your judgement, if only for the amusement in discovering the first Twitter account to call themselves “F.CK OFF MA” or “MA F.CK OFF”
Alternatively, if you support us feel free to include the words “I’M WITH MA” or even “MA KNOWS BEST” in your own bio.
You know it makes sense.

Anyway, after the international break, we can go back to concentrating on The Arsenal this weekend, and the chance to hopefully see our shiny new signings.
There does seem to be more of an air of optimism about this week, let’s hope the team carry that on for us and don’t go all Jeremy Beadle on us again.

The season starts here so get on the MA Red and white fence!

Up The Arsenal.

*this is probably not true, I’m sure I’ve always like the taste of lager, but the analogy worked.

Darren Berry

Islington born and bred, Arsenal through and through.

Published author.

Is Yours Gold? The Arsenal Invincibles Twentieth Anniversary – available now,

Over Land and Sea (and Lockdown), Arsenal 20/21 – The Corona Diaires – released 2021.

Clickbait: Life as a Modern Football Fan – released 2019