Clash wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2017 3:09 pm
Be warned. This is fucking long, negative and depressing even by my miserable standards so don’t read it ... (I’m just posting it to get it off my chest, not trying to derail this thread)
Last season, after pretty much feeling I'd had to distance myself from Arsenal for a while, I felt rejuvenated when the protest thing started up. Wenger was coming to the end of his contract, results were going against him, more and more fans were finally turning against him. Allegri was waiting in the wings to take over. There was light at the end of the tunnel. Or so I thought ...
I went to a couple of the marches and did the 13 min protest against West Ham (along with about six others by the look of it so we just looked like a late-comers) and I paid over £200 towards the fund raising. Which I don’t regret by the way … the guys on here did a fantastic job and used the money wisely and creatively. Their efforts were very much appreciated by myself and many others I know.
However, Wenger’s luck returned as it always does and he signed his new deal. That was when I realised the club was dead. Not dying, dead! And I realise now that even if he’d gone last summer, it was still dead.
The questions I would like to ask - in the event that these protests do have the desired impact , what sort of club are you expecting to find after Wenger (and maybe Kroenke) have gone? And is it really one worth fighting for?
For me it isn’t. There is nothing left there anymore. If the end result of any long-term campaign had the possibility of ridding ourselves of these pricks … getting in some real Arsenal men to replace them … and returning to Highbury the way Charlton returned to The Valley … then I wouldn’t give up so easily. But this obviously isn’t possible.
I hear people say they will go back when Wenger is gone. I’ve said this myself. But go back to what exactly?
I hear the same people and others saying Wenger needs to go because ‘’he is destroying Arsenal''. But I think ‘’he has destroyed Arsenal’’ is more accurate. Destroying makes it sound like there is still hope. There isn’t. Wenger and a few others have fucked this club forever. There is left nothing meaningful to save.
I admire people for carrying on but I cant help thinking t’s as futile as people fighting to remove the piles rubble that covered their homes, hoping to find buried relatives still alive weeks after an earthquake.
Can anyone really envisage a scenario in our lifetimes where we have a real Arsenal Football Club alive and well? On and off the pitch? I just cannot picture this in my mind.
We’ll always be at the that soulless bowl now … we’ll probably always play a certain tepid and passionless ‘brand’ of football … and we’ll always have thousands of total wankers in the stands at our home games. They’re not going anywhere just like the club isn't.
Wenger’s name will always be associated with the club now. The culture and habits he has instilled will either never be removed or will take a lifetime to remove
And who is going to do that? The few people that might have been able to have done it have not and will not be allowed anywhere near the place.
No future manager will come in and rip the place apart like is needed. The club will only appoint those who will carry on with the Wenger blueprint because that will be the key requirement. And so even after Wenger isn’t actually the manager anymore, his influence will live on. That is the way he has engineered things. I detest Gazidis but he is right when he says the club has Wenger’s DNA. It sickens me because it is the truth.
It should never have been allowed to happen of course. We should have stopped him several years ago or been more demanding about what we wanted if we had to leave Highbury (which I dont believe was the case).
Starting the protesting in February 2017 was a noble attempt and worth a try but it was too late to save the club even if it had succeeded in getting Wenger out.
We are all guilty of letting this dangerous cult grow out of control. But at the same time we have been the unfortunate victims of a complete freak of a man becoming our manager – compounded by a freak set of circumstances that meant he got to build up his reputation into something bigger and better than he ever was.
In general I hate people giving up and being defeatist like I am being here but you can only keep going if you believe there is something to fight for.
The thought of Arsenal playing at the Emirates stadium for the rest of my lifetime is the real killer for me I hate that place so much. How can I (or anyone) ever be passionate about their team playing in a place like that?
Despite giving up on the future of the club, I might still donate at a later date if it helps to show Wenger up for what he is. But it will only be out of spite and pure hatred for the man and a desire to see him suffer.
As I said earlier in this thread, I've only been posting since the early part of this year, but have been reading the forum for years. I've always thought that Clash was a top poster (I suppose, as I said to SteveO, that's because they see it exactly how I do) and this post bears it out. I feel your pain Clash mate and I'd be a liar if I said that I haven't viewed the situation from the same doom ladened aspect. I share your view that even getting shot of Wenger, will no longer be enough.
There is another thread that I deliberately haven't posted on and that concerns whether we should aim the protests at Wenger or Kroenke. The other protest organisers and I have discussed this and it's fair to say that we don't all agree. Despite not expressing my opinion on the other thread, your post has prompted me to come clean and I don't think I'm speaking out of turn.
Having been an avid Wenger Outer for at least 10 years, the emergence of Kroenke, plus our failed attempt to force change last season, has led me to believe that while Wenger was the battle we lost, the real war is Kroenke. Despise Wenger as I do....and trust me, I've long gone way beyond seeing him as purely a crap manager, I see him as a genuinely bad man (greedy, deceitful, power-crazed, duplicitous, self-regarding, spiteful, vengeful, dishonest, cowardly...the list is endless), but as you say, if he goes, nothing of any real significance will change.
Above all, the cretins at the bowl simply will not turn on him in sufficient numbers and if last season's protests achieved anything at all, they proved this beyond all doubt. That dreadful run of form...including an aggregate 10-2 loss !!!....still could not generate enough vocal anti Wenger sentiment in the ground and until we see loud and on-going dissent in the ground, nothing will change.
The single ray of hope for me, lay in the willingness of the crowd to loudly call for Kroenke to "get out of our club", during the last two home games of the season and quite unprovoked by our protest efforts, which had been totally focused on Wenger. These Kroenke attacks were spontaneous and saw more participation than any dissent ever aimed at Wenger inside the stadium. Bear in mind also, that by that time, the results had improved and a Cup Final was on the horizon.
I now fervently believe that we need to harness that willing dissent, by turning our focus on Kroenke. I hear all the arguments about how can we force out a billionaire and there may indeed be scant chance of success, but if we are to continue with protests, we must try. Everyone on here knows that if Kroenke was gone, Wenger's days are numbered. If Wenger goes, we've still got Kroenke and in that case, as Clash says, the Club is dead. The man is a parasite, with no interests in the glory of the Club. It's purely an important and profitable part of his franchise jigsaw.
In my opinion, the only chance we have is to severely damage the brand. Protests, whether marches or stunts, should be aimed at exposing Kroenke as the damaging leech that he is and we should encourage banners inside the ground. We need to stir it up, in an attempt to make the stadium as toxic as possible. We should call for everyone to Boycott certain games, not to spend a single penny on food or drink, not to buy merchandise, no programmes, nothing. To stay silent at matches (that won't be hard to arrange
), except for vicious, personal, coordinated chants against Kroenke and his son, especially for televised matches. This needs to be as nasty as possible, staying just within the law. The biggest hope we've got is that it becomes so vicious, spiteful and toxic, that the sponsors start to shy away. If the brand becomes damaged enough, then he might, just might, decide to sell up and fuck off.
I'm not naive, I realise the enormity of this task and the slim chance of success, but if the Club is to be saved, it's all we've got. Get rid of Kroenke and Wenger's gone too. If we managed to force Wenger out, whoever the Club appointed would have to be given a chance. At modern day Arsenal, he'd fail. We'd then get another and would be duty bound to give him a chance. He'd fail. We'd get another and on and on. After six, seven or eight years, we might decide that Kroenke is the problem....except we wont, because the few remaining old school amongst us will be gone and the Club will be truly dead. Going after both dilutes the message and kills the focus. We need to target Kroenke. There'll be many that scream that Wenger must not be allowed off the hook. Well, that's letting emotion get in the way of good sense and in the way of what's best for the Club. Wenger is only as good as the parasite that renewed his contract. Get rid of Kroenke and they're both gone.
Sorry to follow up Clash's post with this diatribe, but I also needed to get it out.