Sunday, 22 July 2007

Welcome Note

Welcome to a blog by an Arsenal fan living in the East Coast of the Peninsular Malaysia, far far away from the Emirates Stadium where the team he supports regards it as home.

His earliest memory of the Gunners was from the 1979 FA Cup Final when Arsenal defeated Manchester United in the five minutes final at the old Wembley Stadium. However, he was a bit blurred how he came about watching that match.

Thanks to his brother, he grew up with English football being the main staple through the football magazine SHOOT!.


Even though supporting Arsenal during that time casted him away from most of his football friends who were more captivated with the success of the Red side from Merseyside, his loyalty to the Gunners remained steadfast.

With no internet and limited coverage on the news about foreign football, he had to rely on newspapers, which meant getting the results on Monday for matches played on Saturday in England.

Then when TV started to carry out live matches his life became a bit happier especially when his beloved Arsenal was playing.

There were little success for Arsenal during his school years with the Littlewood Cup victory over Liverpool in 1987 the only notable achievement. However, during his tertiary years the word success became a bit more familiar.

He would be sitting for his economics paper in the morning but still stayed up the whole night to catch the 1988-89 season title decider match between Arsenal and Liverpool at Anfield. It was certainly a match worth staying up for with goals from Alan 'Smudgers' Smith and Michael Thomas grabbing the title from the favourites who needed just to draw the match.

Then a few more success in the League and Cup competitions certainly made him even prouder to be a Gooner.

Always the positive thinker, he received the news about the appointment of the then unknown Arsene Wenger with optimism and was duly rewarded when Arsenal finished a great comeback, over-hauling a ten point gap between them and Manchester United to win the 1997-98 Premiership title.

However, being a Gooner there would always a fair share of heartbreaks with the 2-1 defeat against the Red Devils in the 1998-99 FA Cup semi-final replay really got to him.

The way Ryan Giggs ran past Lee Dixon and Tony Adams before blasting the ball past David Seaman certainly convinced him an unseen hand was presence during the match. When Dennis Bergkamp missed his penalty this entrenched this belief further into his mind.

But winning the title at the Theatre of Dreams in 2001 certainly went a long way to heal the wound. Being unbeaten away from home for the whole season turned out to be a prelude to something that has never been done in the Premiership before, going the whole season without losing a league match in winning the 2003-04 Premiership title.

He saw the unbeaten run came to an end, ironically at the Theatre of Dreams when Sol Campbell managed to induce a hurricane through his tackle that brought Wayne Rooney to the ground.

Then the Russian came into the picture, certainly brought nothing but ill-feeling and more blues to this Gooner who saw the purchase of players just to prevent them from playing for the rivals.

Not winning any title and cup certainly hurt but he certainly enjoyed watching the skillful Gunners strut their stuff at the brand new Emirates Stadium. Though there were many occasions when he wished that there was somebody who would just score ugly goals week in week when another final product from a beautiful build-up went astray.

He would treat losing Thierry Henry to Barcelona the same way he did when the news of Patrick Vieira transfer to Juventus came through that someone would come in and do the job for Arsenal, though in different ways but still get the job done at the end of the day.

So, with Arsenal in Austria for their pre-season programme this Gooner would also go into his pre-season programme to build up his stamina for the next ten months or so... though it may take a while but come 12 August he would be ripe and ready... bring it on!

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