A quick warm up post from a resident Grover over the past few years, El Tel. He’s an Arsenal steward, an ultra passionate fan and someone I can say we have had to ban from the LG comments section on occasions for taking the passion a bit too far! Anyway, this rant was too good not to share with the masses, ear muffs for those who are against blue language! Enjoy…
I get the f*cking hump when I read kids on multiple domains dismissing GG and what he gave to Arsenal.
George Graham was then what Maureen is now, yet the kids hero-worship the flash c*nt?
GG was a great tactician who inherited another great tactician’s youngsters (Don Howe).
I hear the average players being mentioned when reminiscing about George’s reign but I don’t see too many people mentioning the greats? Well, for the benefit of those who weren’t around to remember, here are a few…
- David Seaman
- Lee Dixon
- Steve Bould
- Alan Smudger Smith
- Nigel Winterburn
- John Jensen (Yes he was good)
- Stefan Schwarz
- Martin Keown (Re signed)
- Ian Wright
- Kevin Richardson
- Brian Marwood
- Anders Limpar
- John Hartson
I guess these were average were they? There are more but I am too angry to think.
He also helped great players like Rocky Rocastle, Mickey Thomas, Paul Davis, Tony Adams, Paul Merson, David O’Leary, John Lukic enjoy great careers, again there are more, but I’m too angry to remember.
The Mancs play with average players even today Brown, O’Shea, Fletcher etc yet they are lauded as great. They win things because they cheat FACT. The Manc c*nts drink and smoke (Rooney) yet that’s ok is it?
F*ck off all you GG haters, the man has ARSENAL in his blood man and boy. He still loves us even after being hung out to dry regarding the money scandal.
We would have won lots more with GG as Manager even if the style of football doesn’t correlate with what you’re being served up today.
We are becoming the Spuds of yesteryear playing great football but winning f*ck all.
GG did sign some duds but not as many as Uncle Arsene has.
Diawara some dodgy forward, Garde, Grimandi, Vivas, Stepanovs, Cygan, Almunia, Flappy, Denilson, R.Wright, The fox in the box. Shall I go on, becuase I assure you I could.
GG also came a gnats away from going unbeaten with an unlucky 2-1 loss at Stamford Bridge, something else we all tend to forget.
The Children who think football started in the Wenger years should buy a book or a DVD called the History of Arsenal. You might then realise what a great great club you actually support.
Liverpool next week, let’s see who is more scared! How is Roy f*cking Hodgson all of a sudden a great manager?
F*cking hilarious, that’s all they could afford!
Anyway, up The Gunners. Come on you Reds!
Pedro will be back at 0900 with today’s post!
P.S. Remember, there’s not long left to join the fantasy football. If you’re having trouble with the postcode, use one off the internet from a UK business, the ipad is a prize for ALL nationalities. Here’s how to join!
Instructions
1. Click: ‘Metro Fantasy Football’
2. Select your team and confirm
3. Register your details
4. Click join a mini league:
5. Enter the following details
League Name: Le Grove Premiership
PIN: 8001936
1st
1st?
Oh God, here we go again. Running two comments sections!!
Spot on
3 comments section?
Please get me out of moderation!
they were good times indeed. I was watching the Damned United the other day and loved the bit where Clough and Taylor go round to the player’s house to persuade him to sign. Who cares if it was true…
I remember the GG days well, what I wouldn’t give to have him back now over the disaster area AW has become! I will even forgive him his Sp*rs indiscretion ;o)
El Tel
You are the Man! George Graham kicks Basil’s butt while Basil sword-fights his PREECCCIOOOUSSSSS overpaid wannabes in the mouth! It’s a disgrace how people forget how GREAT GG was. A tactician, a motivator, a gentleman, a winner, one hell of a manager. Can we fuck Basil off and bring back George? Now that’s an idea!!
I agree gg started the ball rolling long before wenger, but arsenal in his blood? The day he got sacked i drove 800 miles to get to the forest game as i couldn’t believe it, i was gutted for weeks he gave us so much but i was more gutted when he went to the spuds! He could of gone anywhere,well almost and he went there! But i still love him, when we had to go to anfield and win by two goals no one in the world thought we could do it, (me included,even tho i still put a nifty on us as a good omen) but all gg said was ‘there is no season why we cant come up here and win two nil’ i must of seen that mickey t goal a million times and still it makes me fill up, id have him back in a heart beat just to sort the fucking defence out!
I think that unfortunately El Tel had missed most of the conversation. When actually it was just someone calling out Geoff for being a hypocrite and lauding Graham and the old gunners’ players as saints, while accusing Wenger and the current players of ripping them off and charging too much just for them not to bother trying.
Whereas we all know the whole money scandal thing, and that half our plaayers were too busy getting pised and doing charlie to bother training properly. So before everyone starts eulogizing about how perfect GG was.. he wasn’t.
George only went to Spuds so he could fuck them over.
Arsenal through and through.
It’s easy to forget that George’s reign petered out in a very similar way to Arsene’s.
The 1991 team was majestic and omnipotent but was carelessly dismantled when GG started buying shite.
The football deteriorated when GG started trousering his unofficial ‘bonuses’.
The cup wins in 1993 and 1994 were superb, but anyone can win a cup if they have enough luck, ask Wimbledon, Portsmouth etc.
I swear Remi Garde never really had a chance to impress cos of injury. El Tel makes some fair points about Graham in comparison, but I hate it when players are lumped in with the REAL failed transfers, just because of injuries.
I mean, realistically Rosicky has been a massive flop at arsenal because of his injuries, but we can all see what a good player he is and so we rightly never mention him in the same breath as jeffers et al.
Vivas was also a good player, but to be fair didnt show his best at arsenal. Grimandi, though, was a fantastic signing! Always gave his all in a number of positions and was vital to at least one title victory!
Hear, hear and so say all of us. Still think there is room for GG to come back. Might sort out that shambles we call a defense. Quite surprised you never mentioned Andy Linighan as a plus and Glen Helder, Jimmy Carter and Eddie McGoldrick as a minus. They are the only ones that come to my memory at the Mo’
GG set up the modern day Arsenal; he got us challenging again in the late 80s and early 90s. Don’t anyone underrate what GG achieved.
I remember one newspaper headline stating that he had made £10m for the club, a massive sum in those days in football terms. Transfer fees for top players were in the region of £1m – £2m. Rocky, a top player was sold for about £2m to Leeds.
After the Sergeant Major, Wenger again did the biz but the stadium move has fucked up everything.
GG may have been great but at the end of the day it is Wenger who has given us most success ever. OxfordGooner and CharlieGeorge are what the rest of the arsenal world are bemoaning at the moment.
‘Fuck ‘Basil’ off’ epitomizes the worst of the worst of the current gloom in the support base. Thank God none of this silage is heard at the stadium and the more positive of us have the louder voice, especially at away games.
A load of old boys harking on about yesteryear is just as nauseating as a load of kids who can’t remember ‘the good old days’.
Yeah, lets bring back GG and 1-0 to the Arsenal. Bollocks.
top 20!
Thanks for article El Tel.
However, like some on here, I went to nearly every home game during the GG era, and it was not pretty. Yes I long for the spirit he instilled as well as the defence he set up.
Like Chozzer says, that era petered out out rather like it appears to be doing under AW. I do think this is groundhog season for AW, and without the two signings we all know is the minimum, it will certainly end in tears. The next two weeks will define Wenger’s legacy.
Georgie georgie get your chequebook out!
Chooooochie……..Grahams Red & White Army.
i remember when I used to mostly piss standing up!
those days are long gone.
Moray,
I had forgotten about that shed behind the North Bank!
Don’t take it too far pips, its one thing to condemn Wenger for what he is failing to do, and I am with that 110%. But lets not be talking about “the good old days” as if Arsenal’s best days are behind it. Instead lets make sure Arsene and the board know how we feel, it can be a mini marching, or what have you. Lets leave the “good old days” bullshit to the scums next door
Look lads, for all the nostalgia, life as a Gooner is so much better than it was (I give you memories of Pires and Bergkamp over Hayes and Groves). The frustrating thing is that it could be so much better.
As Gnarley says: get the chequebook out!
Remember Merse going through at Anfield to secure a 1-0 win on the way to the title? That was a great game – defending is an art too, one we seem to have forgotten about. I suppose you’d prefer 2-3 at Wigan would you? Thought not.
1-0 to the Arsenal – oh yeah, that Copenhagen thing was shite wasn’t it?
George didn’t have the money that Arsene has don’t forget, and he never went 5 years without a trophy either. Lucky cup wins? Of course you’re probably one of those who agrees with the concentrate on the league and CL policy that has brought us sweet FA recently.
P.S. Talking of lucky cup wins our last cup victory was the most undeserved trophy we’ve ever won – we were appalling!! So if that doesn’t count then it’s six years isn’t it?
Prats.
NEW POST!!!
And if we insist on talking about the past, lets also be fair in giving credits where they are due. No matter how we are dismayed by what he is failing to do, Arsene contributed a lot to Arsenal. I know it is easy for all of us to go back to the past and be nostalgic about it when things are not rosy, believe me I do it too. But Arsenal’s bright days are ahead, not behind!!!!
I’d much rather have 1-0 to Arsenal than 3-2 to Wigan or 1-0 to Stoke and any number of other appauling results over the last 5 years.
The difference between GG & AW is that GG understood the art of defending and had an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition he faced. AW and the Kevin Keagan school of we’ll score more than you just doesn’t work, the reason we got away with it in the past was because for the first & most successful of his years at Arsenal he had someone else’s defence, players who knew how to defend.
I used to be a most ardent AKB but the last 5 years I have watched the systematic break up & fire sale of all our best players who are generally replaced with far inferior players or not replaced at all. I have seen the club demand more and more money from the fans on the back of consistent failure; don’t come out with bullshit like we have Bern in the CL places every year because what Arsenal should be about is competition and the basic premise of competition is that you have winners and losers, since we never win that would naturally imply that we lose and charging more and more for failure us just bad whichever way you cut it, especially since the only way that money gets invested in the team is by giving sub standard and young players who have achieved nothing ever larger salaries & contracts.
I never thought I would see the day one person was allowed to become bigger than Arsenal but sadly that has been allowed to happen. What we have lost is bigger than trophies, it is the heart & soul of our great club, sold out to money men and profiteers.
I love Arsenal, I have always loved Arsenal since I first saw them in the early seventies. I along with many others have seen the good & bad of Arsenal but never anything like this.
I wish AW would find that spark again, that desire to compete on level terms rather than this make do attitude. What I really want is our club back rather than this corporate money machine it has become. The irony is, that there is a lot of money in winning things, silly amounts of prize money that would easily offset the necessary investment in players.
Sorry for the rant Geoff, Pedro & fellow Grovers/Gooners!
That my friend is exactly right and well said.
Here, here DB10.
Jaymin, your comment didn’t even make sense.
Fucking brilliant post, end of!
GEORGE GRAHAM,arsene is a clown compared.
very good article,but for a few mistakes, was george
graham was good but! he too had his faults,boring one nil wins,allowing certain players to do what they wanted,outside football(adams and merson are but a few)
he was also booed by arsenal fans in the last two years at arsenal.where as wenger i agree kept and updated arsenals youth policy,wenger has done so much more too,behind the scenes, we got better training facilities,got better scouting, abetter stadium,and wenger got a better trophy haul.
but what you losers all forget is, that at arsenal you all been spoilt the last 23 years with five titles and eight other trophys in that time, plus a championsleague final(which we should of won). you campare that haul off trophys with the preivous 50 years and you see arsenal won four trophys just four,
want me break it down for you, one division title,and one fairs cup two fa cups and two them trophys came in one season. so while agree with your views that gg was a great manager, aw is more greater
he’s our best ever manager beating even chapman,yes arsenals a great club,because the people running the club,care bout the club and want see arsenal still playing in the next 73 years,winning titles,but we got to work together fans as well,stop moaning and just enjoy the football we play trophys will come, and so will barren runs like we having now. but don’t slag off the best manager we’ve ever had,or you just might regret it in the long run.
up the gunners
arsenal til i die
soulrebel…….?
Oxfordgooner, Wenger has instilled more heart and soul than we have lost. Despite the fact there have been 5 trophyless seasons, we are respected and loved all round the world for our footballing ethos.
7 years ago we invested in a youth policy that brought a load of 11 year olds to the club and started educating them in football in its purest form. Now, for the first time you are seeing the likes of J.E.T, Wilshire and Frimpong coming through as the very first of a continued production line.
We have more character and class than any other team I can think of in the top echelon of football. That is something to be proud of, trophies or not. And when the trophies do come back, it’ll be infinitely more satisfying than having payed 10-20 mil (or shit loads more) every transfer window for the last 5 years.
I will fully admit it is frustrating to not see the odd 7/8mil spent where it is needed, but the bigger picture is much more positive than you make it out to be. As DB10 said, our best years are in front of us, not behind.
pedro, before you deleted it, there was a comment here which condemned you for inventing and then exploding the contention of a fan that GG was anything less than an Arsenal legend. then you of course slated “them,” whoever they were, for being ignorant/idealistic etc. truth is that any arsenal fan, including the AKB crowd, worships GG. he gave us the greatest moment in the history of the club. so to try and claim his mantle exclusively for those of your own pessimistic perspective and implying that choose sunnier disposed folks are so loathsome and dismissive of the past that they could…how dare they…criticize a legitimate legend, outs you as being intellectually dishonest. that was my point. i can’t believe you deleted my earlier post. is this now Untold Arsenal, where they delete as they please?
Wenger is working in a far far more competitive league. The premiership is regarded as the greatest league in the world now, in Grahams days it was knowhere. This idea that Wengers reign has petered out in the same way was Grahams is ridiculous – we finished 3rd last year and were 1 point of the top at the start of April. Champions league football 13 straight years and with a new stadium that will last 100 years – most clubs that build new stadiums get relegated. Graham did a great job when he was there no doubt but come on who would you rather have Marwood, Limpar and Wright (though he hated playing Anders) or Pires, Henry, Bergkamp, Fabregas, Van Persie…. those old guys would never fill a 60,000 seater stadium every week. And all this crap about Graham being Arsenal through and through, isn’t his the same man who took bungs to buy mediocre players (come on Jensen was not a good player, even your much derided Denilson is better, let alone Diaby, Fringpong, Nasri, Wilshire, Fabregas and every single central midfielder Wenger has brought in) and then ended up at T*ttenham!! Did Graham ever turn down several offers from Madrid, Barcelona and Munich over the years??? Like hell did he!! Fact is it was an easier league then. I’ll always respect Graham but come on no one has offered him a job in the last 10 years!
Jaymin, calling someone a fool isn’t acceptable over here. It detracts from whatever point you were trying to make.
Your post didn’t make sense either.
It’s also key that you understand this was a guest post by a 50+ steward at Arsenal. It was a retort to people who were slagging off GG on Le Grove yesterday.
I’m not bashing Jensen btw, he always gave his all, and as a true supporter I will always support these people and never boo, but I tell you what, if he was here today, you’d all be moaning like hell about him on here, let alone the likes of Hillier, McGoldrick, Morrow, Selley and Parlour (terrible under Graham, totally different player under Wenger) etc etc
The contributions of Wenger to Arsenal will be properly appreciated when he would have moved on. I pray that he finishes his football management career here.
Perhaps the fans were not properly informed about the fact that Wenger and the management must have reached an agreement on how to handle finances in order to be able to build the Emirate. If Emirates stadium stands today and yet we are on the way to paying our debts, it is credit to Wenger and the management. With the 60,000 capacity stadium as against the 35,000 or so seater Highbury and the brand of football on display that keeps the stadium full even in pre-season games, Arsenal is on its way up. Add that to the array of promising talents coming through at the academy, then you can (or should) see that we are heading the right direction.
I agree perfectly that we do need to bring in the missing piece or pieces so that the jig-saw puzzle will be solved. What I completely disagree with is the vilification of Wenger who should be considered a hero. He has promised to bring in one or two more players before the transfer window is over. Past experiences have taught him to be discrete about transfer targets. Why can’t we be patient to see what he will do? Even if he does nothing else in the transfer window, let us remember how Flamini stepped up wonderfully at the DM position When Gilberto left and how Song did the same when Flamini left.
The whole situation may be another set up for another step up by another player.
I am all for signing a goal keeper and a central defender but even if it does not happen, Wenger should be celebrated rather than vilified.
agree with nearly everything you say (did’nt like jensen but did like grimandi). Graham’s arsenal never get the credit they deserve, the 89 and 91 league champions played great football and scored loads of goals, look at the midfields
rocastle thomas davis marwood/richrdson 89
rocastle thomas davis limpar 91
No cloggers there, all passers of the ball!
The later cup teams were a bit different.
The pundits all slaughter Arsenal for having to many foreign players but Anfield 89 is the last time 11 English born players clinched the title but I don’t remeber it being an issue at the time.
Give credit where credit is due. Stroller did the double for us as a player ( and was a real class act) and made history as a manager at Anfield in 89. Wenger received the greatest english back 4 ever from Graham and then went on to do 2 doubles ,go unbeaten ,build a stadium and a youth system. All we need now is that CL trophy. Both were and are great Gunners!
Hi Pedro
Thanks for this post and for editing the bits that needed to be changed.
The reaction was good from die hard Arsenal fans.
I wasn’t slagging Wenger off for one minute and will never do so yet there was total bollocks written about Graham on here yesterday and the worst being that the team were full of drunks.
The Mancs have a team full of drunks and junkies yet the Manager who is also a pisshead gets praise alround.
I don’t agree that the League is better today as in those days the lesser teams were harder to beat. The cup competitions were also much harder to win then too as the Champions LEAGUE was a knockout competition European cup with less money involved.
There will always be those who look back, without looking at History there would be no point trying to better the future. If that makes no sense then think it through.
We win the cups next year then a few years later it is meaningless as it was in the past.
There was of course many more players that could have been added to the lists good and bad which both Managers contributed.
What also annoys me is this Arsene built the new training ground the new Stadium, better this better that.
Although he introduced this to Engerland these things were happening in Europe for decades. He just brought the ideas to a Country who didn’t like change.
Yes things have improved but that could have happened with another big European Manager.
Wenger may be the best Manager success wise we have had but I believe he is also the longest serving, had Chapman not died or the war happening then who knows how many more titles we could have had, if Graham wasn’t dumped by The Arsenal ( The only reason he went to the Spuds was because the Directors dissowned him) then who knows how much more he would have won.
George Graham and Managers before him all broke up successful teams to early and imo the Directors are to blame. They also have never been given fortunes to buy in quality. My point is Arsene is probably not the person holding back but the board of Directors, the Managers at our Club get the blame.
We are a massive Club in the Countrys capital with the longest record in the top league and big crowds year after year. Yet we are still seen as just a big club but not a giant.
Please don’t think I am slagging Wenger off I am just making some points here.
I also get te hump when young fans slag off Graham, say he condoned drinking when it is even today a problem with our culture in this Country (Engerland Team).
Some love the Special one yet slag off George yet the style of play from both was similar. Good tacticians who built from defence.
Thanks Pedro and The Arsenal gang for good responses without the abuse normally written on here if the views are not the same.
Cheers Guys.
Tel
Hadley
You know for sure Graham wasn’t offered a job at one of Europes Giants do you, well I don’t see Ol 100% proof being targeted by them either and isn’t he just the greatest Manager ever to have lived?
The League isn’t harder today and the media for financial reasons spout on about thje Prem being the best in the World.
I can’t remember seeing teams as poor as Bolton,Wigan,Fulham and Stoke doing so well in them days. There was also more competition from Tottenham, Westham,Everton,Leeds,Aston Villa and others who all had a genuine chance to win the League every season.
Wasn’t it a credit to see Grahams teams winning with so called crap players like Hillier,Morrow, Hayes, Groves etc and to say some imroved when Arsene came is ridiculous. Yes the defenders played more football but they didn’t defend any better than the 89-91 sides.
We have always had big crowds so the 60,000 gates my friend would have been just as big if not bigger.
I went to Highbury 3 times in a fortnight before GG with 55,000 fans at the ground (Liverpool,Man City,Liverpool) with no more room for any more so please don’t say we only got big crowds in the Wenger days.
I work at the Stadium and must say the crowds of recent years are very dissapointing for a team who play great football.
As for the new Stadium, are you telling me that was Arsenes doing? I remember talk of moving in the 80′s (Ally Pally) and Kings Cross in the GG days, it was always going to happen.
I am not a Wenger hater but I don’t support him over The Arsenal.
Stepanov was better than Yon Yensen. Graham was great manager. So is Wenger… Both tight fisted when it came to buying ‘star’ players. Arsenal is a great club, always will be…
great point george was a legend but going back to wengers dudd signings grimandi was terrible we’d put him on for the last 10 minutes when winning and end up losing LOL but id take that for the scout he has become he has put our club on to alot of great players that we have then signed aswell as steve rowley!!!!
Arsene Wenger is far better than GG as a manager, not only in the fact that we are so much better to watch, and have been in the top three even with a bunch of kids who didn’t cost anything. He is not as good buying defensively, admittedly, Cygan, Senderos, but vermaelen was genius, and there is time. Patience boys, if we’d have had VP and fabregas at the end of the season we’d have won it, this year we have Chamakh as well. Solid goalkeeper and CB, eureka. Like a pint of the black stuff, all things come to those who wait, and the victory will be all the better, mark my words. GG is the past, AW is the future.
WELL SAID. brilliant post. it is all too easy to dismiss and forget George graham. Even forgetting the many many trophies he won for us it is a fact that without him we would not have had the success we had 1998 – 2004. graham built the side Wenger inherited. The defence was his. wenger gave it a few more years but Graham put it there in the first place. The suiccess of 1998 led to more money and other great players joining.
Is arsene is No 1 then Geeorge is the second best Arsenal manager of all time.
sadly they both share the same fault. They are both great at initially winning trophies but not sustaining a real wining streak. The two best sides Arsenal have ever produced; the second league wining side of Graham’s (only one defeat all season) and Wenger’s Invicibles should both have gone on to win so much more. But I think our greedy directors probably are partly to blame as well.
anyway, wherever you are george………I will raise a glass to you…… THANK YOU
Q. why do we still get the crowds?
a. B’cos if we don’t go 2watch arsenal,then we won’t watch football. Cos if we decided to support the chavs or mancs or spuds their supporters Wud jeer @us &say wat took us so long to give up, so we hide our feelings &pretend to believe in wenger but really we know if we continue his way we will soon become the ‘small club struggling to punch above its weight’ that wenger thinks we are
What an absolutely fantastic, spot on post. Agree completely, George Graham has almost been airbrushed out of football history it seems to me, but he was an absolutely incredible manager, by far the greatest Arsenal manager in my lifetime imvho.
God I miss the Arsenal of those days.
what a great post, i agree totally! whats mad,is me and my mate who is a liverpool fan where talking bout arsenal, and we both came up with the idea of george graham being wengers no2, with his experience, and knowledge in defence it would work perfectly, but you can only with cant you!