Overseas Gooners ARE True Gooners
Okay, so this is a bit of a cheat post. It’s a reworking of an old post but the point remains as valid as ever. There has been a bit of a hoo-hah online today with people arguing the toss about what types of supporters are best etc and some people claiming overseas fans spend all day online slagging off the club and as with the last time it has really wound me up.
Amongst some supporters there is this asinine delusion that certain fans are superior to other fans. These irrational halfwits have come to the conclusion that season ticket holders or native North Londoners are more “Arsenal” than overseas fans and to an extent, non-locals and “armchair” supporters.
I have seen comments such as “foreign football fans buy a few tops and that’s it” bandied about, retweeted and fervently lauded by troglodytic morons, you know the types, the cerebrally challenged ones who hide behind their keyboards and avatars frothing at the mouth, smashing their keys in a near orgasmic state because they’ve found other morons who share their idiotic discriminatory views.
This notion is plain stupid and shows very little understanding of not just how the business of football runs but also the heart of football.
There are only 58,000 season ticket holders at Arsenal (actually 40k but I’ll use the home capacity to make my point) and if they alone were considered as Arsenal’s fan base then Arsenal would have the equivalent to the total fan base of a conference team at best.
Better than overseas fans? Not for me. No better, no worse.
It seems that, for these people, the criterion for Arsenal fandom is attending live matches, purchasing memorabilia, sustenance and other match day concessions at the grounds and a smattering of replica kits, official merchandise, ArsenalTV subscriptions and membership to Junior Gunners for the little’uns.
I think this is ridiculous in the extreme. Football, as many will try to tell you, is not about money, it’s about the passion, the excitement and the belonging. Sport is very unique in the sense that fans speak about their chosen teams efforts in the collective, i.e. “we did well today” “we should have won”. They didn’t participate in the actual sport but the team belongs to them and they the team, hence the collective.
Apart from tickets, match day programmes, food and beer etc foreign fans and “armchair supporters” offer the same support, both financial and emotional, that season ticket holders and locals do. In some circumstances, many overseas supporters actually spend more money supporting the club they love than season ticket holders do.
A season ticket holder could pay £2000 to watch Arsenal play up to 26 times a season at home and maybe £500 in programmes and food etc. An overseas fan can drop the equivalent in just one trip. Take for example our huge Russian following. Russia is a very big country and many areas suffer grave poverty but I’ll use Moscow in this example as the average wage is one of the highest in Russia. Muscovites earn an average of £7800 per year based on 2011 figures. Now the average UK wage (which I’m using as it’s significantly lower than the London average) was £21,236 in 2011. That is almost triple. Our Brazilian friends in Rio de Janeiro earn an average of £7000pa.
Proportionately spending 26x more than the average ST holder – Copyright Arsenal Brasil
Recent figures show that the average amount spent by overseas fans coming to watch EPL football live is £785, roughly a third of what the average season ticket holder at Arsenal would be spending over the course of the season. Bearing in mind that some of our overseas supporters earn roughly a third of our GBP salaries and are only getting 1/26th of the football that season ticket holders are getting I think it is safe to say that our overseas fans give greater proportionate financial support to the club we all hold so dear. And that is before they’ve even “bought a few tops”.
All of our fans, local, national and international want the same thing, Arsenal success. Overseas interest is the platform for success in this era. Without a global fan base it is impossible to compete financially unless you have a sugar daddy but then again aren’t most sugar daddies from overseas?
Every year Arsenal make millions from TV broadcasts and if all of the fans are in the stadium who the heck are we broadcasting to? I don’t hear these “true fans” complaining about the foreigners they pay to watch play every week. Imagine an Arsenal that didn’t have the Cesc’s, Pires’, Henry’s and Bergkamp’s of the world in our history? In fact, we wouldn’t even have the likes of Liam Brady because he is also a foreigner.
On the subject of TV, not every season ticket holder watches every single game we play live. I would be willing to bet my house that less than 100 people have seen every Arsenal game, home and away, for the last 5 years straight. Even if we said we had 3000 away fans every week who are season ticket holders we’d still have 55’000 people who aren’t watching those games. How can they support their team if they aren’t watching them? Many of our overseas fans watch every single game home and away on TV and probably watch more games than most of our season ticket holders. Every Arsenal fan around the world makes sacrifices to watch Arsenal play and many of our overseas fans have to get up at ungodly hours to support our team and some walk for miles just to get to a bar to watch Arsenal play. Where do you local fans go? Round the corner, 5 minutes walk away. Local fans don’t know how easy they have it sometimes and have no grasp of how much some fans have to give just to see their team play. If it weren’t for the contributions of foreign fans and the wider non-season ticket holding fan base we’d have never moved into the best stadium in the country and we’d be trailing light-years behind the rest of the top 4 in financial terms.
Malaysian Gooners with a rare chance to watch Arsenal live
Foreign fans are often derided for being glory-hunters but then again aren’t we all? Do we not all want success? Many of our local fans will also watch other leagues and have affinities for other clubs and I’m sure that when they watch La Liga they cheer on Barcelona or Real Madrid instead of Tenerife or Malaga which I find odd considering the esteem in which they hold local support and the affinity that Brits have with holidaying in those locations.
Our overseas fans should be celebrated for their unwavering support for the club over the past 8 years because as “plastic” fans it would surely be easy for them to jump ship and buy a different shirt but they don’t. They tune in, they buy shirts, they blog, they tweet, they save up to fly over and they support our team week in week out just as much as the rest of us.
To suggest that overseas supporters are a cause for increased negativity around the club because they have access to social media is asinine in the extreme. Supporters from ALL walks of life have opinions on the club and not all of them are very positive. I would go as far as to suggest that overseas Gooners are LESS likely to spout negative crap about the club because they probably weren’t even around during the good years. Anyone who has access to the internet and a reasonable reading level can see that a sizeable proportion of UK Arsenal supporters slag off the board and the manager at every opportunity they get, talk down the players and achieve glee from Arsenal losing just so they can “prove” their point.
Location means sod all when it comes to supporting a club these days. Sure, local Gooners have a more historical link but does that mean they are better? Bollocks does it. I know “Gooners” who grew up in the shadow of Highbury who rely on their United, Chelsea and Liverpool supporting workmates to tell them how Arsenal did at the weekend. I used to work with a “Gooner” who could barely name 5 members of the Arsenal squad in 2005 and didn’t believe me when I said we had sold Merson to Middlesbrough in 1997. Similarly I can name at least 20 overseas Gooners who can tell you things about Arsenal from 15/20 years before they started supporting the club. Don’t ever make the mistake of believing you are better because of your location. People tell me all the time us Arsenal supporters have class, let’s show some.
If you cheer on the Arsenal wherever you are and a result can make or break your week then you are a true Gooner. If you clutch your season ticket in your hand, thump your chest and proclaim yourself superior because of it then you are a prick and need to grow up.
Big love to all of my readers and fellow Gooners but especially to our passionate and loyal overseas fans for being there for our team and for visiting my humble little site.
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Excellent post….from an American Gooner who’s been supporting Arsenal for more years of my life than not (that’s more than 20 btw!)
Born and brought up in North London; started watching as a kid in the 60’s; still a season ticket holder; and live in Coventry (which is virtually overseas!!!).
I agree with most of what you say. I am annoyed at any Arsenal fan wahtever their status when they try and claim to know what tactics AW should have employed; what was said in the dressing room; or that they know how to run a premier league club.
I would, however, want to diagree with one idea you’ve put forward. I doubt many, if any, Brazilians, who earn £7k a year actually get to come to England to watch one game,
I can’t say for sure how many Brasilian Gooners get over here regularly or even just once but last season about 20 of them came over for a game.
Top Top Post my friend… Many a time in blogs and forums, troglodytes have targeted me and called me plastic just because I live several time zones away in India. We overseas fans may not have seen the Grove in person, but we tune in to every match and scream our lungs out, at times telecast at stupid o’clock in the middle of the night. Thank you for giving us all a shot in the arm. I’ve been regularly reading your blog for a while now, and I’m looking forward to keep that going. Cheers…
Good article, very true points.
For me, if you live and breath Arsenal football club then you are a true Gooner wherever you are from.
The only non-true Gooners are the ones that do nothing but spend all day slagging the club off online and never seem to get behind them. That’s not ‘wanting’ to be successful, it’s demanding it and is the behaviour of a glory hunter.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok to have a grievance with way the clubs run, but to moan all the time is not right. Don’t get me started on the idiots that actually want us to lose, just to prove a point to the club that they were right all along.
If you do support the team, then wherever you are from you are a true Gooner
Written by a ‘season ticket clutching, chest thumping superior Arsenal fan’ 🙂
Lol. Season ticket holders like you are fine 🙂 You don’t form part of the chest thumpers.
Arsenal America and NYC Arsenal Supporters Group member here. Gooners in New York City meet at the Blind Pig, near Union Sq. If you’re ever around here, and want to feel at home, come sing, drink, rejoice or commiserate with us. It’ll be way earlier than you’re used to, but it’ll be glorious nonetheless.
Also Nevada Smith’s. Or use to at least. Haven’t been to neither for a bit since I’ve moved uptown. Might come by to the BP this Sunday. COYG
Arsenal is the only team I support irrespective of the situation. Arsenal is well represented in Nigeria. ”Gunners 4 life” is our slongan.
Yes o! Gunners for life, we are well represented here in nigeria. And if our fellow gooner brothers think they are superior to us? Well, that’s just sad. We hee also wish to be presenT with our beautiful team and support at all times, but travelling every weekend is just seemingly unrealistic. Personally, I love the team and I’ve been a gooner as long as I can remember. True gooner for life
I hate this type of attitude among Gooners. I have been going to arsenal 2,3 and sometimes 4 times a year since around 1997. Supported the club since the mid 80’s and I challenge anyone to tell me face to face that I’m less of a gooner than them. Lots of fans slate the club/wenger/players online, where you are from isn’t a measure football nous or intelligence for that matter. But question my love and commitment to the cause and you will get a reaction. Guarunteed.
I have 2 sons who are gooner warriors in their trophy less lives they have not known sucres but they know their team is the Arsenal. It already costs me about £300/£400 to go to a game, and in a year or two I will have to bring my boys as well.
Until then, sack the board and get that bastard Kroenke out!
Ooh to be…
Hi all, I am from Mauritius(Indian Ocean island), I am Arsenal fan since 1979(I was 13 then). It’s true to say that overseas fan are committed to the team. I MUST everyday visit the club site and arsenalnewsnow.com to get latest news. We have the chance to watch every match live on TV (even sometimes at odd hours). The fact that we are far from London perhaps make us feel more concerned for the latest news.
You should try following Goonersphere and Goonersphere Blog Feed. Great site with excellent unique content and a great way to keep up with brilliant Arsenal bloggers. Share the site with others too 🙂
I now live in Barbados moved from Birmingham 2009 and trust
me there are some very serious Arsenal F.C fans here.
Excellent post.
I live in South Africa and we have an extremely good dstv subscription that allows us to watch every game live. I haven’t missed more than 20 in 5 years. And I have flown over twice to watch games which I had to plan so carefully as to be sure to actually get tickets. I love the team and have since George Graham’s days and will never waver my support and affinity with the mighty arsenal. I hope we start winning trophies soon as I feel it might be the only thing to reunite our fans. Because the manager, coaches and players all seem to be united. It’s just us fans/supports that don’t seem to be. Wether it’s on blogs or the pubs a million miles away we all experiencing the same discontent.
GOYG
I am from Malaysia and have been following AFC since 1997. I was taken aback when Blackburn Rovers stunned AFC at Highbury (3-1 last goal scored by Jason Wilcox) back in Dec ’97. However, i told myself ‘this is just the beginning. We will win the league this year’. True enough AFC won the double in the 97-98 season. 😉
My dream is always to visit the Emirates when my financial permits me to do so.
COYG!
It’s bullshit to suggest we are not real gooners coz we live miles away from London. Thanks for teaching the idiots who think so. Forever Arsenal.
Thank you for this excellent piece mate. I think I have a fact or two to add for such gullible and deluded fans.
Firstly, Nigeria is a country with a population of over 175 million people and well over 30 million of that number are gooners. That is a population larger that many European nations. Can you fathom what that means in terms of TV rights and the Arsenal brand in general? Or can the so called ‘season-ticket holders’ ratio that huge number to the 62,000 capacity of the Emirates bowl or by extension the entire population of London?
Secondly, I really can’t understand what inform their judgement. It’s like saying Thierry Henry is not an Arsenal Legend coz he’s black and comes from abroad. What could be stupidier than that? We’re all gooners no matter the location, colour, creed, religion and tribe. Even many Palestinian gooners showed Yossi Benayoun a lot of love when he played for us totally forgetting the political situation that exists back home. That is the power of football, that is what happens when you chose to support the greatest team in the whole wide world.
Arsenal is for us all and those frustrated folks should learn to keep their extremely nationalistic right-winged ideology to themselves and let the world have a feel of what it feels like to support a classy club.
Wonderful post! Loyal Gooner from Concord, California for the last 12 years and my dream is to make it to the Emirates to watch a match very soon. Of course once I do I’ll probably end up moving to North London.
Thanks for the post mate! I’m a Kenyan Gunner nicknamed ‘Wenger Boy’.. Whenever i stand up for our great club the question’s always ‘Do you own the club?!’ lol.. Anyway, i just hope our beloved ARSENAL will make me proud coming season.. Go Gunners!!
Well reasoned post. These morons are narrow minded but probably see themselves as focused.
I’m from a match-going fan Islington and I’d say:
Glory supporter – Someone who supports a non-local/family team that they wouldn’t have supported had the team be rubbish.
True fan – Someone who sticks by their team no matter what.
In my opinion most foreign are glory supporters but ARE true fans. Just my opinion.
Maybe the glory attracted them but why should we care about that? At least they’re not glory hunters.
Nice article. I’m starting to become a regular here. You know Dan, that NLIR logo on your blog page would make a great adhesive sticker. Plenty of Spurs and Manu fans here across the pond that I could hand out to.
The Arsenal === style over substance;
And who could ever say they’ve won the league @ Anfield, Old Trafford and White Hard Lane (x2) ?? That’s not glory, nor is it even beyond invincible; It is a spectacle in itself.
NL is truly (and historically first) RED.
COYG
“For the first time, but certainly not the last, I began to believe that Arsenal’s moods and fortunes somehow reflected my own”
― Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
I’ve gone to the trouble of trademarking my logo so that may hint at my long term plans for it. Watch this space.
Unless you were among the few Arsenal founding fathers in 1886, even if you’re from Islington, going by your definition, you are a glory supporter too. It invariably means that nearly every Arsenal fan today is a glory supporter since nobody alive today was supporting over a century ago.
If the above postulation holds sway, then all fans are glory supporters and the fake/real fan dichotomy should be nicked in the bud once and forever.
Arsenal above all others!
I’m from Indonesia, Premier League is the greatest football competition in the world, very attractive, and keep growing as one of exciting topic for media consume. I also knew Arsenal from media. I fall in love with the club, with the player and want to know more about the club history. Once i knew about the history and recognise what kind of way that Arsene Wenger build for his team, the love has been grow and grow. Because it’s click with my way of life. Sometime, i dream “if only i was born and live in North London, i’ll be one of season ticket holder”
In 2011, me and my girlfriend goes to Malaysia only for watch them live with our own eyes. Even we had to stay in the Airport to save the expenses while we in Malaysia. It was an unforgettable moment in our life. And this year, we will watch them again live in our country and dream to meet the players, the coach team and the professor for sure.
This is all very well – and I don’t disagree with it – but I wish there was as much outrage written about fans who attack other fans as “not real” supporters due to the content of what they write on twitter or blogs, etc.
Last night that’s what I saw: a foreign fan attack a fan on twitter who attends almost every game, implying he’s not a real supporter because of his criticisms of the club. The foreign fan thought himself a superior supporter because his twitter timeline was solely dedicated to positive tweets about the club – never one word of skepticism, doubt or criticism.
(For the record, I’m a foreign fan, I attend very few games and spend very little of my money on the club). The fan who was the target of this criticism took offense and lashed out, citing his longstanding game attendance, the thousands of dollars he’s spent from his pocket and years-long participation in club events as a far superior way to judge his fan support than the quality of a foreign fan’s super-peppy positive timeline.
I can’t blame him for taking offense. I see this on twitter all the time: A foreign fan who doesn’t devote as much time, energy, money and effort into the club versus a fan who is physically closer to the club- with the foreign fan posing as a morally superior fan because the ST holder dares to criticize the club.
It’s galling to spend so much time, energy, personal effort and your own money for so many yrs as a diehard supporter only to be told by someone who’s not grown up with the club the way you have, who doesn’t know the club the way you do, who knows the club only thru the media and TV and newspapers and social media and blogs, who spends a tiny fraction of their money/energy/effort on the club that you’re an inferior supporter or not a “true fan” because you don’t tow the happy-go-lucky supper-peppy positive propaganda line.
In such a case, I can’t blame the fan who’s personally close to the club and attends games regularly for reacting angrily and lashing out, using the “only foreign fan” label. I agree it’s an unjust label but in this case at least, I understand the offense taken to use it.
I assume this is about Le Grove?
I think negative supporters and club bashers who hide behind their expenditure and history with the club as an excuse for constant griping have forgotten what “support” means.
Do I think any one brand of supporter is superior to the other? No.
Do I believe that supporters should support the club? Yes I do.
I identify more with the positive brand of support than the negative but I don’t consider myself superior. Often I just consider the negative supporter to be a little challenged to spout the kind of tripe they do. I don’t consider them a lesser supporter but I do worry about them as what sane person would spend time, money, energy and more money on something that annoys them so much? If it pains you to see Arsenal not winning trophies you need to ask yourself why. And if the answer is because Arsenal are entitled to win trophies then you need to reexamine what you think you know about football. If your answer is you have come to expect a certain level at Arsenal then you need to reexamine what you think you know about Arsenal. If the answer is you just want the best for Arsenal then you should know that complaining online isn’t going to change anything and is just misdirected anger. Instead you could try to be proactive and work with one of the supporters groups to change what you want changing.
If what you want changing is more investment in the team and you have slated overseas supporters then you need to look up irony in the dictionary.