From Steve : Thanks
Hello Myles,
I’d just like to wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas and prosperous New Year.
I love the blog, it’s always the first football site I check!
I know it must be very hard work to keep doing it, especially with some of the comments, but I assure you, it’s very much appreciated.
Take it easy.
PS, I’d love the stat on how many free headers are given away in our penalty area.
We don’t always concede from them, but I haven’t seen an Arsenal centre half command the air for years!
Myles says:
Merry Xmas to you, Steve.
Headers? Arsene FC plays football on the deck with quick passing and fast support running in efficient patterns.
Since 2004 that’s worked well enough to keep him in a lucrative job.
And let’s all remember that he is very special leader who has achieved huge things. But, like all dictators, he refuses to give up power.
Re ANR, I was never bothered by abuse, never discouraged by haters.
If I didn’t enjoy talking to you, I’d quit.
I had no plans to become a blogger, it just happened.
Randomly, spontaneously. Seemed to come naturally, like an opinionated private diary but written in public.
At a time when I didn’t know what a website was, or what a search engine was, Ian Grant, the creator of the Arsenal News Review, was going to big annual computer conferences in Las Vegas.
My first ISP was Demon and I could now email my articles to The Scotsman instead of phoning them in to Alison, my favourite copytaker.
It so happened that Arsenal won the Double in 1998 and I happened to go online three days before the World Cup started and Ian Grant was buzzing and suggested that we keep the website going by blogging France 98.
My first pieces were not about Arsenal. They were about the World Cup.