Who?! Me?
Watching the Burnley vs Arsenal game yesterday, I was struck with the incredible partisan nature of the crowd. I don’t mean fervent, passionate get-behind-your-team partisan, I mean boo-the-other-team-and-every-single-decision-that-is-given-or-not-given-against-you. It was absolutely remarkable. Handball shouts every 2 minutes, baying for blood with every Arsenal tackle. It got me thinking about the basis of football support.
Barnes went down more times than Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat
Do these fans go to a match to vent and release the frustrations they have in every day life? How can it be fun to spend 90 minutes with your eyes bulging out of your head screaming at blokes chasing a football. Perhaps they should spend more time actually supporting their own team than on their obsession with Arsenal?
Diving, cheating, Arsenal.
Burnley Twitter after the game was quite a thing. Apparently Arsenal should have had 2 players sent off, they spent the whole game diving, and Ramsey dived to win the 92nd min penalty. I honestly had no idea who they were referring to.
Apparently this was a red-card-worthy tackle
Turned out they meant Xhaka (for one of the best tackles of the season) and Mustafi for persistent fouling (4 fouls). Ashley Barnes spent 90 minutes throwing himself to the ground at every opportunity. Diving, I call it. Don’t recall an Arsenal dive, that’s isn’t to say there wasn’t one however.
Nothing to see here, apparently
Ignoring the actual penalty for a second, Bellerin was clearly fouled in the box in the second half – giving Arsenal their 6th blatant non-penalty of the season (yes I’m counting). No mention of that from Burnley fans. And as for the penalty: it’s a push, a clear push, in the box. Penalty. 100%. Oddly just the sort of ones Arsenal haven’t been given for a while now.
Ramsey gets a shove
I wondered what drives a fan to be so one-eyed, to literally ignore everything that went on in the game and stick to their pre-conceived ideas of what “would” happen during the game and stick to it before, during, and after the game.
Then I remembered that over 70% of Burnley voted for Brexit. And I stopped wondering.
40-something Surrey-based Gooner. Passionately supporting The Arsenal since the 80’s.
You sir are a f**king knob FACT
I voted brexit Im an arsenal fan living in London. Not the posh part though whom all voted remain!!
AND NOT ONE SINGLE ARSENAL PLAYER BOOKED ??????? BURNLEY PLAYER BOOKED FOR GOING TO THE LINESMAN TELLING HIM HE MADE A MISTAKE WHEN YOUR GOALKEEPER PUSHED THE BALL ONTO THE POST AND OUT FOR A THROW IN BUT IT WENT TO YOU INSTEAD OF BURNLEY. YET ALL GAME ARSENAL PLAYER’S RAN TO THE REF EVERY OTHER MINUTE AND EVEN ONE PLAYER JUMPED UP AND DOWN LIKE A SPOILT KID IN PROTEST TO THE REF AND GUESS WHAT NOTHING NO BOOKING AT ALL FOR GOING TO THE OFFICIAL’S ALL GAME………AMAZING ONE SIDED RULES.
AN ARSENAL PLAYED FOULING FROM BEHIND TWICE IN TWO MINUTES AND HE GOT A TALKING TO BNOTH TIMES BUT NOT ONE SINGLE YELLOW, YET GOING OFF THE RULES OF THE GAMES HE SHOULD OF BEEN BOOKED TWICE AND SENT OFF.
YET YOU SAY “biased and belligerent Burnley fans” TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT HOME.
TELL RAMSEY NOT TO GO OUT TODAY WITH IT BEING SO WINDY, THE WAY HE GOES OVER SO EASY HE MIGHT GET HURT IN THIS WIND.
Why refer to Brexit in a supposedly football article?
I wondered what drives a fan to be so one-eyed, to literally ignore everything that went on in the game. Then I saw that Brad Smith, the author, is a 40 something Surrey based Gooner. And I stopped wondering.
And I voted for Brexit for a number of complex Social, Political and Economic reasons. I have been an Arsenal fan for well over 60 years. I have a Masters degree from a leading university. I was a university lecturer and a consultant retained by many well known international organisations. I live in a very affluent area of Oxfordshire. Do I fit your stereotype?
I can’t believe an article so full of bias dares to acuse another team of bias.
I agree that the referee had a right to give a penalty on this occasion, an incredibly soft & theatrical penalty for sure, but I can see how he came to the decision to give it. However, to lament the Burnley fans on the back of this is ridiculous when you consider the fact you too would feel aggrieved if this had been given at the other end.
As for the Burnley fans, no we do not spend every game on the back of the other team or the referee. Arsenal however is an exception. The entire atmosphere pre match was filled with Burnley fans trying to figure out which creative way of controversially screwing us over in the last minute Arsenal could conjure this time. Low and behold……….
The fact of the matter is if there was video refereeing in enforcement last year, Arsenal would have 4 less points on the final table and burnley would have 2 more. Whilst that mihght not of effected Burnley that much, the 4 points would have left you even further behind your superior rivals Spurs.
So yes, we are going to take it more personally against Arsenal, because you’ve got previous. I don’t mind if it was swings and roundabouts between us. But it’s not, it’s just swings.
Good article till the credit bit at the end idiot probley never stepped in Highbury new stadium Wenger lover
Did you actually go to the game and the previous games? Did you see the end results from those? can you honestly say that scoring with your hand and a penalty for being off side is a fair result? Did you fail to notice that our player got booked for dissent but several of yours moaned to the referee throughout and no action taken, trying to influence the decisions all the time. Did you fail to see Sanches 7 yards back instead of 10?Brady’s tackle was excellent, how you could see that from you position in the ground I will never know. Did you see the poor decisions made against Burnley and do you really think that the booing was just about your players, you flatter yourself too much, it was about the referee and your players behaviour. If you are a passionate supporter you will understand the issues, that is of course if you can get more than three people to voice their opinion at your ground. Your comment on Brexit just goes to show how ignorant you really are, I voted to stay in – so as someone else states in their reply they voted to come out, you don’t even know your own fan base. Irrespective of that, people who support larger teams think they have a god given right to beat the likes of little clubs, we heard the same at other away games we attended, just because little burnley with a small budget are competing with the likes of you, you just can’t take it, , I was not born in Burnley but I’ve lived here for a while and I support my local team – I agree with the first guy’s assessment of you, I really hope you do win **** all because fans like you deserve it.
What a one sided bias approach to supporting a team. You Sir, have just argued that the opposition fans were doing exactly what you have wrote about your views on Arsenal. Think before you spout rubbish. A team with the money, fan base of Arsenal struggling to match a small northern mill town team should be disgusted that they cheat to win.
Which game were you at? Certainly not at Turf Moor. I f anyone was biased and belligerent it was Arsenal fans. Always cheating and not a Brit among them. Get a life!
Tended to agree with most of that until you chose to bring politics into it. Arsenal won remain lost,get over it.
To Burnley fans, please do not beliieve that the individual who wrote this article is in any way representative of the vast majority of Arsenal fans. We understand and admire your love and passion for your club. A very well run, well managed club. I did believe it was a penalty but I also believe that the so-called “bigger” clubs (which we still, just about, quallify as) do get far more decisions in their favour than they warrant. What you say about Kos etc is perfectly true. We would have been incandescent with rage if it had happened to us. It is pointless for us to point to Sterling or Vardy or Richarlison. You feel agrieved. I disagree with you but I perfectly understand. I obviously hope that we finish in the top four but I also hope (and I think that most fans from most other clubs will agree) that you also finish in the top four. If you do it will be one of the best things to happen in English football. I wish all the best.
Thank you TD73. Of course we are stupidly biased and angry, isn’t that what supporting your team is all about. Normally we would have just groaned and got on with it but the fact that this has happened to us three times in two seasons against Arsenal made us all a bit irrational and reasonable Gooners like yourself (not the author of this piece of tripe) have to admit that the winner in the 94th minute last season was hand ball. It’s also especially hard when we haven’t had a penalty for ages. This year for example Joe Hart absolutely cleaned up Chris Wood and we got nothing yet we keep getting ‘soft’ penalties against us all the time against the big teams.
The worst thing about the article however is the disgusting and disrespectful comment about Burnley “voting 70% Brexit”. What the pompous ‘Surrey based Gooner’ and others like him still don’t understand is that poor working class areas like Burnley voted Brexit because of people like him who think they are superior to everyone else and other peoples views are worth nothing. He’s a disgrace to Arsenal.
However good luck to you and other decent Arsenal fans and I’m sorry if some of us lost it a bit yesterday in the heat of the moment.
No need to apologise my friend for wearing your heart on your sleeve.
I am really sorry to see the reaction of decent Burnley fans to this article but not as sorry as I am to see the unfortunate brexit jibe. Many of the Burnley fans would be too young to remember the time when Burnley were vying with Spurs to be the top team in England. Those of you who were supporters of the JImmy McIlroy era would recall the great games they were involved in. Do you remember the cup final in 1963 ( think that was the year ) at a time when we had freak weather conditions and the country was under 6 ft of snow? Turf Moor had the best playing surface in England perhaps only to Ipswich and Burnley was an industrious MIll Town.
I am an Arsenal fan and I cherish the history of this great club, but to denigrate Burnley is to forget a part of this nation`s past when we were Great Britain. To see the status of Burnley and its football club decline in front of your eyes and to see the factories close must be painful and it is understandable to believe that immigration is the single most important factor for jobs to be lost and hospitals close.
This is a football venue for football fans and mainly Arsenal fans but I am trying to understand the Burnley psyche. I fully understand why they voted for Brexit when Burnley has been a Labour stronghold. It must be a great lift for the people of Burnley to see their team doing so well. They are probably used to feeling that they get the shitty end of the stick and to them this was another example.
I understand that, but I disagree. It was a legitimate penalty which was the most relevant incident which determined the result of the match. We won on the balance of a hard fought match, but please don`t think that everybody derides Burnley or it`s like.
Victor,
I am a Burnley supporter old enough to remember Jimmy Mac and the Cup Final – my dad first took me to the Turf in 1958. Burnley was built on the cotton industry and coal mines and Burnley Football Club, who were founder members of the Football League together with Arsenal. As I said to TD 73 we probably got a bit upset with the penalty more than we would normally given it always seems to be the big clubs that get the decisions – would the ref have given the penalty at the other end? I very much doubt it. Also the abuse thrown on Burnley fans for being biased – so Arsenal fans aren’t then? This all the semantics of a football match and soon forgotten but for a proud community to be lectured by a ’40 something Surrey based Arsenal fan’ about how thick we are to be voting Brexit is something else. Who does he think he is? For his information the Brexit vote wasn’t all about immigration or the EU it was about working class people being fed up of being told what to do and think by people working in the ‘finance sector’ or the ‘city’ and people like Brad Smith. People have been left behind. Whilst the rich get richer and don’t pay their tax, the working poor haven’t had a pay increase for 10 years and seen services reduced dramatically. The government bailed the banks out but left people to rot. The coal and the cotton are long gone and all a lot of people have left in Burnley is the football club and we will not have Brad Smith deriding decent people and belittling them. I know he doesn’t represent all Arsenal fans any more than certain Burnley ‘supporters’ represent all of us and I thank you and TD 73 and others for their comments.
Hi Ross, thank you for your reply to my comment. I know this is a football venue but the issue of Brexit was raised in the context of Burnley supporters. I was simply trying to say that some Arsenal supporters have empathy wit you without sacrificing their own support of Arsenal.
To elaborate, I was a young man when The Spurs/Burnley cup final was played and my best mate was Jimmy Martin who played for a short while at Burnley. He was a Burnley fan at the time, so I was involved in rivalry with him as a lifelong Arsenal fan. At that time it was usual to mention Burnley in the same context as Spurs, Arsenal, Wolves ( yes Wolves ) and LIverpool. Man U were a burgeoning club post Munich, so I am aware of your club`s background and to slight them is a sadly misguided form of behaviour.
Incidentally, I watched the roving TV reporters the day after the Referendum and I saw people, particularly women say that immigration was the main reason for their vote to leave.
I know I’m an uneducated Northern monkey but 66.6% was less than 70% on the odd occasion that I was allowed to go to school. And that was 66.6% of those that voted.
I counted 2 “facts” in that dross and at least 50% of them were plain wrong.
Remind me, who is it that is one eyed?
Some great balanced comments here which have lowered my blood pressure after it threatened to go off-the-scale after reading the article, particularly the Brexit jibe. I am a passionate Claret, having been born and raised in the Burnley area, but have lived in St Albans for 30+ years and know many Arsenal fans and, indeed, used to go and watch games regularly at Highbury in the days when you could walk on. I don’t hate Arsenal but I do support my club in a one-eyed, sometimes irrational way. Having said that Turf Moor is (relatively) gentrified these days, like all grounds, and not quite the bear-pit it used to be (sadly, I would say overall). I thought we played superbly yesterday and am proud of the progress we continue to make. To lose AGAIN in added time to a soft penalty, albeit not as bad as the two criminal decisions last season, was sickening beyond words. I’m over it now (almost)but Lee Mason is , and always has been, a pathetic excuse for a referee.
When you come from Surrey and are a founder member of the Highbury Library then passionate support would surely come as an unwelcome shock. Lee Mason set the tone that no dissent would be allowed by booking Defour. Then all Arsenal’s dissent was ignored that was the thing that began to rile the home support. The ridiculous free kick with chief dissenter Sanchez allowed to stand about five yards from the ball confirmed that Mason wasn’t going to punish Arsenal at all this day. How can a referee who can’t see a stationary player five yards away seriously expect us to believe that he saw the push in the box more than the remarkable dive. It is physically impossible to push someone in the back and for his arms to shoot out naturally like that.
Burnley had the better of the first half, for a period in the second lhalf Arsenal kept the ball amazingly well.
Wenger may or may not agree but at least today he had two things going for him. He got his coat fastened , rumour was Ozil was dropped to perform that duty, and he did for once “ see everything “
I am a passionate Claret , so obviously I would say I think a draw would have been a fair result.
But we move on , one game at a time , says our Noble Leader Sean Dyche and that’s why I am off on the train to Ballmouth
Yes, we were partisan and loud yesterday. It’s called supporting your team. Something Arsenal fans haven’t done for a long time. As others have pointed out, it’s not just yesterday’s match that irks, it’s the course of the previous matches – blatant hand ball ‘goals’, Sanchez an Co acting like spoilt brats continuously (he virtually ‘refereed’ the last half hour or so of the game yesterday, bless him), Wenger’s complete and utter contempt for other teams – it’s the whole package. Unfortunately, in your little ivory tower in Surrey, you don’t see any of it, do you ?
Can we please look to our own back yard before criticising others. Arsenal supporter for 63 years – waited 14 years for a sniff of glory or silverware. I want to go to our stadium and be surrounded by positive support. If we feel it is not going exactly as we professional managers wish then we have the opportunity to discuss after the game in the pub, train or coffee bar what we think is wrong. Meantime please support our team— support is part of word supporters. If any fan is so disenchanted that they can only jeer rather than cheer then please move to a different team.