Lightweight Arshavin guaranteed Barcelona move
I am sorry about the headline, but this is the best article i have seen for ages and i want you all to read it, and it is based on the ridiculous headlines created by papers like the Star or the Daily Mail. It is absolutely brilliant!
Tony Attwod from Untold Arsenal (one of the best Arsenal blogs around, okay maybe he is THE best) wrote this specifically as a post for 11Gunners.com, and it is so good i just had to promote it on here. And i love him for it!
Most newspapers have editorial conferences where the leading planners in the paper sit around a big table and argue about the main stories and features of the next edition. They might talk about the collapse of the British economy, the danger of North Korea having a nuclear bomb, big stuff like that.
But not in the Star. For them the big stories are TV personalities, and people who are dead. This might sound morbid, but I have always thought that the Star would be the best place in the world to work, because their news conferences each day would be so funny.
“What’s tomorrow’s big headline?” shouts the editor.
“Elvis Presley found living in a London bus on the dark side of the Moon,” says a journalist.
“We did that last week,” says the editor. “There must be something new!”
“John Lennon is doing a comeback tour from his new base in Terra del Fuego,” says another.
“Possible, possible,” replies the editor. “But what about football, we must have some football!”
“Cesc Fabregas is going to Barcalona,” says a new reporter who hasn’t quite got the hang of everything yet. Everyone sniggers.
“No wait,” says the editor. “I have it. Liverpool are going to sign Eduardo!”
Now you might think this is an insane and stupid story. But it is true. It was run by several papers – and not only was the story in the paper, it was published the very day Eduardo signed a new long term contract with Arsenal!
In fact, football journalism is not quite as crazy as it might seem. You can do it if you want. You take a load of players names and write each one on a card. Put all the cards in one box. Now take another load of cards and write football clubs names on those cards. They go in another box.
Now you draw out cards at random and get Eduardo from the players box, and Liverpool from the club box, and that’s it. You have a story.
And better, it doesn’t matter what you wrote the day before, because the readers of these newspapers are so stupid that they can’t remember yesterday’s story.
“Denilson wanted by Real Madrid,” is a possible headline. (I just made that up but it could appear – and the fact that for 18 months every single paper in the Britain called Denilson not Pereiria Neves Denilson – which is his proper name – but “Lightweight Denilson” – endlessly suggesting he was useless. The fact that Wenger played Denilson more than any other player last season suggested merely that Wenger had ‘Lost It’ and no longer knew how to pick a team.
The fact is, when it comes to transfers, no one can ever predict Arsène Wenger. He never does what you expect him to do. We have a perfectly good right back called Eboue. Everyone says, we really must sign a new centre forward. So Wenger goes and buys another full back called Sagna (a man whom most of us have never heard of). Then he takes Eboue and plays him in midfield. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. “Play him as a Full-Back or not at all,” everyone in the crowd shouts. So Mr Wenger turns him into a Forward.
This is how it always is. Henry leaves. Surely Arsène will bring in a big name superstar striker. He brings in Eduardo, again a man without much of a reputation. The same is true over and over again. Which is why all the predictions in the press about Arsenal’s transfer dealings are so stupid. Mr Wenger never does the obvious.
When he first came to Arsenal, Arsène Wenger introduced three great revolutions. One was to change the diet and lifestyle of all our players. One was to say that we needed a new training arena – which we then built. And one was to introduce World-Wide Scouting.
It is this last revolution which has given us the exciting football we have seen. To begin with World-Wide Scouting was used to bring in players from around the world who were not known in Britain but could perform. Vieira was one of the first, and one of the greatest. Pires, Henry, Lauren, Ljunberg, Adebayor. When Wenger signed these players there was no competition for them. There were no articles in the press everyday linking them with Milan or Madrid, because no one was talking about them. He signed players we had never heard of – and then turned them into superstars.
But then having set up that approach he did something even more remarkable. He started up a second round of world-wide scouting with ever younger players, finding 16 year olds across the globe who could develop into the very best in the country. And behind that he started recruiting an 11 year old team. Last year as the under 18s they won the youth cup. They have been playing together for 6 years.
We all now know that Walcott is a great player, but when he signed, not everyone was sure. Except Wenger. When we signed Ramsey, or Vela, who really knew what they could produce on the pitch? No one, except Wenger. No other European manager would touch Vela because they knew how often he would have to fly back to Mexico to play for his country. But Wenger saw something so incredible in the young man, that he was willing to accept that disruption.
So it continues with Arsenal – and this is one of the great joys of watching Arsenal. You never quite know who you are going to see next. Not everyone works out. I thought Julio Baptista could have been a sensation – but he never really functioned. When I watched Lupoli in the reserves I thought he was Theirry Henry II. So what do I know?
Which makes me think, maybe I should be working for the Star today. I’d stop focussing on Liverpool buying Eduardo, but instead think maybe of Arsène Wenger’s next buy.
Wenger to buy 12 year old goalkeeper from Peru. “I see him as potentially a great winger,” says Arsène Wenger. That’s how I’d write it. And the chances are, even now and then, I’d be right.
Tony you are a genius mate, (Untold Arsenal is the best Arsenal blog around) and if only your classy morals would let you work for the Star (which i am sure they won’t!), you would make a fortune!
I think we should all give this post of Tony’s the maximum exposure ever. So just change the headline and pass it on!
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another rubbish post from justrubbish, why am i not surprised? the day other blogs will write about what you write they will not write you’re the best, but the most ridiculous blog on arsenal
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Do you know, you caught me out!
Here I am sitting at home, trying to recover from some sort of parrot flu or something (made worse by getting wet on my way to the game last night), Sky TV on, flipping down Goonernews, and I see this headline “Lightweight Arshavin Guaranteed Barca Move” and I thought, “What gibberish is this? What total tosser wrote this? Doesn’t he even know that “Lightweight” in the journalist name for Denilson?”
Fuming, coughing, raging, sneezing, sniffing and looking for the pain killers, I clicked on the story and……
bugger me, it is the piece I wrote.
So may I repay the compliment by revealing the origin of the story, which I am not sure I have told elsewhere?
This month my novel MAKING THE ARSENAL was published – and it takes the form of a football journalist’s diary. He doesn’t resort to the Star scenario but he does make a load of stuff up, including an utterly wild piece about the way people in the crowd at Arsenal are dressing, which is how the book starts. This leads to all sorts of consequences – while telling the true story of one year in the life of Arsenal. That year is actually 1910 – and I know some people are put off by the thought that this is HISTORY and history is BORING. But the reviewers on Amazon so far have been kind and said they found it very funny. In fact there is a running joke between the journalist and his editor, which every reviewer seems to mention. Amazon seem to have sold their stock and are waiting for more but you can also get it via http://www.emiratesstadium.info – and on that site, you can ask for a personally signed copy (if that’s what turns you on). (It’s 1910 because that is the year we went bust, and the modern club was born – that is the essence of the story – but of course retold and made up by a journalist).
So that’s how it came about – but honestly guys, thank you for the wonderful compliment you have paid me running this story here, and all that you have said about my writing. I shall be dining out on this for months to come. “ere – you know that Just Arsenal – they did a piece about my article… honest…. mine’s a triple vodka.”
Tony Attwood
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Great,i’ll apply for a job at the star.
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LOL. Tony’s the best in Arsenal Blogland.
I know no one who can say things in such a way.
There is some old sayin in my country that goes like this and I hope it doesn’t get lost in translation:
what can not be told as a joke, is not the truth.
This is the untold arsenal for me.
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Arsenal News | Lightweight Arshavin guaranteed Barcelona move http://justarsenal.com/lightweight-arshavin-guaranteed-barcelona-move/2093
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I am glad to see that my readers still have a sense of humour but obviously some people are just born miserable
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justrubbish says:
November 25, 2009 at 7:00 pm
another rubbish post from justrubbish, why am i not surprised? the day other blogs will write about what you write they will not write you’re the best, but the most ridiculous blog on arsenal
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This man regularly comes on here to abuse me. If he doesn’t like it why doesn’t he start his own blog and see if he can do better.
PS I know who you are from your IP address.
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Indeed a great article by tony, hats off to him again.
Hey Pat great article. I just wanted to point out that Tony wrote it exclusively for http://11gunners.com and it is where the article originated from. The link to the article is http://11gunners.com/just-for-fun/how-to-become-a-football-journalist/2698/
It would have been lovely if Pat would have cared to mentioned 11gunners as well, as this was a part of bilateral exchange between http://blog.emiratesstadium.info and http://11gunners.com.
The link to 11gunners article on untold arsenal (as part of exchange) is http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/2009/11/arsenal-and-india-all-you-never-knew/. Would have loved to see just the excerpts over here and a mention of 11gunners would have not gone unappreciated.
Cheers and Keep Gunning…
PS: Tony can confirm this.
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Nice article. But surprise ‘o surprise, I’ve read this one before!
http://11gunners.com/just-for-fun/how-to-become-a-football-journalist/2698/
PS: Even a little credit would have done Pat. Never mind mate. Keep Gunning..
And yeah, Tony Attwood does rock..
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luv you tony
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QUOTE: justrubbish says: November 25, 2009 at 7:00 pm
“another rubbish post from justrubbish, why am i not surprised? the day other blogs will write about what you write they will not write you’re the best, but the most ridiculous blog on arsenal.”
MUPPET.
Have you seen the post under yours. lol.
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The best Arsenal blog around is Arseblog.
Along with a Cultured Left Foot, Goonerholic,Goodplaya and Gunnerblog.
Untold Arsenal doesn’t even come close.
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