London Calling

 

Wow, Volume 21 of London Calling…Oz and no one’s pulled the plug yet!  I almost feel I should be throwing a coming of age party…

 Anyway, what’s been going on?

Real Madrid Away Tickets.

Well, this really has been a case of ‘sod the fans let’s do it the easiest way for us’ by the box office.  Now with the draw being made so damned long ago you’d think someone would have had the common to sort out some sensible way of doing things, but this is the box office!

Let’s put it like this – despite all applications at different levels being in a couple of weeks ago, they couldn’t tell me whether my application had been successful until Saturday.  Yes, that’s NINE days before the game.  And why so late?  Well some fool decided the best thing to do (as far as I can tell) was just to make piles of the successful applications and put them to one side until the tickets arrived, at which time they (started) to allocate.  Their (oft repeated) argument whenever something like this happens is ‘well we can’t do anything until the tickets arrived’.  And then it appears to have taken them all week to actually do it!

Well I’m sorry there’s plenty you could do – especially when the club has been very vocal about not booking flights/accommodation until you had tickets (in real terms that delay could cost each and every fan hundreds of pounds in extra costs because things aren’t as cheap at the last minute.  You know that, I know that, they don’t give a monkeys).  How about doing something really complicated like a postcard to each successful applicant?  Like they send out to acknowledge the receipt of season ticket application.  Or maybe, where possible send a quick email ‘You’re alright – tickets to follow’.  Or even ask people to add an sae with the application to send back to us?  Absolutely anything except the way it’s been done. 

There are three weeks between this round and the first leg of the next.  Only two between the quarters and semis.  Potentially we could be drawn away first in both – god help us all!

I should mention I’m lucky.  I have a flat in Spain that we’re staying at and we’re not flying into or out of Madrid.  The difference is going to be (maybe) £30 quid for me.  I was talking to a guy called John on Saturday who booked flights etc the moment he knew he had tickets.  He’s going with a mate and they’re staying in Madrid.  He’s on the same flights and staying in an identical room in the same hotel as a pair of people he knows, who booked as soon as the draw was made.  Out Monday, back Thursday.  Difference in cost – over £400!  This is for John and the many others like him that have been screwed by the incompetence of the box office yet again.

And then they don’t understand that some fans end up travelling anyway without tickets…

Hleb.

He’s going.  He’s staying.  Only took a few hours for everyone to deny he was leaving.  Trouble is (regardless of the facts) mud sticks.

You can imagine a report in a week or two… “Hleb, who denied wanting to leave Highbury 2 weeks ago, set up both first half goals”.  Drip, drip, drip and suddenly everyone perceives it to be fact.

Bits.

Spuds will only play 40 games this season.  The lowest total by a top-flight team in over 40 years (ie since before The League Cup started).  It must have been hard for them watching us set all the records we have over the last few years so if you know any of them and have gloated over our achievements then please do the decent thing and congratulate them on entering the record books.  We are The Arsenal after all.

Peter Marinello – have pen will travel.  He appears to have a new career autographing quiz books to be sold on ebay.  If you’ve been looking for his autograph, now you know where to go.

Basil Fawlty has been banned from the World Cup Finals – anyone doing the ‘walk’ or giving it a bit of ‘Don’t mention the war’ will find themselves arrested.  I dread to think what the penalty for singing ‘Two world wars and one world cup’ will be.

£21-06 – still no idea.

Richard Wright – our ex-keeper was ‘injured’ in the warm up before Everton played the chavs.  Apparently, he was catching some crosses and knackered himself landing on a ‘Don’t warm up in the goalmouth’ sign.  Ahem.

Pre-season – There is a rumour that it will be in Dubai rather than Austria but I think this is more just conjecture based on who our new sponsors are.  Hope so anyway because I’ve a funny feeling that Dubai will cost slightly more than a little town in Austria.

Bearing in mind that I’m of an age where I don’t have a child young enough to be a member, I was rather surprised to find myself on the mailing list for the new Junior Gunners eNewsletter.  Or do they know something I don’t?

Bugger all to do with football but I was rather amused by a story in the Sunday Mail last week (don’t get me wrong, I certainly didn’t buy a copy.  Found out about it in the local papers back home).  The allegation is that the current head of my old school (The RGS in High Wycombe), which is one of the top state schools in the country (no I don’t know where it all went wrong!) regularly took cocaine with his mistress and smoked pot that had been confiscated from pupils…  True or not it certainly brightened my week!

Fat Sam – Everything That Is Wrong With Football.

Right, it’s the third time we’ve played Bolton since I’ve been doing this so you should have a good idea that I detest Allardyce and everything he stands for, ie the snide end of football.  In Vol 6 I told you how his agent put out a statement that he’d like to be considered for the England job and a couple of days later he’s on MotD after a newspaper included him in the list of potential candidates he said how he was honoured to be mentioned.  Sneaky people need to have some intelligence.

How on earth that ‘tackle’ on Reyes wasn’t a straight and immediate red I don’t know.  Two footed, studs up, through ball and man.  It’s as obvious a red as you’ll ever see.  And in the short time he was on the pitch it was at least the forth time there was a foul on him where the perpetrator deserved a stern talking to at the very least.  The kid deserves so much credit because he’s been a marked man since he came to Arsenal and despite getting battered virtually every game he keeps putting himself in the firing line.  His ankles must be made of pure steel.

We knew it was bad.  He quite often has need of the magic sponge but you could tell this was different straight away.  It wasn’t the stretcher turning up, we’ve long since learnt that means nothing, it was the way the people around were keeping him still.  That’s when we feared the worst.  As I write this there’s no concrete news either way but we need that boy against Madrid. 

A word about Flamini and his ‘tackle’.  Sorry Arsene but that was a straight red as well.  I didn’t feel you came over well on MotD over that but although both should have seen red it is fair that there was a big difference in how dangerous the two were.  With Reyes the launch was a yard or two away from him.  Straight in and maximum force at impact.  Flamini launched from much further away and slid in on his bum, which made it easy for the opposition player to get out of the way.  More of a blocking action without the intent of taking the player.  But regardless of that both were reds.

Thankfully Kolo should be back very soon.  And Eboue.  They’ve both made some mistakes but I think Flamini and (especially) Larsson have been fantastic.  Before they were thrown into the most jinxed defence in the history of football against West Ham neither had played full back before.  In fact since the defence of Larsson Senderos Djorou and Flamini came together we’ve played 2 and a half games and conceded 2 goals.  Respect. 

(Just after finishing this I watched MotD on tape before sending it.  Alan Hansen has just had a go at Seb Larsson and highlighted a couple of his mistakes from early on and saying he was no left back.  Well Mr Hansen you’re a bully.  Did you not notice that the kid is right footed?  Do you not know how he’s only made a handful of appearances in the team?  Or that he was a right sided midfielder?  Or that he was our eighth left back this term?  And them to compare him with their very experienced actual left back.  Very lazy journalism – and you get paid for it!  What next…Manchester United – A Big Club…?)

In different circumstances I’m sure Wenger would have taken off Gilberto (who really is going through a bad spell) rather than Diaby but you need some people that can shave on the pitch!  Damn good goal though – and what a relief!  How we were still behind I don’t know, I mean how many times do you see Thierry ‘fly-kick’ from the edge of the six yard box?  Great saves, near misses, and into five minutes injury time before the equaliser.  And still enough time to nearly get the winner.  Would have been justified as well.

Not a victory, but it almost felt like it with how late it was.  Should have been more injury time as well to be honest because with all their time wasting, add in 30 secs for each substitution anyway, the 2 minutes their player was getting treatment on the pitch when he got it in the face (unlike – I think - Seb who took one in the nuts full blast, went down ‘til he could breathe, shook himself and got on with it), and all the rest and 10 minutes wouldn’t be unfair.  Mind you it takes some guts to hold up a board with ‘5’ on it next to fat Sam when he’s trying to defend a 1-0 lead.  Mind you, probably not as much as to hold a pasty near his mouth…

Right, now for the Mickies Tuesday.  Robbie Fowler.  Gulp.  But at least I’m still in a hire car! 

Come On You Red(currant)s!