As a British sports fan, I know I'm supposed to support the underdogs. That's why I would love to see Atlético Madrid beat Barcelona today and win La Liga - breaking the two-club stranglehold of Barcelona and Real Madrid which has existed in Spanish football for years. That's why I know I ought to want Hull City to beat Arsenal today, and lift the FA Cup for the first time in their history.
But, I don't. The truth is, I want Arsenal to win today - and not just because the dodgy Penalty which Hull were awarded against Norwich earlier in the season still rankles! No, I want Arsenal to win because, if they don't, the insufferable gloating of thousands of football fans gleefully pointing out the continuation of Arsenal's run of seasons without winning a trophy will be excruciating.
I can't be the only person getting fed up of this tired and and one-dimensional statistic being trotted out at every opportunity. Not only is it tedious in the extreme to hear about how Arsenal haven't won a trophy since 2005 (also an FA Cup, as it happens), it is completely disingenuous to claim that this in any way makes Arsenal a 'failure' as a club, or that this is something of which they should be ashamed.
Fernando Alonso hasn't won the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship since 2006 - but everyone still recognises that he is one of the top drivers in the sport right now. In the light of that fact, one has to be particularly obtuse to point at this one aspect of Arsenal's recent record in football, ignoring all other factors, and claim that this somehow means they are not a successful football club.
Arsenal are a team who have not finished outside the Top 4 in the Premier League since 1996. That level of consistency, at the very highest level, is a much more remarkable statistic than the fact they haven't won a trophy for nine years. They have the third highest tally of League Titles in history (behind Liverpool and Man. Utd.), they have the second highest tally of FA Cups (behind Man. Utd.), and they still hold the record for the longest unbeaten run of Premier League games. (That they have achieved this on a much more limited budget than some Premier League clubs have available to them is even more impressive.) Moreover, I don't imagine there are many clubs in this country whose supporters and players wouldn't want to swap their 2013-14 seasons for Arsenal's!
It is harsh on Hull - who have had an excellent season, staying up in the Premier League after being promoted from the Championship this time last year, and reaching an FA Cup Final (that, in itself, is 'success'!) - to say so, but I shall be cheering on Arsenal when this year's Final gets underway this evening. If the Gunners can go from winning Sweet F.A. to Sweet FA Cup, that will shut a lot of people up - and that will be a very good thing indeed!
Showing posts with label moaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moaning. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Modern entertainment
In the following post, I finally make the full transition to grumpy old man moaning about how things were better "in the good old days"...
Yesterday, I was having my hair cut, when a chap walked into the Barber's shop with his son (about eight years old) and sat down waiting for their appointments. I heard the father ask the boy "did you bring your iPad with you?" "No, I forgot", was the rueful response. "Well, you're going to be bored, then, aren't you?!"
Why?
Why should the boy be bored, because he forgot his iPad? I've nothing against iPads (indeed, I have one myself, and I love it!) nor against electronic forms of entertainment in general - but the idea that, without these electronic devices, one's existence is nothing but vast expanse of unrelenting boredom seems a little severe.
I started to think, when I was eight years old (and nobody had iPads), and I was sitting waiting somewhere with my Dad (possibly for a haircut), how would we have amused ourselves? We could've played "I Spy", or some sort of word game. We could've made up some game from watching the other customers coming and going, or from the rhythmic clack-clacking of the barber's scissors. Or we could just have talked.
Yeah, that's probably what we would've done.
Why do people need to be "entertained" all the time, these days? Not every second of you life has to be filled with the most fun you can possibly imagine having. It is possible just to be, sometimes - to talk, to reflect, to contemplate - without having to fill your time with high-intensity hair-raising fun and excitement. (Or, at least, things that are supposed to be fun and exciting - all the stuff you're supposed to enjoy is never as good as you're always told it's meant to be! But that's really a topic for another time...)
When I was a child, I never understood other children who always "got bored", unless they were being provided with some sort of activity to amuse and distract them. I still don't.
It is just one short step from here to sitting out in a lawn chair in front of my house, smoking a pipe, and shouting "damn hooligans!" at a gang of kids riding past on bicycles, before muttering something about "the war" into my nicotine-stained beard.
Yesterday, I was having my hair cut, when a chap walked into the Barber's shop with his son (about eight years old) and sat down waiting for their appointments. I heard the father ask the boy "did you bring your iPad with you?" "No, I forgot", was the rueful response. "Well, you're going to be bored, then, aren't you?!"
Why?
Why should the boy be bored, because he forgot his iPad? I've nothing against iPads (indeed, I have one myself, and I love it!) nor against electronic forms of entertainment in general - but the idea that, without these electronic devices, one's existence is nothing but vast expanse of unrelenting boredom seems a little severe.
I started to think, when I was eight years old (and nobody had iPads), and I was sitting waiting somewhere with my Dad (possibly for a haircut), how would we have amused ourselves? We could've played "I Spy", or some sort of word game. We could've made up some game from watching the other customers coming and going, or from the rhythmic clack-clacking of the barber's scissors. Or we could just have talked.
Yeah, that's probably what we would've done.
Why do people need to be "entertained" all the time, these days? Not every second of you life has to be filled with the most fun you can possibly imagine having. It is possible just to be, sometimes - to talk, to reflect, to contemplate - without having to fill your time with high-intensity hair-raising fun and excitement. (Or, at least, things that are supposed to be fun and exciting - all the stuff you're supposed to enjoy is never as good as you're always told it's meant to be! But that's really a topic for another time...)
When I was a child, I never understood other children who always "got bored", unless they were being provided with some sort of activity to amuse and distract them. I still don't.
It is just one short step from here to sitting out in a lawn chair in front of my house, smoking a pipe, and shouting "damn hooligans!" at a gang of kids riding past on bicycles, before muttering something about "the war" into my nicotine-stained beard.
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