Perhaps I'm deluded and perhaps this is just the same as it has been for years, but this feels a bit like a watershed moment. I think people who suffer from addiction call it a "moment of clarity."
See, I've watched The Arsenal when we were shit. Proper shit. I can live with us being shit. I can even live with us not signing anyone and showing no ambition. I can live with fourth place and I can live with going out of the Champions League at the last 16 stage every fucking year. It's annoying, but I've chosen to support a team who play a game. That's the thing with games - sometimes they go your way and sometimes they don't.
What makes this all impossible to take is the ticket prices. As I'm sure you all know, our stadium move was supposed to propel us into the stratosphere of European football enabling us to compete with the upper echelons. Sure, we've got a bigger stadium and our ticket prices are eye-wateringly high, but it's all for the good of the team. Right?
I won't bore you with how it all turned out because you all know the story. I suppose I should be thankful because, since I moved out to the States five years ago, not being able to attend The Arsenal has been a bitter pill to swallow, but the longer and longer this shit goes on for, the less and less sore I feel about it. If I were still living in Enfield I'd like to think I would have stopped going by now as a form of protest but I probably wouldn't. At least this way around I have no choice in the matter.
Yes, I'm geographically detached from it now, but it still annoys me. My dad, uncle and brother still go. They're still paying the highest prices in the country (I think I read the highest prices in Europe somewhere) - which would be fine if our board and manager had ambitions lofty enough to match the ticket prices. But they don't, and they won't.
Thankfully due to the globalization of football, most Arsenal fans these days don't give a fuck about the ticket prices, because it makes no difference to them. We have one of the biggest followings in Asia, don't you know? We've got 6.25 million followers on Twitter, so who gives a shit what a few thousand people who attend matches think? The beauty of having a global fanbase is that the fans who actually attend games and pay for tickets are a HUGE minority. Therefore their views and opinions will always be drowned out. No one in a senior position at the club will be held accountable for the fleecing of the fans and the whole thing will carry on ad infinitum. Though I want him gone, a different manager will not change the course of this train, chums.
To be clear: I am not simply whining about the lack of signings. I don't mind us signing no one. But do we really need to be charged an arm and a leg to watch this bullshit unfurl each year? Do we need to pay the highest ticket prices in the country/Europe in order to always be two or three players short?
Please accept my sincerest apologies for my ramblings. You may all now return to talking about that girl on Sky's tits
