Arsenal Are The Champs! (1 Viewer)

[jazzeum]

This has nothing really to do with soldiers but since we don't have a miscellaneous section, my team, the Arsenal Gunners won the British FA Cup yesterday against Manchester United. The FA Cup is one of the two biggest prizes in English Football (soccer) so today is a very good day. Hail Arsenal. We are the CHAMPS!

This may only may make sense to Cannonfodder.

 

[CannonFodder1971]

Brad, there's quite a good level of support for Arsenal here in Dublin. Players like Liam Brady (good), Niall Quinn (bad) and David O'Leary (ugly) have all graced and disgraced the field of Highbury. However, Man Utd are still the most strongly supported team here in Ireland. (From Roy Keane, John O'Shea, Denis Irwin, Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran right back to Noel Cantwell, Johnny Carey, Shay Brennan the link has been almost unbroken). That's without even mentioning Norman Whiteside, Sammy McIlroy, George Best and the huge contingent of Northern Irish players and supporters over the decades. Of course the links between Dublin and Manchester are centuries old, and it being (notionally anyway) a Catholic city in a country in which Protestantism is an integral part of its identity, not to mention all the other ties - from bedsit music of the Smiths to stadium tantrum morons Oasis there are Irish parents and grandparents littered everywhere amonst band members. Unusually enough, Frank O'Farrell is the only Irishman to have managed Man Utd.
Anyway I'd have to admit that I feel Man Utd have a legitimate case to feel that they were mugged, but Arsenal took their penalties and Lehman made the save that mattered so I'd have to hand it to them.
By the way if anyone is wondering why this is on a soldier forum well it's because Arsenal were originally Woolwich Arsenal, and originated in an armoury, hence the nickname "the Gunners". They moved from south London to Islington and have had a fierce rivalry with Spurs, and this in itself could fill a soldier forum with the warfare between the two clubs. Arsenal were lucky enough to have a manager called Herbie Chapman (who had won the League with Huddersfield Town 3 times) to come and manage them. He was a brilliant media manipulator (British PM Harold Wilson used always have a stock of Chapman quotes if he thought he was losing an audience when in Yorkshire) and Chapman had the audacity to have a London Underground and numerous bus stations named Arsenal, rubbing Spurs nose in it for many decades. Just short of warfare, believe me.
Now, another point of interest for you soldier collectors: the upward-firing cannon on the German nightfighters was called jazz music by German pilots. Hence this post about the Arsenal Gunners being entirely within the spirit of the forum.

 

[Shannon Reuss]

Brad, I have to admit I know nothing about world soccer and all the various UK teams. The closest I've come to learning about and understanding the intense rivalries between these teams is by reading Harry Potter! The quidditch team rivalries are supposed to mirror the UK soccer team rivalries and soccer is mentioned as well. There are many and various ways to learn about things I guess!

Shannon

 

[jazzeum]

I'm sure Joe (Cannonfodder1971) could elaborate better but the rivalries are intense and make anything that happens here look like childs play. Yankees Red Sox have nothing on Arsenal Manchester United, for example. Here in stadiums fans for both sides may sit together. There the fans are kept apart. Another feature is team songs. For instance, Liverpool's is You'll Never Walk Alone. In football the players ask for no quarter and none is expected from the other side. On the other hand if a player gets hurt, the other side will kick the ball out so the trainer can come on.

Although it's low scoring, the bodies are hurtling around the field and some pretty physical action takes place. The action is constant unlike american football.

Another feature which I would like to see here is that at the end of the season three teams from the top division with the worst records are relegated to the next division. This is also called the "drop." So sometimes it's more interesting to see who's going to survive the drop. This year Southampton was relegated after 27 years in the Premier League, England's top football league. A few years ago Coventry was relegated after a similarly long stay and who knows when they'll ever get back. What happens is that each division then has to relegate 3 teams. There are several divisions so you have various teams relegated.

You also have teams getting promotion. So as three teams are dropped from the Premier League, three earn promotion and usually two of those will not survive the drop the coming year.

Teams that are big draws in this country have nothing on football where you may fan clubs and supporters in other parts of the world. Manchester United, for example, has a huge following in Asia as do perennial champions like Real Madrid.

This coming year should be interesting because the season will be accelerated because the World Cup starts at the end of June in 2006 and this is just a feast of football for a month by the best 32 teams in the world, the US among them.

I can't wait until the season starts again in August.