I've given up on football

[tpyo]

Times are changing fans want to win things players want to win things that ill play for the fans and be special to them connection is gone now its all about getting good wages or winning things.

Sad really the game i onced love is gone.

It still exists though.... just not at the highest level. Where the club was once the property of the committed 30,000 there are now millions of fans across the globe that support it "sufficiently".
I'm sure if we all picked up a Blue Square South club we'd get to experience that connection again. Footy'd be shite though.

I do wish the players would stick a bit more but maybe that's part of the problem with picking up talent from across the globe as opposed to home growing local youngsters. I guess the real test will be how long Wilshere remains here.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

It still exists though.... just not at the highest level. Where the club was once the property of the committed 30,000 there are now millions of fans across the globe that support it "sufficiently".
I'm sure if we all picked up a Blue Square South club we'd get to experience that connection again. Footy'd be shite though.

I do wish the players would stick a bit more but maybe that's part of the problem with picking up talent from across the globe as opposed to home growing local youngsters. I guess the real test will be how long Wilshere remains here.

Yeah your right down in the lower leagues the passion is there i agree.

[notwist]

Players come and go. That's normal. So do owners. The only people really loyal are the fans. Sometimes you feel with the ticket prices, and the salaries, and being the 4th richest club in the world, this refusal to compete at the highest level is short-changing us a bit. Or perhaps we were just spoilt between 98 & 05?

[tpyo]

I don't think its a case of spoilt because as you say we're loyal to our teams. Its more a case of luck. A Liverpool supporter starting now is unlucky compared to the Liverpool fan of the 70's/80's opposite goes for a Chelsea or Man City fan that died before the money turned up.

That's why all I ask for is a reasonable hope that we'll win that makes me content but I appreciate that I'm just a follower that just peeks in all the time to see how we're doing.

[Xhaka Can’t]

I totally get what you're saying and I think its the slow and steady divergence of supporters and followers. Where a supporter is more emotionally and financially attached to the club than a follower who adopts a more passive interest. My grandad was a supporter of Arsenal FC, my dad a follower and then myself a follower. Sure I attend games when the rare opportunity arises but I'm not thick and thin. I follow with a keen interest and keep tabs on every match, I also watch some games on telly.
Football used to be exclusively support based but as soon as we formed the leagues this started to change and will forever continue to change. It was about the time that followers started to outnumber supporters that I think the clubs realised they could hike ticket prices without ill effect. Who knows what will happens once they push all the supporters out.... can they get by on just the follower money? As long as the EPL is one of the #1 brands in football I think they probably can.

But it might also be a case of perspective. You've been a fan for ages and can compare the past to the present that gives you this perspective. When you were a kid did you ever hear the same sort of rant yourself from teh oldies? Did they have a similar perspective too? It's also worth bearing in mind that there will be a slew of new Arsenal fans in present and future that will accept this (overpriced, spoilt players) as the norm and find something different to complain about in the future. I'm not sure what my point is though..... did I have one?

I think you made a very good point.

[Xhaka Can’t]

Its cool he/she is on ignore now.

Glad to hear it.

If you go, you'll be missed, if he goes, it will improve the Board.

Welcome back buddy.

[Xhaka Can’t]

70 years

Dog years.

[Xhaka Can’t]

Why is cunt still censored? How can you talk about footballers when the most relevant words are removed from the language?

That was my fault.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

Glad to hear it.

If you go, you'll be missed, if he goes, it will improve the Board.

Welcome back buddy.

Cheers GB

[Niall_Quinn]

I totally get what you're saying and I think its the slow and steady divergence of supporters and followers. Where a supporter is more emotionally and financially attached to the club than a follower who adopts a more passive interest. My grandad was a supporter of Arsenal FC, my dad a follower and then myself a follower. Sure I attend games when the rare opportunity arises but I'm not thick and thin. I follow with a keen interest and keep tabs on every match, I also watch some games on telly.
Football used to be exclusively support based but as soon as we formed the leagues this started to change and will forever continue to change. It was about the time that followers started to outnumber supporters that I think the clubs realised they could hike ticket prices without ill effect. Who knows what will happens once they push all the supporters out.... can they get by on just the follower money? As long as the EPL is one of the #1 brands in football I think they probably can.

But it might also be a case of perspective. You've been a fan for ages and can compare the past to the present that gives you this perspective. When you were a kid did you ever hear the same sort of rant yourself from teh oldies? Did they have a similar perspective too? It's also worth bearing in mind that there will be a slew of new Arsenal fans in present and future that will accept this (overpriced, spoilt players) as the norm and find something different to complain about in the future. I'm not sure what my point is though..... did I have one?

Shifting priorities in life will have something to do with the view I have of football, of course. When you're a kid with no responsibilities and then a young adult who thinks there's plenty of time later to do something useful, it's easy to inflate the importance of something like football. You're right, later in life things are taken in a different perspective. But it's not the game itself as such, that still involves the tribal pursuit on 11 guys chasing a ball with a 30,000 screaming crowd urging them to kick the thing in a net. That's the passion side of it and who knows for sure why it was so fervent in the past compared to today? Tougher times, more aggression and energy to dispense with come Saturday. The feeling of hope that if the kid from down the road could make good then life wasn't pre-ordained. You were part of it even though your role was tiny - but it still counted. Now it's like having your nose pressed to the glass looking in.

I saw Ian Wright talking shit in the newspapers again. Football's like that he said, the players aren't loyal and the fans "must accept this". MUST accept this? Translated he's telling us we are mugs and that's okay. Screw you Ian, be that way if you want to but don't tell us we MUST be like that too. Who were you lifting that shirt to when you broke the scoring record? Where was the adulation coming from? Your sponsor? Sky TV? You think those moments can be bought and arranged and still mean something, you think you can hop from club to club and still break that record? You think you can build history, tradition and great memories in the minds of thousands by passing through and passing on? Wright had his moment of glory and he had to be there for how ever many hundred matches it was to claim that prize. The fans were with him. Why does he forget all this now and just accept the game must be shit because there is no other alternative?

Henry went on to break that record and that was one of the few "Olympic" moments you get in football. The endless work beforehand, the bonds that grow, the constant application and then the breakthrough - the gold medal. That's what's going to be lost and is being lost from the game and the media, the clubs, the players and the fans all seem to be sleepwalking into it as if it is all normal. This is why we don't appreciate the achievements of Chelsea and City. They didn't invest those endless hours building towards the prize. What they did was pay to take out the competition so they were the only athlete left in the race. Then they strode to the gold medal, the only runner, first place guaranteed - and inside the little fantasy world they created with a chequebook the fans cheered and deluded themselves that gain minus the pain was as fulfilling as the real thing. Maybe for the younger followers (as you correctly put it) this barren version of success is just as sweet because they have absolutely nothing to compare it to. So maybe artificial triumph becomes valid if you can eradicate the memory of genuine achievements now long gone. But for those that remember, they probably just smile and say, "Whatever" - I know I do. Let them have their fun but please tell me we'll go back to doing it properly at some point in the future, because if this is all we have now, if this is how it's going to be without respite then I want no part of that.

Did the fans have similar rants in the past? I think we were too busy wondering if Maggie was going to come in person and shut our job down, or Tebbitt deliver a bike to the factory gates. Harder times, football was used for a different purpose I think. There was the rigged game outside where you could never really get ahead, but inside the stadium there was a game going on where you always had a chance even if was slim. And it was played on your terms. The "good old days" weren't idyllic by any means, they were hard and a little grey. And there were still examples of great dishonour, I remember Frank Stapleton - I still remember that and wonder how the hell he could have done what he did. From hero to absolute zero. Maybe people thought the same about Jennings before that, but Pat was such an incredible guy it would be hard to hold any grudge for too long. Not like Sol Campbell, a mercenary I never accepted as being one of ours. That was the only time I have ever sympathised with the fans at that little club down the road, I forget their name.

Is that it then? My main objection with football. Is it because it's manufactured, stage managed, the emotions are carefully planned on marketing charts, the highs, lows, scandals all booked in advance? The object of the game, ratings and pay days first and for the few and yet the assumption the same little guy will pick up the tab - it's odd how some traditions are happily retained when they work in favour of the guy with the Roller. I never liked WWE or that old style of pantomime wrestling we had on TV. Maybe that's why I don't like football now, because it reminds me too much of that. I thought those fat guys in underpants were ridiculous back then, now the girly little sods crying on the pitch are too reminiscent for comfort. It's embarrassing to watch them, I'm embarrassed for them. I wouldn't pay to go to an art exhibition of fakes, wouldn't go to see a movie where the stars had been replaced by C-listers, wouldn't buy a fake first edition and I'd laugh if the price for these inferior goods was 10 times higher.

I think you are right. Football is now just another mass produced consumer product. I'm trying to get away from all that because I finally realise how futile, unfulfilling and self defeating the end result is. Football now fits neatly into that realm so I guess I have a natural tendency to shun it. Offset by the great emotion and desire I had for it in the past. You know it's horrible and no good but you have to look. That's what modern football is, a road crash with people slowing down to stare. And spotting Nasri and Cole and van Purse by the corpse, sucking the blood from the victim - with a queue of "heroes" behind waiting for their turn, kissing their badge when they see you looking through the glass.