I’ve found myself becoming increasingly nostalgic over the past few weeks. I imagine many of us have as we face this unprecedented and surreal situation. It has given us plenty of time to reflect. In such a previously busy world it seems strange that life has come seemingly to a full stop.
One of the areas I have reflected on is football. While we’d all agree that in the greater scheme of things football is not a matter of supreme importance, the long stretches of ennui in our daily lives bring home to us how much it enriches our daily experience and how much we miss the excitement of matches.
I thought I would share with you the early days of my Arsenal supporting life and one game which still today is etched in my memory as one of the most memorable I’ve ever seen. As many of you know I come from a line of Gooners although when the line began the term ‘Gooner’ was not remotely recognised .
My grandfather started following Arsenal as a teenager at Woolwich in the early years of the century. He was a soldier before the First World War began and when he left the Army and started a family he was very keen to take his young son (my father) from their home in Hoxton to the new ground at Highbury. He didn’t wait long! My father recalled that his first visit to Highbury was in 1924 , at four years of age , and he remembers travelling from Hoxton to Highbury carried on his father’s shoulders .He told me that as they got closer to Highbury there was a crocodile of Dads and their sons snaking down towards the ground . Arriving at the ground he like all the many small boys was passed down to the front where he watched the games through the railings although Dad remembers his father taking a box for him to stand on as he started to grow! He watched the team who lest we forget had never won a major trophy when he started watching them, gradually improve through the Charlie Buchan era and then he enjoyed fabulous entertainment in the thirties with Chapman’s highly successful team highlighted by the individual brilliance of Hapgood, Bastin , Drake and my father’s favourite player Alex James. James, one of Arsenal’s favourite sons owned a tobacconist shop by the stadium for many years, an indication of how modest were the financial pickings for the superstars of the day in the nineteen thirties, forties and fifties.
My father had his own, very active, war to fight and returning from the conflict after six years , resumed his support for the Gunners. Financially, like many family men in the post-war period he struggled, but it remained a keen ambition to take his young son (me) to see his beloved Arsenal. I can remember starting to take an interest in the game and asked Dad to show me the positions on the pitch when I was about six years of age. I can still remember the delight with which Dad wrote out the 2-3-5 formation for me on a photo board with a mixture of elation and a relief only matched a few years later when he realised that I was developing a healthy interest in the opposite sex. I retain both of these interests to the present day! I remember him telling me ‘our club is the Arsenal‘. There was no room for argument!
I began properly supporting Arsenal at the start of the 1958/9 season but Dad did not consider me old enough to go to an Arsenal match until April 1961 when he took me to see Arsenal beat Blackpool 1-0 at Highbury , the last time that Sir Stanley Matthews played for Blackpool in London.
Watching Arsenal at that time and for many years afterwards, I am reminded of the different feel that Highbury had to other grounds. We of course had the Metropolitan Police Band with Constable Alex Morgan charming us with some wonderful vocals. They would sit at the front of the East Enclosure near the Clock End and each programme would show the musical menu for the day . The band would march on the pitch for large parts of the season with the leader of the band throwing up his baton in front of the North Bank who all tried to make him drop it by raucously heckling him! On occasions he did but it was rare! We had the halftime updates which came on number boards which were put in place early in the second half. Later on fans would bring transistor radios to keep abreast of the results of our rivals. The mobile phone has seen that habit die out. We had the peanut sellers, we recalled recently in the drinks, and rudimentary bars. I enjoyed my first taste of rum and blackcurrant in the old rickety bar that lay behind the North Bank. I remember the huge and dangerous scrums as spectators tried to squeeze out of the North Bank on their way to Arsenal, or in our case, Finsbury Park, tube. Football could be a hazardous afternoon out especially when we moved into the hooligan era. Attendances varied enormously. The first game I saw had an attendance of 36,301 many of whom were there to see Stanley Matthews but crowds could be 60,000 for Manchester United and Spurs and not much over 20,000 for the less attractive games.
Many years after my first visit I took a girlfriend to Highbury for a night match. She asked where the ladies loos were and I had to confess I had no idea! We asked a steward who had to ask another steward before we identified the one area where they were housed! Football was an almost exclusively male preserve and I remember the ambivalence of the supporters around me who were interested in the presence of a pretty girl next to them but a bit mystified about why you’d take a woman to a football match!
For that Blackpool match we stood at the front of the West Enclosure , very close to the place where thirty years later I would have my first season ticket , and five minutes into the second half , Armfield block- tackling Alan Skirton, knocked my father’s glasses off as the ball rebounded into the crowd. Ever the gentleman Armfield enquired after my father’s welfare. My father was more concerned that Skirton had no clue how to get past the then England captain and right-back who had the Arsenal winger in his pocket. Arsenal won the game 1-0 with a fierce drive from David Herd that I didn’t see rip past the Blackpool keeper and Jack Kelsey ensured we held on to bag the two points.
But it is a game that took place a couple of years later that I remember particularly. Arsenal, under Billy Wright, were serial underachievers. From the conversations in the crowd at matches you sensed this was a group of supporters who were brought up on success and were less than impressed with the struggles that a side who did attract some very fine players, endured for many years in the sixties. I think the term ‘sleeping giants‘ would sum Arsenal up very well at that time.
In early September 1963 we found ourselves bottom of the league after four matches despite having invested a club record fee in the Scottish international centre half Ian Ure from Dundee. Our two previous games (both away) had seen us lose 7-2 to Leicester (after our goalie was taken off with a broken arm) and 4-0 to West Bromwich Albion. We welcomed Bolton Wanderers who sat, I believe, in mid-table. I remember Dad and I taking a place high on the North Bank in a modest crowd of just over 26,000 and watching aghast as Bolton took an early lead. They doubled it soon after in front of a horrified North Bank as Arsenal’s central defence of Neill and Laurie Brown (Ure played further forward that day) leaked like a colander. My father had something of a down on Skirton who he thought was far too lacking in guile for an Arsenal winger but he pulled a goal back only for Freddie Hill, the Bolton schemer (as playmakers were then known) to restore their two goal lead before half-time. 3-1 to Bolton at half-time and the pre-match gloom had deepened into a crisis.
I can still incredibly remember the despairing conversation between my father and a fellow supporter as we agonised about the very real threat of relegation. Overreacting after five games wasn’t confined to the modern game! Our new friend despaired of the defence but still held out hope for us in the match because of the potency of the Arsenal attack with the brilliant Joe Baker prompted by the creative George Eastham, he of the spindly legs and sinuous control. The second half was only a matter of minutes old when Baker thumped an incredibly powerful volley past Eddie Hopkinson the Bolton (and England) keeper to bring us back into the game. Cue wave after wave of Arsenal pressure, thrilling in its power and intensity but we were still unable to unlock the Bolton defence. Then with about seven minutes left Eastham whipped a free kick to the far post and a blond Arsenal head- that of Ure- sent it into the Bolton net. I remember huge waves of relief which were followed by a mini pitch- invasion. We had rescued a point…or had we? Bolton switched the ball to the Clock End and Hill was brought down. That moment when you realise you’ve committed a clear foul and it was within the area is always an excruciating one and is even more excruciating when you’ve worked so hard to get back into the game. So Bolton had a penalty. Arsenal’s keeper was a Scotsman called Ian Mckechnie, later that season dropped for being overweight, and playing in one of his very first games. Hill stepped up ready to notch his hat-trick and duly drove the ball unerringly to the top left-hand corner but Mckechnie dived full-length to his right to turn the ball around the post. I can still remember the elation now.
With the game moving into injury time, that very moveable feast in those days which was never scrutinised , Arsenal broke incisively through the middle. The ball moved from Mcleod to Baker to Geoff Strong and he hit a bullet that Hopkinson saved brilliantly …but he only managed to parry it into the path of Skirton who turned it triumphantly home. You wouldn’t have thought 26,000 people could raise the roof on the North Bank but it felt like they did that day. 4-3 to the Arsenal and the start of an important winning run for what was a talented but defensively flawed team.
I’ve personally seen Arsenal win ten FA Cups, clinch six titles , play in and nearly win the Champions League Final and win the Fairs Cup at Highbury and they were all very, very special moments but nothing is seared in my memory like that extraordinary match in September 1963. Very little beats the adrenalin rush of your team winning a thrilling victory with you actually there in the ground. That was the moment in that wonderfully evocative stadium , next to my ecstatic father when I really fell in love with my team. I knew from that moment on that whatever I did in life, wherever I went, this club would always have a huge place in my heart.
A few years ago I alluded to the game on Goonerholic and I believe Clive was there too and was similarly entranced. I’ve been hugely lucky to see live around 1500 Arsenal matches in my life (many of which I have forgotten) but that was an indelible memory. In the later years of my Dad’s life that glorious Arsenal side was a massive part of his world. He never made it to the Emirates as he was too frail to take on the journey but never was a Sky subscription used so avidly. After matches I would always phone him to discuss the match, take him the programme to read and discuss the players we had. He was enthralled by the flair of Henry, Bergkamp and Pires, amazed by the drive and power of Vieira and Petit, stirred by the stoicism and leadership of Adams and hugely grateful to Wenger for producing teams that illuminated the later years of his life with such stunning football. We calculated after his death that he had supported Arsenal for eighty-six years with no time off for good behaviour. A tile, similar to the one we bought for Gooner Terry, commemorating his support, can be found as you walk down from the Ken Friar Bridge not far from the Tony Adams statue. The picture above shows his two great grandsons sitting by it on a visit to watch the Emirates Cup. One of them is continuing the Arsenal tradition in our family which stretches to well over a hundred years. Every so often as we discussed ‘the Arsenal‘ as he always called them, Dad would say to me, Do you remember that game we went to see when the Arsenal came back to beat Bolton 4-3?. That was a wonderful game wasn’t it?..Remember it….. that is a game I will never forget as long as I live.
What a wonderful, evocative, thrilling post. Nobody tells ‘em like you do TTG.
Great stuff TTG.
CUYG
Brilliant Peter. I hold my hand up for leading your other grandson astray to the other end of the seven sisters road. But I am glad you have one young gooner from us to continue this valuable family succession whom I will be proud to share this great read with.
A lovely piece, TTG. Thanks for sharing that.
A very enjoyable read thanks
TTG. Made me think about
my own childhood gooner
years too. I miss talking to my
Dad about how things are going
at The Arsenal.
Matt,
I share your loss.
The Simon at 3 is my son-in-law and father of the two little chaps at the top .
He is from the dark side but I have forgiven him !
Simon you are very welcome. However you are here due to the good word put in by your Father in law, our very good friend Peter. If you step out of line and start banging on about Harry Kane you’re barred! 😁
I feel your pain TTG, far too many of my close friends and some of my wife’s family are marsh-dwellers. To my mind, forgiveness is never an option – indeed I would be insulted if it were offered me – but I suppose a modus vivendi must be arrived at. I rarely use the third tetragraph below, but in this case…
COYG CUYG FOYS
Wonderfully evocative stuff TTG. I share the same vintage as you and memories flooded back as I read it. I used to stand at the clock end which was open to the elements in those days. Myself & pals would be at the same place each saturday fortnight – kick off 3pm. Overcrowding rarely happened in those days – only the marsh dwellers & United would attract near capacity crowds. It was always turn up on the day and queue at the turnstiles, normally 15 mins before kick off would be sufficient with no more than 10 people in front of you. For those big games be there by 2.30 would be the rule.
Thanks again for such a wonderful portrayal of times gone by.
And that is what it is all about. Thank you, for encapsulating your Arsenal memories for us TTG so wonderfully and expressively. A top Arsenal man and family it cannot be denied.
cheers, ttg. lovely piece. i’ve come over all verklempt. but my heart is full after reading it, you’ve captured everything, even the smell of the peanuts…
Just delightful, TTG. Memories to treasure for you, and thank you for sharing them with us.
It seems an age ago when you just turned up at the ground, paid at the turnstile and stood on the terraces.
@6
Good to see a young Arsenal supporter
who with luck may see in the 22nd
century as a Gooner!
I thought it was a nice post from
Simon, who seems cheerful despite
half a century without a league title.
I brainwashed my own 2 kids to be
Gooner sansei of course, and took
them to Arsenal games when we
came back to the UK – a lifetime
bond in its way.
@12
I always just rolled up at the
turnstiles with my mates and
stood at the Clock End in the
80s Ned.
Not sure exactly when that
changed as I left England in
‘95 but like many I suppose
I dislike the ‘new’ way. The
world has changed into a
control freak’s wet dream since
then of course. Moan, moan,
moan etc etc – but still it is
annoying and people don’t
seem aware of what’s lost.
Wonderful wonderful reminiscing TTG!
One could almost feel like being there on that summer day in Highbury. I will ask my son — who now has started to read anything about Arsenal voraciously—to read your wistful recollection of a stirring game.
VERY nice, ttg. Broke my heart when Yogi left for Arsenal and then Gillie left the Dark Blues for Tottenham. Unhindered by the subsequent emergence of Charlie Cooke, John Duncan, Gordon Strachan and their likes, the road and the miles to Dundee inevitably became longer and the slow march to today began 🙁 .
Neither Arsenal nor Tottenham could have lived with the 1960s Dundee team that humiliated Cologne 8-1, emasculated Sporting Lisbon 4-2, murdered Anderlecht 6-2, thumped AC Milan 1-0 at Dens only to suffer a “There’s no way a wee team like Dundee is getting into the final so we’ll appoint a ref who’ll ensure it doesn’t happen otherwise there’s every chance they’ll become the first British team to win the bloody thing” moment in the San Siro.
Aged 10, I got to stay up late to watch the second half live from Italy in grainy black and white (first half wasn’t shown for some reason). We were winning 1-0 at half time but then the Euro football mafia moved in. I cried myself to sleep for the next three weeks. AC Milan won it, of-course, there was no way a wee team called Benefica…………….Eusebio was nowhere near the goal scoring machine that was Alan Gilzean.
Welcome back BtM!
Just for Simon
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Cheers TTG! Wonderful stuff.
Unlocked from South Africa, Countryman.
Great piece, TTG,
It’s interesting to note what different people remember from their Arsenal experiences. For some it’s great players, for others great goals, still others remember titles, cups, days out and places visited – or skirmishes “avoided”, or not, as the case may be.
This piece starts with your grandfather and the boy who was to become your own dad. All through the piece, the most vivid memories go back to those two men, what was important to them, their feelings and conversations. The two young lads in the photo sit either side of a tile that celebrates your father – no shot there of a title or cup winning goal.
Your real awakening as an Arsenal fan was “next to my ecstatic father” …..
This whole site is a tribute to a man who used to write similar things about his own Arsenal experiences – how central to his own love of The Arsenal his dad was to him, and how special his days in the Midlands with the young‘uns were, and the countless friends he made through his Arsenal supporting life.
Arsenal is often talked about as an inclusive, family club – “once an Arsenal man, always an Arsenal man”. Dave Faber embodied everything that is best about The Arsenal.
You have done the club and especially Dave proud, TTG.
Good to see you, BtM 👍🏻
Trev: Well said @22.
Just for you, BtM, ‘a wee frightener”
A wee frightener indeed, Ned and thanks for sharing. But that was a later game and resulted in another thumping at Dens for that little outfit from Milan (This was one of the first occasions on which the “Who are Yae” chant was heard 🙂 )
I kept watching and up next popped Rangers 1 Dundee 5. I was at that game with my Grandad. It laid the cornerstone for the League title win. Of-course there was no segregation in the crowd in these days and Ibrox was full to its 80,000 capacity, most standing. I was strictly warned “If Dundee score, don’t you murmur a word!” It was murder keeping quiet, four great goals by Gilzean rounded off by one from Andy Penman. The mist swirled in at the end so were able to slip off home without being confronted by anyone in a royal blue scarf, an orange sash or a razor in their hand!
Should you have nothing else to do on this fine, C-19 afternoon, you might see Dundee’s three internationals (Hamilton, Ure and Gilzean) mix it with Rangers’ Shearer, Caldow, Greig, Baxter, Henderson and Wilson. So pretty much the entire Scottish team on display. Gilzean and Baxter were right up there with the very best players I’ve ever watched play ‘in the flesh’ (Pity Slim Jim’s first name wasn’t Lionel really).
That game also featured that quaint old feature – a free kick in the box. Different days.
Well observed, Trev @22. True that.
Guid tae see ye back in the bothy, BtM.
I’ll check that out as I always enjoy seeing the Huns getting thumped. Yesterday I was wistfully remembering a 5-1 cup semi-final victory at Hampden when your erstwhile striker Jocky Scott, Joe Harper and Drew Jarvie took them apart.
Indeed, it was a clip of the 1971 Europa Cup game, not the May 1963 Champions League semi-final first leg that you mentioned originally and in which I see Alan Gilzean was sent off four minutes after scoring the game’s only goal.
But in black and white, it all blurs into one…
An excellent watch, BtM. That was a good Rangers team they beat too. I was more impressed with Cousins in midfield than Slim Jim, to be honest. Was that Alan Cousins who was still playing at the end of the decade. And was that Andy Penman who ended up playing for Rangers too?
I was reminded both of my shock at the Glasgow smog when I moved there from the fresh air of the north east (icy NE wind from Norway) and of my first visit to Ibrox under the self same instructions.
A slither of the ’63 game — the goal
and many thanks for the original link Ned.
I’m very touched by your kind comments , Thankyou all, particularly Trev who linked it quite rightly back to Dave and I’m very gratified if it rekindles positive memories of that lovely man . I remember a few years ago I mentioned to him that Harry , on the right in the picture was playing against a very young Arsenal development team and he asked me to write a piece on the game. Some of you may remember it. Dave was so engaged with the way that families inculcate team loyalties especially our team and wrote to me a couple of times afterwards to say how much he had enjoyed the piece even though Harry’s team thrashed Arsenal 7-0 !
As for the mob from Dens Park I remember watching that team too and they were very good indeed. ( by the way nice to see you back Btm) .In fact that is where I first saw Ian Ure and was very excited when he joined us. After a hesitant first season he improved significantly but I think the Swindon League Cup Final was the moment the wheels fell off for him.And he did anchor us to victory in Quiz Ball! I’m interested if the denizens of the bar share my view on Ure. I think he gets a bad rap but he was clearly a very good player Joining Arsenal who had no defence was possibly not a bright move . Billy Wright, considering he was a great Centre half , was useless at organising the defence .
TTG@32: I first saw Ian Ure play in a London Challenge Cup game in the mid-Sixties against Hendon, one of the top amateur teams of the day. He might have been returning from injury, but the amateurs made him look decidedly not worth the then hefty sum of £60,000 we had paid Dundee for him. I would see him play much better against First Division teams, though for a quintessential Big No 5 he was always a bit iffy in the air if an excellent tackler. The Swindon League Cup final will always colour his days for any Arsenal fan. Yet no player should be defined or demonised by one game. No one who is genuinely awful gets to make more than 200 appearances for the club. I suspect that the successful Dundee team he left made him look a better player than he was while the declining Arsenal one he joined made him look worse than he was. Brian Clough once said that unfulfilled players make the best managers, and Billy Wright was far too successful a player to be a good coach.
Ned,
You make a very good point- Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho are good examples of this. I guess Guardiola and Zidane aren’t but overall I think Clough’s remarks hold true . As for Ure I’m totally with you , he could look very vulnerable but he had two decent seasons in 67/8 and 68/9. That Swindon game was the game from Hell for us. I can still see their first goal coming inexorably and have discussed it with Bob Wilson several times . He agrees that wasn’t his finest moment
TTG. Johan Cryuff would be another to add to the list of exceptions that prove Cloughie’s rule.
Historical footnote: When Ian Ure went into football management briefly after retiring from playing, it was to succeed Ferguson at East Stirlingshire.
Guardiola, Zidane, Cruyff. Quite a trio of exceptions “proving” the rule there. Dalglish didn’t do too badly either, but do player-managers count?
Ure left a couple of seasons too
early for me. My Dad shared the
view that for a big bloke he wasn’t
that good in the air.
And I do believe he mentioned the
Swindon final once or twice – he
went too and commiserated with
me after the Luton final defeat that
it couldn’t have been as bad as
Swindon, though I doubted that
at the time as Luton was scarring
as a first Arsenal Wembley experience.
bt8/NBN/TTG: More exceptions to Clough’s rules — Beckenbauer, Mario Zagallo, Didier Deschamps, Carlo Ancelotti, Dunga. 😉
But it is true that successful though they were the great players becoming great managers are rarely great innovators like the ordinary player turning great manager — Rinus Michels, or Herbert Chapman…
@29 Alan Cousins was never my favourite Dark Blue, Bath. He studied classics at St Andrews Uni and always played for Dundee on a part-time basis while his other job was teaching (English, I think). I always thought he looked more like a teacher than a centre forward, even when he was playing. To this day, the mention of his name conjures in my mind his image in his dark blue strip carrying a brief case. BUT, he scored in the semi-final of the European Cup at the San Siro having been teaching in Angus only two days earlier. Is it possible to make this stuff up? Who else has ever done that?
He scored his first goal for Dundee in a 5–1 friendly victory against Manchester United, who had just become the English champions. It was a friendly, but that result was a good indicator of the calibre of the Dark Blues team at the time. Naturally, after the friendly we claimed the “Champions of Britain” title.
Although Gillie scored four in that Ibrox game it was Cousins’ play that really caught my eye and my thoughts of him as a ‘teacher’ in my young minds eye were probably badly misplaced.
And yes, Andy Penman went to Rangers and did well for them. Both Gordon Strachan and Charlie Cooke arrived at Dens in later years and starred there but the balance of the rest of the team never replicated that of the Championship team and Scottish football had begun its long, slow decline by then so unsurprisingly, they followed the money.
ttg, I’m very sorry to plonk all of my boyhood memories onto the comments on your excellent piece – which, of-course, was the inspiration in the first place. You conjured up within me many of the emotions you expressed.
Dr F et al @38: Perhaps the way to prove Clough’s assertion is to say the list of great players who were bad managers is far longer than that of the ones who made great managers.
Btm
No need to apologise whatsoever , I’ve enjoyed your recollections and learnt a lot about that Dundee side . Gilzean was an interesting player . I have memories of regularly going to the Swamp seeing us play the Marshmen off the park and then he popped up with the winner . Some of our first Double side have indicated to me that Mr. Gilzean was a very heavy drinker and indeed that Arsenal and Spurs use to regularly drink together in a pub in Southgate, I think . He and Jimmy Greaves used to hold the Tottenham end up .
I presume he may have learnt his drinking at Dens Park? 😃😃
Dunga may have been a great player and manager in his time but overall he just reminded me of cow dung.
Could be my shortcoming not his mind you.
NBN@40: yes, I think that’s reasonable — the probability of a great player becoming a great manager is relatively small. But given so many great players have tried it’s only natural few of them turned out to be good as managers too.
bt8@42: 😂 I think he is probably the most un-Brazilian of Brazilian greats. Leonardo in that ‘94 team was so much more elegant …
@17 C100, A Song For You
@41 ttg,
When your bedroom walls and ceiling are completely covered in an athlete in dark blue; when you wake up every morning dreaming about said athlete; when every Saturday afternoon holds the near certain prospect of another hat-trick from the athlete with the no 10 on his back; you don’t pause to think ‘does he go to the boozer after training?’
But on reflection, like most, he probably did and I heard first hand from a former Spuds colleague that he and Jimmy Greaves used to drink at lunch time until Jimmy fell off his stool. Then, and only then, Gillie would go home.
BtM @44. Wonderful stuff. Roger Chapman’s voice quite unique in rock,
Mesut Ozil has refused to take a pay cut, along with two other players , until ‘ he sees the financial implications of the pandemic’. He has, in fairness agreed to a substantial deferral of his salary but won’t take a cut at this stage . It is not known who the other two dissenters are. In these highly charged times it may be another nail in his coffin with fans many of whom will be facing major privations . Arsenal have issued a statement re the deal
I will take your source as solid, TTG, as I am sure it is. It is an interesting decision by Ozil. Deferral means he would get 100% of nothing for the duration instead of 87.5% of £350,000 a week for the remainder of his contract under the voluntary pay cut. The 12.5% cut would mean he would lose £2.7 million over the 61 weeks his contract has left to run, which may have coloured his decision. Even more than the fans, the reaction of his teammates could prove critical to his future at the club. That said no one sees a contract renewal in his future, so that may not bother him too much at this point. It will be interesting to learn who are the other two holdouts, and if they are involved in possible contract extensions. I have been wondering if any contract extensions might be slipped into the paperwork revising the existing contracts.
ned, it looks like we’re at about £100m wages per annum as a squad, so that’s £12.5m being given back (pending mumble mumble).
stan can’t afford that with a slash of the pen? odd.
To be honest 12.5% looks quite
low compared to some other
clubs / sports.
But I did read Mus was donating
16,000 meals to people in
Islington, which is nice of him.
Stan’s fortune is probably taking
a hit and he may be down to his
last 5billion. Oh the tragedy….
Still, looking on the bright side,
he hasn’t been eaten yet.
Personally, I think how everyone
reacts in the present situation is
up to the individual and I won’t,
as a fan, hold any individual
player’s decisions against them
as I don’t know the full situation
or thinking behind those decisions.
In Ozil’s case he has previous when
it comes to acting on what he thinks
(Germany, UE’s expectations, the
Uighur comments) regardless of
consequences. If you do that then
you have to expect criticism and no
doubt it will come winging his way.
Just another football storm in a
teacup in the current situation.
Hmmm, that is several tuppences
worth of my opinions this morning.
But I’ve finished my 2nd cup of
coffee now and will cease my
waffling, good news for our er….
myriad readers.
Regardless of anything else Ozil does off the pitch with various charities, his refusal to fall in line on a pay cut that would hardly see him impoverished on a mere £300k a week should see the end of him at Arsenal.
I would cancel his contract at the end of the week, even if it meant paying him off in full to avoid getting sued.
Get rid of the parasite.
Hello Cynic. I hope you are in
good spirits.
🥃
I will be when Ozil leaves. I will dance like Peter Gordeno (and not the one in Depeche Mode, that’s his son)
🙂
I’ll expect a recording of that
dance when Ozil leaves 🙂
I look forward to your breakfast waffle, OM.
And well in for the half-ton, btw.
Kroenke’s wealth stands at $8 billion, according to Bloomberg. His wife, Ann, is worth $5.5 billion. They should be able to scrape through all this OK.
Ozil is his own man, for better or worse. In an age of footballers who, if they do have an idea in their head, are media trained into andoyne blandness, that is rather refreshing.
While I admire decisions in principle I find myself , not for the first time 😃, at odds with Cynic. Do we cancel all three players contacts and pay them off in full at a time when finances are as squeezed as at any time in recent history . Instead of achieving savings we’d be paying out more when we’ve no income coming in . If those other two players are Aubameyang and Saka two of our most saleable assets do we rip up their contracts and obtain nothing for them? So we weaken the side on a point of principle write off a huge amount of cash and have to replace three players .
Slightly flawed economics . Ozil is a complex boy and his agent is very integral to this decision. Offering him that ridiculous contract summed up the twat that is Gazidis who also effectively wrote off any transfer fee we could get for Sanchez by pratting around with Manchester City on deadline day. AC Milan are extremely welcome to him .
Maybe he might buy Ozil from us? 😃😃
My back of the envelope calculation is that cancelling Ozi’s contract now and paying it out in full would wipe out just about all the annual savings from the first-team squad and training staff’s 12.5% voluntary pay cut.
Which, to TTG’s point, would be counterproductive at this point, or, to use a less technical term, plain dumb.
If Ozil has agreed to defer his wages for a substantial period, that at least eases the club’s cash flow position, which is the priority to get through to the point where there is clarity over when football, and thus match day income, returns. The early exit from the Europa League, low Premiership position and the possibility of no European football next season would anyway mean cutting operational costs for next season. How additionally deep those will have to be because of the pandemic we don’t know yet, and the club needs to conserve not spend cash until we do.
It could be that Cynic is not as astute in the world of finance as some of the other drinkers. Not saying which ones though. 😉
Ned,
A very helpful post which confirms what I was thinking . If you were back of an envelope I did my calculations on a matchbox. One of the many reasons I chose this as my preferred blog was that we don’t get the idiotic and utterly simplistic drivel that is completely lacking in any numerate basis .
Now is a time for very careful calculations and sensible decision- making. A transfer window that would require a degree of pragmatism and hardheaded financial assessment has become massively more complex. Decision making this summer is about survival not silly dramatic gestures especially when we don’t understand the context of Ozil’s decision and we don’t know who else thinks what . Each deal appears to be different so players are bound to view things in a number of ways .
Cynic has been down on Ozil ever since he joined even when he was the most productive assist provider in the Premier League . Fortunately I don’t think his view will prevail when we come to constructing the financial plan for next season . Arsenal fans had better realise that serious sacrifices may have to be made to keep the club operating soundly . So far I’ve spoken to five season ticket holders who won’t be renewing. That makes six with me. To suggest because Kroenke is rich enough to bankroll the club through COVID 19 is to misunderstand FFP in its Premier League version . Arsenal is facing the same crisis that many clubs are. What we cannot do is to chuck money down the drain in some hissy fit because a player’s face doesn’t fit . We’ve already wasted about £100 million by mishandling the contracts renewals of Ramsey and Sanchez .
I’m sorry to hear you won’t be renewing your season ticket TTG. Hopefully you have a silver membership like Bath and BtM.
Don’t even think about not renewing yours, C100. We need your nonpareil match reports.
Cynic has always been right about Ozil though. Don’t know what Wenger, Emery, Ljungberg and Arteta saw in him, although some of them only saw what they saw sporadically.
If the other two of the three dissenters have actually earned their pay over the years then no, I wouldn’t pay them up. I’d sell them on though.
Ozil has been nicking his money here ever since he signed, pretty much.
Part of why we might be fearing for our finances is down to failing to qualify for the Champions League for three years and, as our supposedly best, most creative and certainly highest paid player, the finger of blame points squarely in his direction. Not his fault alone, but he’s supposed to be a world class player and he’s been anything but.
I’d love to know who the other two are. I would guess at Mustafi and I’ve been told one of our players is the other one, but the agreement doesn’t apply to loan players as their wages are at least partly paid by their current club.
However, the circumstances at the rumoured player’s current club around player salaries are somewhat unique, so he might be expecting to be paid in full by Arsenal.
If it is these particular players they’d be no loss and it would be worth getting rid of them all rather than have them stinking out the club on full pay. Take the hit, bye bye to the lot.
That should read “one of our loaned players is the other one”
TTG@64: More back of the envelope calculations: I am guessing we are in an immediate £30 million and change cash hole from lost match day revenue from the unplayed league and FA Cup games and the early Europa League exit. The pay cuts will save perhaps £4 million-5 million between now and the end of June, and another half-million if the trio of holdouts changes their minds. Add in another half a million from the execs taking no pay.
We started the year with a healthy cash balance of £130 million, excluding the reserves that have to be kept against the stadium debt. There is no way of telling how much that has been run down, but the club burnt through £60 million of its cash pile last season. Finger in the air, but as a result of the early Europa exit and low Premiership place we’ll probably be down another £30 million-40 million on budgeted prize money, merit payments and other broadcasting revenue, even assuming that the broadcasters impose no penalties for an uncompleted season be that the outcome. There might also be refunds for season ticket holders to make (more likely discounts on next season — to encourage you to renew).
So it looks like at least half the cash pile will go to cover the unexpected pandemic costs (that is why you have cash reserves, rather than rely on the largesse of sheikhs.) The wild card is whether any transfer instalment and loan payments we are owed for this year (some £77 billion-worth according to the last financial accounts) don’t get paid or are delayed because the clubs on the other side are in financial difficulties themselves.
On the plus side, the Adidas shirt deal is worth a net £30 million this season — although that will have been in the budget already.
I guess my conclusion is that the club can financially get through the summer, irrespective of whether football returns by then or not, but possibly by the skin of its teeth.
The state of the summer transfer window is another vast unknown. Prices will fall, but that will be true for buyers and sellers, and we won’t know for a while whether we have a kitty with which to buy or we need a firesale. Either way we will probably be looking to turn a profit in the window. What is clear, however, is that there will have to be structural changes to the cost structure for next season, regardless.
ttg, i am sorry to hear you won’t be renewing your season ticket, but i understand why. i enjoyed watching the vitoria game with you, and will hold that in the memory banks forever. that a couple of hits by nick’o’pepe!
Never mind season tickets, Sky can do one if they think I’ll be continuing with their channels when things get something like normal and they start charging again. I have not missed football one jot.
I might miss the cricket and the Indy Car racing, but the football? Not a bit of it.
Thanks Ned@60
There’s a feast to ponder this
morning from the overnight
drinks – Ozil, Kroenke’s last
8billion, club finances, the sad
end of TTG’s season ticket, Sky and
last but not least Indy Car Racing,
which I have never actually seen.
There’s also the decision of the Eredivisie
to more than likely cancel the season,
pending discussion with FIFA.
Probably sensible of them to bite the
bullet now as mass gatherings are the
last things to be restarted as the various
lockdowns ease.
I was interested in the Dutch FA’s comment
that the Dutch PM said it would be unwise
to play games behind locked doors.
Is that because he thinks supporters
will gather outside the grounds anyway
I wonder?
TTG,
I am sad to see you will give up your
season ticket, though of course it’s entirely
understandable (and none of my
business to boot). I enjoyed reading
your thoughts from the ground.
In the PL, especially at the bigger
clubs, it seems from envelope
and matchbox calculations that
salary cuts by the players are just
a sideshow. How clubs can maintain
revenue from tv companies (possibly
hit by less subscribers) and sponsors
(especially those from industries
severely damaged by the current
pandemic) may be far more important.
I imagine Sky will offer reduced rates
for a couple of months to get the
regulars back on board and then it
will be business as usual with step-by-step
incremental increases for the addicts.
Straight out of your local drug dealers
playbook I suppose.
On Ozil, I fully expect him to
leave on a free at the end of
his contract in 61 weeks time.
He seems to enjoy playing
for MA and I can’t see any
reason he would choose to
leave or anything the club can
do about it really. At the end
of the day we offered the
contract and he signed.
In terms of firing Ozil, there are
several reasonable views put
forward from economic or moral
standpoints. However, putting
on my old HR hat for a minute
firing an employee because he
disagrees with an employers
views or values is a path fraught
with peril and is also dependent
on the labour laws of the
relevant market. I’d be amazed
if we were foolish enough to do
that. Of course I’m ignoring the
moral or financial aspects there
and also Ozil’s own reasons which
we do not know. Simply from a
reputational point of view the risk
and possible damage if the matter
dragged on would be high.
TTG,
One other thought that did occur
was that FFP as it stands may
need a rethink or at least some
flexibility in how it’s applied over
the next 2-3 seasons.
Indy Car racing….
I knew I could think of a
helpful suggestion if I put
my mind to it.
Now would be a good time
for teams to stock up on
petrol, I heard it’s cheap.
Through to 80 with a top
tip 🙂
If we imposed the pay cut on him, because the rest have agreed to it, he’d be entitled to a free transfer, so I suggest we do that and he can fuck off.
What I find odd about this whole situation is the number of people prepared to take the moral high ground on behalf of footballers over the issue of pay and instead choosing to point the finger at owners.
To some extent I agree that the owners should take the financial hit, particularly when it comes to furloughing staff, and I’m proud we haven’t even tried to do that, unlike some clubs. But clubs are businesses and they have to pay their way, so something has to give and players, who are paid sums that they can easily afford to forego at least a part of, should be leading the way. Yes, clubs have overpaid players in the past and have to, you could argue, meet their financial responsibilities but fans wouldn’t have had it any other way.
If, after all this is done, Arsenal’s financial position is weak who do you think will pay the price for it? If there are job cuts, it’s an axe that will fall on non playing staff and maybe the trainees and younger pros. It’s season ticket prices and other things rising to soak the fans for even more money. Money they actually earn.
Mesut Ozil is an asset with no value. If we’re going to be paying him full wages, becaus he won’t agree to the cut, we have nothing to lose by paying him up or finding a way to fire him, give him a free or whatever it takes to be rid of him, as soon as possible.
Players have fixed-term employment contracts. To change them requires mutual consent, which is why the players’ pay cut had to be negotiated and voluntary. There is no incentive for Ozil to agree to end his deal early unless he gets a matching or better offer from elsewhere, which seems unlikely. Even if the club offers him on a free today, what other team will offer him the wages we have committed to paying until the end of June 2021? He is staying put to the bitter end, as his agent has indicated.
Clearly put Ned and also partly
why TTG is so annoyed with the
hapless Ivan.
At the time we had 2 major assets
in Alexis and Ozil. Ivan was scared
of the fan reaction if we lost them
both and so we paid Ozil what his
agent wanted. A good decision in a
way as Alexis has been an even
more expensive failure, but sadly
for Ivan he was only half right.
Thems the breaks I suppose, though
because UE was so vain the waste
has been greater than it needed to
be.
He wasn’t vain, he’s the only manager we’ve had who’s had Ozil completely sussed and wanted rid.
Cynic,
Please tell me you aren’t clinging to your ridiculous notion that the awful Emery should not have been sacked. As soon as Arteta took over he got a tune out of Ozil. The Man United game is a case in point. Do you have some sort of inverstment in losers eg, Emery and Theo Walcott who as we all know has disappeared without trace at Everton where fans consider him a very expensive liability .
Ned.
Thanks for your calculations, they look highly credible . I think we will see swap deals like Lacazette for Partey this summer .
OM/ Scruz,
While I will almost certainly give up my season ticket I will use my membership to buy occasional tickets or use the ticket the chap in front of me has ( which is currently nestling in my bedside cabinet ) . He lives in Belgium and only attends about half the games . But my attendance will be less and certainly given my wife’s health situation I won’t travel until it is deemed safe to do so
Re my last note my Belgian friend tells me Germany has banned public gatherings until the end of October. I understand the Bundesliga may return relatively soon so it must be behind closed doors.
Compare this decisiveness and clear thinking with Oliver Dowden the Culture Secretary who said today
‘ Dowden defended the timing of the UK government’s ban on mass gatherings, days after the Cheltenham Festival and Liverpool’s Champions League match against Atletico Madrid.
“Throughout all of this we have based what we did on the scientific evidence we received both from Sage [Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] and from the medical officers. I spoke to them twice and they met with the sporting bodies.
“The analysis was that in these events the risk is the people that are immediately in the row in front of you, the row behind you and either side. Now that risk is as great or as little as it would be if you were watching it in the pub down the road on a big screen, if you were going on public transport to get to the event.
“So the advice that we were given was that, to act consistently, it might be appropriate at a point in the progress of the disease to ban all those sorts of activities and indeed that is what we did.’
Has he not factored in that holding the events forced people to travel , socialise and infect each other and if they had been cancelled many people wouldn’t have been infected and sadly some people would not have died. If we are looking at Octiber 25th in Germany it won’t be a lot different here . Another reason for not buying a season ticket
TTG@87: At the risk of sounding as curmudgeonly as I am, the calibre of politicians today is just not what it was.
My two-cents on a Partey for Laca swap is that we would come out a nose ahead on that.
Nope I don’t think he was unfairly sacked, because the players had stopped playing for him and he had to go, but I still believe he was better than a lot of people think and was poorly served by a bunch of wasters. As for getting a tune out of Ozil, I’ll disagree on that unless you think one game is good enough.
As for 100+ goal Theo Walcott disappearing at Everton, he’s played every game he’s been available for under Ancelotti, I think, who knows a bit about players, and none of the Everton fans I know (admittedly around half a dozen) think he’s been ok.
None of that changes the fact that Ozil has been our worst signing, when it comes to regular players and not just squad fodder, in 30 years. Emery had him worked out completely.
Haha, typo! When I say none think he’s been ok I meant none think he’s been rubbish. Bit of a slip that one 🙂
interesting, cynic. his level has dropped from an average of 1 goal every 4 games (give or take, 108/396) to 1 in 8 (10/79) with everton. his assists have dropped from 1 in 5 (77/396) to 1 in 10 (8/79).
definitely a slip of the tongue in 90 above.
UE made it into an I’m the boss
pissing contest with Ozil – to me
that is just vanity as it was harmful
to the team.
Obviously we’ll never agree Cynic,
because my opinion is based on
us being a better team when Ozil
plays whereas you believe the
opposite
Haven’t seen much of Theo at
Everton.
20m to Everton was a good win/
win for The Arsenal and Theo as
it was time for him to go. Doesn’t
look like a win for Everton but they
still came back for Iwobi 🙂
We should sell them London Bridge
next.
Nothing to do with football but
I’m glad Marianne Faithful seems
to have recovered
And this is why Ozil (and the other two, whoever they are) is a tosser. I’ll leave it at that.
https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/5021
“Venkatesham and Sanllehi informed staff that Arteta and the vast majority of his playing squad had taken a pay cut, not only to help the club’s finances – but specifically, to actively help far lower paid members of the ‘Arsenal family’.
According to a well-placed source, office and academy staff listened intently to the club’s hierarchy, explaining that the players insisted their wages be channeled towards cushioning the financial impact of coronavirus on their lesser-paid colleagues”.
Pepe ( possibly) , Lacazette, Luiz and Xhaka have been warned by the club for apparent breaches of the lockdown . Luiz and Xhaka met in public which is particularly unwise. Luiz should be fined and Xhaka sold immediately to Inter Milan for £40 million . I would drive him to the airport but it’s closed and Im locked down !
Footballers with too much time
on their hands. Can’t even go to
the pub.
Laca apparently sinned by standing
and talking to the bloke who was
washing his car. Lazy bugger
should’ve washed it himself 😃
Lays on a sitter….
and nobly retires to bed
Sleep wel Matt
Another ton racks up on the blog.
Stylish assist, OM, and well in C100 despite the somewhat unstylish misspelling.
OM, is it noble in Japan to retire to bed after you’ve laid the babysitter? Or have I got the wrong end of the chopstick?
Well in for the ton, CM100. Elegant self-denying assist, OM.
Well in for the ton C100 – proper fox in the box job. Selfless assist OM.
Well in for the ton, C100. OM is so good at assists he can do them in his sleep…
Morning all, gets off sitter,
nods to CM100 and heads off
for coffee
Not much Arsenal news again
today. Partey’s agents rubbished
rumours of a move apparently.
David Seaman says Leno is great
but could be a little more
conservative on coming out for
crosses. Who am I to argue with
the great man.
Arseblog summarily dismissed all rumours of us signing anyone for any significant sum anytime soon. As he correctly observes, how would you feel if you had just signed away 12.5% of your contracted income allegedly ‘to preseve the viability of the club’ just to see the club bring in a new high cost player who hasn’t taken a 12.5% hit. I agree with those who believe there will be precious few high cost transfers next window. There may actually be more bankrupt clubs than there will be million pound signings.
TTG @64 –
“ One of the many reasons I chose this as my preferred blog was that we don’t get the idiotic and utterly simplistic drivel that is completely lacking in any numerate basis….”
There is er, almost any number of them ….. 😏
You can always count on Trev…
OM@107: How many heads do you have, and why do you need to remove them for your morning intake of caffeine?
bath@109: You are right. We shall not see the sort of telephone-number transfers that were talked about (if not necessarily achieved) before the pandemic. My guess would be that transfer values will fall by one-quarter to one-third as a result of the outbreak, and clubs will look more closely at their net transfer spend than ever. It will have to be a pound in for every pound out.
Players under contract (or more accurately their scheming agents) will have less scope to negotiate lucrative moves. Wages, too, will fall, as a result, and because moe clubs will be cash-strapped. Lower base pay and bigger bonuses for progress in elite competitions may become the norm in players’ contracts.
It has been clear for many years that the inflation in broadcasting rights has flowed directly into Premiership players’ wages. Even before the pandemic, Premiership clubs were looking anxiously at the renewal of domestic TV rights when the current deal expires at the end of 2021/22.
The current agreement was for less than the previous one, and the next one might be for less still—peak football. The clubs can’t be sure if they can put their faith in overseas markets and streaming rights buyers like Amazon, Facebook and Netflix to make up the difference or more. A financial reckoning is coming for many clubs.
The worrying thing for the professional game more broadly is that most clubs won’t be able to find a billionaire sugar daddy, even if they are prepared to hold their noses while taking the largesse. The pandemic may hasten the arrival of superleagues for the superrich, at the expense of many clubs left in the gutter.
Sadly we lost Dave Bacuzzi earlier this week.
He played in the game I referred to above and I thought he was a much better full back than Magill who Wright preferred . He left us to go to Manchester City and then signed for Reading where he spent the greater part of his career I believe
RIP Dave
I think Ned is right to be pessimistic about finances in football . I think I would go further than he has. Even if the new season starts roughly on time I think a lot of regulars won’t renew their season tickets . This will especially be a problem for city- based clubs especially London clubs , especially clubs where the majority of supporters travel by underground. That’s us then ! The other issue is that season ticket renewal invitations will land at a time when people may feel very unsure about their financial future . Committing to a lump sum given the uncertainty and having got used to life without football will be a real act of faith .
Revenue will be massively hit and the nature of our negotiations with players suggested that we expect severe privation because of the shutdown . Everybody needs to take a haircut- clubs via transfers, players on wages and bonuses and agents wh9 will find there will be fewer and cheaper transfers. My heart bleeds for them .
My sense is that transfer fees will be down to somewhere between 25-50% of what they were and most deals will be loan – related. I suspect we will do very little and we will have to sell first . That Ozil deal is a real killer .
The Dutch have cancelled their season. No title winners and no promotion/relegation. No title winners is understandable, considering the top two were separated only by goal difference with nine games to play. Apparently the clubs, when asked, were split between promotion and relegation based on the league table at the time of suspension and writing off the season. The League cast the tie-breaker in favour of the latter. Subject to UEFA approval, European places next season will be allocated on the basis of positions when football stopped, not points per game. Not a good precedent for us if the Premiership decides to go that way.
TTG@115: The club will have to tread carefully over season ticket renewals. I can see that it might ask season ticket holders to ‘do their bit’ by renewing as early as possible, but it cannot press the point. As you say, many season ticket holders face the uncertainty of whether they will be able to afford to renew. Others will not want to commit until the ground rules for the return of football are known, both in terms of assessing the safety of getting to and being in the stadium, and of what credits/refunds for this season might be due. Undoubtedly this will be another financial pain point for the club. It will be more wounding in the long-term to get it wrong.
A footnote to the earlier discussion on Ian Ure. Kenneth Wolstenholme describes him in his commentary on the 1963 England v Scotland game at Wembley as ‘the man so many people say is the greatest centre-half in the world today.’
He also said of the Scotland team that it was ‘generally regarded as the strongest team in Britain’.
Different times.
@112 Ned
Took me an early morning
minute to get that one 😃
The Belgians have cancelled
but set up a working group
to decide on European qualification
the last I heard.
Don’t know either if the Bundesliga
still intend to go ahead with their
closed door finish plan.
Ned @18, Wolstenholme must have had a man crush on Ian Ure. Ure failed to mark Greaves in the box on at least two occasions giving him gilt edged opportunities and his rash mid-half challenge missing ball and man completely led directly to England’s goal. To which Wolstenholme remarked it was ‘an error by the usually reliable Ure’.
I never saw him in the flesh so can’t really comment but it loos like I didn’t miss much. I’d be interested to hear how BtM rates him.
Thanks for posting that. I hadn’t seen it before so was on the edge of my seat at the end!
It was a terrible mistake by Ure that led to the England goal. Can you imagine the vitriol that would have descended if someone like Xhaka had done something like that?
Also on the basis of that performance, you can see why eight of the England team didn’t survive to the World Cup Final team just three years later.
OM@119: Must have left your scratching your heads…
Under Billy Wright as Manager , Ure was not impressive. I think our coach then was Les Shannon . The defence was never a reliable barrier When Bertie Mee took over he employed two excellent coaches , Dave Sexton and Don Howe who both were effective defensive organisers and you saw the improvement in Ure. Don Howe had actually played alongside him . In 1968/9 we started to look a serious team and flirted with a title challenge, also getting to Wembley for a second League Cup Final in a row . Ure was the dominant figure in that defence but we had decent full-backs in Storey and McNab and Peter Simpson had taken over as the other centre back . Simpson was an incredibly underrated player . In that defence shielded by Court and Mclintock Ure was very effective…until we played Swindon !
@118, I enjoyed watching that game again, Ned. Thanks.
I think Kenny W was being extremely kind of his ‘best in the world’ comment. Ian Ure was one of my heroes at that time and that Wembley game was quite representative of his playing standard (I’d be less critical of his day than Bath @ 121). I was delighted, but surprised, that he was a regular pick at centre-half for Scotland ahead of Ron ‘The Colossus’ Yates (Liverpool), Billy McNeil (Celtic) and Ron McKinnon (Rangers) who were all competitors for the spot. Bath will have noticed the two other Dundee players on the field (Bill Brown and Alex Hamilton) and will also have noted the glaring omission of Alan Gilzean for the much less able ‘Saint’. Had Gilzean been playing that was a 5-0 game (at half-time 🙂 ). That selection error was corrected the following season and Gillie scored the only goal in a 1-0 win at Hampden.****
To my mind there were two world class players on the field that day. Bobby Charlton and Slim Jim. Such a shame that Baxter’s career went down the gurgler after he broke his leg. Dave MacKay had a great game for the ten men in his own inimitable style.
**** Faltering Fullback/Pappagone drinkers/diners – buy me a beer in our future world and I will relate at great length my strange day out with my grandad and 120,000 others at Hampden Park in April 1964.
Clubs is going to let the players train on their own at London Colney. An attempt to keep any more embarrassing photographs out of the papers, in part, I suspect, but also an opportunity to sustain team morale and do a bit of ball work.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52428362
I’d add Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore, Denis Law and John White to your list of world-class players in that game, Btm.
Also it is amazing that the tackle in which Smith broke Caldow’s leg in three places wasn’t even blow as a foul. These days that would have been a straight red for Smith.
Ned, Apparently Smith “wasn’t that sort of player.” (One of the more meaningless phrases invented before or since then).
-Chelsea’s players not taking any
pay cut but no furloughs.
-Woodward, the Manure guy not
Callan, says no mega deals this
summer.
-The Dutch FA boss thinks chances
of PL finishing season are slim
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>