chelsea – Gambeano Snitch AFC

It certainly was a weekend to avoid the news; every channel showing images of Mr Terry front and centre soaking up all the attention. I admit I turned over after the final whistle so missed the glorious moment Terry was stripped down to kit (with shin pads and all) to claim glory for a game he didn’t take part in. sums up his character all round.

Only thing I regret missing out on was the live shots at all the spurs pubs after the final kick, the disappointment on all their faces are priceless moments. I’m sure there must have been a few kids crying, adults too. Spurs champions league adventure was over before it had even started.

One thing that did raise a question to me was where did all these so-called fans love for Chelsea come from? I suppose I am old school when it comes to supporting your club, you support your local team. Times have changed though and fan bases reach out ever so further than a borough in a city. It is essential for club growth to reach out all over the world.

As a kid you tend to gravitate towards the more successful teams, that’s why many gentlemen from my generation were Liverpool fans. They were the team then and so had a high fan base. When the premiership kicked in it more or less turned into the Manchester United show. From then every kid loved united. Arsenals emergence under Wenger led to an increase in awareness which in turn led to many new gooners.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not like nobody supported anyone unless they were successful I just found it interesting that growing up I would see so many people proudly wearing the shirts of the teams they supported. In London for every one Chelsea shirt you saw you would see twenty arsenal or spurs or Liverpool or man united shirts.

Chelsea fans were few and far between. It was only after the introduction of Mr Abramovich and some success that the Chelsea fan base grew and grew, only then I started to see little kids donning Chelsea shirts. Fair play to them they were winning things and so winning the hearts of the next generation.

As I mentioned earlier football reaches a lot further than these shores and I am happy than I have come in contact with many Arsenal fans from across the world that share my love for the club. Overseas support may have been looked down on in the past but media has evolved so much to the point you could follow your club from anywhere in the world.

Gone are the days when I would go on holiday and the only way I could follow what was going on back home with the Arsenal was to receive a day old sun newspaper from the hotel.

I welcome all new Arsenal fans from any part of the world my only problem is Arsenal need to get back to where they were and start attracting the next generation of fans again. We need to look to putting silverware back in the cabinet and enhancing our global support. We are a club enriched with so much history and not just the past ten years like Chelsea. I’ve noticed a few Man city shirts on kids in the park lately. I hope their fate is similar to that of the Blackburn fans that emerged in the mid 90’s.

Reputation as a successful club not only appeals to your average fans but to future football stars. If a young talented footballer supports the club he is at it only helps consolidate his potential to stay at that club. If you love your club you do not move on (mitigating circumstances permitting).

I remember seeing an article from an interview from Romelu Lukaku and he stated that Chelsea was the club he always wanted to play for and how he idolised them as a kid. Now that’s a straight up lie! Like he has ever known of Mark Stein, Frank Sinclair or Gordon Durie without clicking on Google.

Let’s see if he will last at his dream club Chelsea for the rest of his career, somehow I don’t think so..

I feel dirty about mentioning Chelsea so much in my blogs past couple days. I apologize to all gooners. 100% focus on Arsenal from now on

Enjoy your day.

So Chelsea did it. I mean gunners fans across the land were divided on the perfect possible outcome last night. On one side of the scale there were those who wanted a Chelsea victory. This would in effect relegate spurs to playing Europa league football having finished 4^th in the league, an amazing opportunity to laugh at our North London chokers. On the other side of the scale there were those who wanted a Bayern victory. A chance for Chelsea to implode and the possibility of them putting all their eggs into one basket then dropping that basket. A defeat would have meant super disappointment and no champion’s league football next year.

I personally swayed towards a Bayern victory; as much as I dislike Tottenham they would only be qualifying for the champion’s league not winning it. I never support another English club to be successful in the champion’s league. It didn’t matter if it was Man Utd, Everton or Reading I do not wish them success. On this occasion it just happened to be Chelsea.

In the general scheme of things either outcome would be bittersweet to gunners fans however not enough to make us distraught. We will leave the crying to all the spurs fans.

I did always stand behind my assumption that karma would bite Chelsea in the arse. I mean any club that employs John Terry would suffer the consequences of his actions. Maybe karma will be throwing its all into his upcoming court case.

Weirdest thing is this has been one of the poorest Chelsea teams in years. At one point in the season things were looking so bad for them it seems dark days were ahead.

The same could be said about Arsenals start of the season yet we turned things around for a respectable finish taking into account our troubles.

Difference is we didn’t have silverware to show for it. The silverware will come, if Chelsea can win with that team why can’t we?

I suppose that question can be answered a lot easier once we get our house in order which means contracts need to be finalised and resolved as soon as possible.

Despite the talks with Skipper Van Persie this week nothing was concluded for us fans to sit back this summer and enjoy the Euros. The fact that nothing will be announced until after the Euros does allow the doubt to creep in. A sense of déjà vu is upon us, we get this every year and so we know the warning signs when we see them.

The papers have full license to link Robin with every club on the planet which will only serve to antagonise the fans. Although robin hasn’t confirmed he’s staying he hasn’t confirmed he’s going either.

Some fans are quick to take to twitter and directly abuse our skipper. Maybe if they used the few brain cells they have functioning they could use them to consider that maybe Robin isn’t fully decided but the twitter abuse could be the factor that swings it for him to leave.

Twitter is an excellent platform to connect with players of your team and get their thoughts and statements but it also acts as a platform for unwarranted knee jerk reactions from fans to hide behind a computer and abuse.

I suppose if you don’t want the abuse you shouldn’t be on there but at the same time fans need to think about consequences of their tweets.

On a final note Fabianski wants to leave Arsenal, it’s fair to say his career has never taken off whilst at the club. Although promising in his first few appearances he has never been able to recover from some quite high-profile gaffs. Wenger would always stand behind him and try to convince us how amazing a keeper he was in training, we would try to believe him then Fabianski would play his next game and make another gaff making Wenger eat his words.

I think Fabianski moving on is the best thing for him for domestic and international reasons. It doesn’t help that your compatriot is keeping you out for club and country.

Good luck to him wherever he goes, it’s always hard to shake a dodgy keeper tag the best bet is to move on and rebuild your reputation elsewhere.

Enjoy your Sunday people, I know the spurs fans aren’t.