Arsenal Factions Are Like Political Parties

Supporting Arsenal has become increasingly like supporting political parties over the past decade with ever deepening rifts between the rival supporting factions. Maybe rival isn’t the right word, perhaps ideologically estranged is a better term.

Tomorrow UK voters will slump toward the polling booths in their consistently decreasing numbers as antipathy for politics has driven away and marginalised many of their kin.

I am certain that money in football, the cost of tickets, lack of success and in-fighting has done similar for some Arsenal supporters.

Warring factions amongst the Arsenal faithful all, like political parties, believe their ideals are the best way to ensure prosperity for the club they love and end up in petty sniping and tit for tat arguments, like politicians, over it.

From my personal political beliefs I look at Arsenal as the mirror twin of UK politics.

You have those who think the best way to improve the team is to spend all the money on a big name player and hope that will trickle down into the team and attract other big players and slowly force out the middle players until you’re left with nothing but a team of Galacticos and wondering why you’re still not winning.

You have those to the extreme of that view who vociferously cheer and applaud the blood and thunder headless chicken approach of their beloved compatriots and deeply mistrust the foreigner players who they blame for ruining the game.

You also have a group of people who feel there are compelling and evidential reasons for previous mistakes and lack of success but trust in an amended version of the old and pre-existing regime to put things right. Who believe in the potential of existing players and are hesitant to blow all the money on players who could restrict youth players’ path to the team. Who pass off previous bouts of frivolous spending on average players leaving us with an unbalanced wage structure and a lot of chaff to get rid off as necessary for the era but not relevant to the current style of management.

You have those to the extreme of that view who praise previous failures as social justice and moral victories. Who bemoan the riches of others and blames that for their lack of success and think restricting their rivals financial power with FFP alone and not in conjunction with internal reforms is going to help.

Then you have a middle ground made up of a variety of similar yet distinct views and values who whilst making up a large proportion of the fan base are largely dismissed and/or ignored because their voices aren’t as loud as those to the left and right of them.

There is countless propaganda pinged about with much of the same data being used in different ways to enforce different points of view.

In a democratic election the party with the most votes tends to end up ruling. The manner in which they govern is, in part, built in the image of the ideals of the people who voted for them. The rest of the country may well feel hard done by but ultimately will have to just get on with it.

How they get on with it probably, at least in the short term, won’t be much different than if their choice had won out except they’d be feeling more positive.

It’s much the same for Arsenal. We might not have won the league but if we can finish second and win the FA Cup then it’s not a bad season and how we move forward depends entirely on our mentality as supporters.

We can bemoan how far we fell behind Chelsea or we can look at our strong 2015 form, our healthy bank balance, our strong squad, and recent trophy wins to push on next season.

Do I think Arsène Wenger is perfect? No, but like Ed Miliband, I don’t see any viable alternatives. I see a manager who might not match up exactly to my expectations but if he is meeting most of them then it doesn’t really matter that it’s not a seamless fit.

Wenger’s formula isn’t a winning one to the extent of Mourinho’s but he plays attractive football and say what you want about me but I’d rather win a trophy on average every other season playing entertaining football than win a trophy four years out of five and boring the opposition into submission.

Like a change of government after a long stretch of the same party maybe we needed the last two years of being almost there but not quite in order to shake things up. We’ve seen an improvement in big game tactics and in our ruthlessness and efficiency. We’re no less entertaining but we have gained an air of pragmatism which our flirtations with the league in the past two seasons has probably helped.

If we want things to continue to change on and off the field at Arsenal we need to make our voices heard. I urge UK registered voters to go to the polling booths tomorrow and have their say in this general election because it’s a chance to influence change.

In a general election we are given the opportunity to make ourselves heard. Depending on where you live you may feel like your voice counts for very little when the results come in but it does count. Every vote for or against the party that gets into power affects how they govern because how the country voted this time will be important next time if they don’t address those concerns during their term of office.

It’s a bit different when trying to elicit change in football but united voices cannot be ignored no matter the circumstances. Our in-fighting and petty disagreements over how the team should be managed is punitive and pernicious to what should be our real concerns.

Action over issues like welfare reforms, climate change, wages, living standards, housing and social mobility can only be achieved when the right voices are put in a position to be heard. It is the same for safe standing, ticket pricing, category reforms, the living wage, concessions and away schemes.

Only when we unite across the factions and demand change will our voices be heard. If you want cheaper tickets you have to stop justifying your opinion on prices by complaining about the quality of the team or the number of trophies we are winning. When you give a reason like that as justification for your anger over prices you give those who set the prices a weapon with which to fight back. “We need to charge this much money so we can improve the quality of the team and therefore win titles”. Your rebuttal may be “you’ve been saying that for years” but they can just respond “yes but we can’t control how much other teams improve”.

Ticket prices are too high, no ifs, no buts, no justifications. They are just plain too high. There will be consequences of dropping ticket prices but when you start to use caveats you allow your opponent to do the same.

If you want safe standing you are going to have to join forces with others to demand it. You will need to convince rivals why it should be reintroduced and you will need to put forward a sound business case to those who make the financial decisions.

Like politics, football has two main influencers – the people, and the media – and it is up to us to decide if we are going to be the main or the minority power.

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