Quote Originally Posted by GB. View Post
That is balls - don't be so dismissive of the OP. There have been similar threads to this in the past along with concern in the way the game it is going.

In my early days following this Club, the results and the football were often painful to watch, but there were heroes and they had a connection with the fans and us with them. That is why there were often Testimonials for players, they stuck with the Club and the Club and its fans wanted to reward and show appreciation for them.

Nowadays I couldn't give a fuck what transient money grabber and his agent comes or goes from the Club.
Not really balls. The day football 'died' for most should have been in 1992/93 when the PL was formed but no one complained then because we were still one of the top guns.

Posts seen on GW have all been after Arsenal started getting shite (2006 onwards) so 'similar threads' don't really have much merit. Although I was very young when I used 606, I don't remember much complaining about how much football was changing etc etc when we we winning stuff. We were still getting outbid for top players and there was still a shitload of money in the game (mainly due to Man U, Real Madrid, Barcelona and the Milan clubs - RM pretty much got their stadium for free and everyone remembers Man U mega spending on Veron, Ferdinand, RVN and later Rooney) and there was still financial doping, it's just on a much more exposed level now.

As for testimonials, again it's all about people getting nostalgic. We don't have testimonials because players don't stay at clubs for ten years anymore; more importantly Arsenal players in particular don't have testimonials because Arsenal don't win trophies so they can't be bothered to stick around. Winning breeds 'heroes' and a 'connection with the fans', don't think many on here worshipped players in the 60s and 50s when we weren't winning much.

Testimonials in the modern game that will happen soon: Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Carragher, Giggs, Ferdinand - that's just the English ones off the top of my head. Testimonials are hardly a commonplace happening in the game, even ten years ago and although we're garbage we could still have testimonials for players like Van Persie / Almunia / Djourou (3 years left) or could have had them for Fabregas / Eboue (8 and 7 years respectively) it's just that no one would want to see them because they haven't really won anything.

Winning changes everything.