ANR reply from Steve, a nutcase

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From Steven Noble :comparisons

Hi Myles,

I hope you are well and looking forward to the Euros.

We have been starved of your comments this week, so I thought I would suggest a possible writing topic.

I am 23, so most of the past football legends have passed me by, or I only know of them as pundits/commentators/etc. You often refer to players be similar to the past masters and I would love to hear more of these. Is there any chance you could do a piece comparing players from the Premiership era to those previous?

On a similar note, comparing players to bands would be interesting! Robin BANG! Persie, like a classical piece, smooth and elegant, with a sudden crescendo! (maybe Pink Floyd?) CR7, Messi, Bergkamp, Henry, Scholes, Giggs, Cantona, etc.

Thanks, Steve

Myles says:

I’m fine, thanks, but apprehensive about the Euros.

There’s a bigger buzz about the Jubilee than there is about Poland-Ukraine.

Experience tells me that 90% of big events are disappointing.

The best things about a football tournament is the anticipation.

In the main, watching a football tounament is like managing a rock group. It’s a long series of disappointments illuminated by an occasional small triumph.

Why do it then? Because watching football tournaments is one of the things I’ve always done. I always watch them and I always talk about them.

Fourteen years ago this week I went online for the first time. I was on the Information Superhighway, as it was called,  and I soon  started scribbling some opinionated paragraphs  in a remote corner of the blogosphere.

Arsenal had just won the  Double in brilliant style  and gooner Ian Grant was buzzing and wanted to keep the website going,so he suggested that we do the World Cup in France. Patrick Vieira and Manu Petit were in the squad and I thought Glenn Hoddle knew what he was doing as England manager.

I thought : I’m gonna watch it, and I’m gonna talk about it, why not type out what I say to  my friends and stick it up on the internet?

So I started blogging France 98, when Bilic and Blanc were players.

I wanted what I wrote to be  informal, casual, honest, spontaneous,like speech,  reflecting and catching  moments that flew past at high speed.

I liked blogging because it was  open-ended and extended outside the UK.

When I wrote for The Scotsman I knew who my reader was  :  a schoolteacher in Stirling.

When I started blogging, it was experimental.

I’d never seen a website or an email and had no idea what other people were writing, so I had to make it up as I went along.

It’s been a long, strange trip but I got a book out of it.

ANR was a rough draft  for The Professor

As for you, Steve, don’t apologise for being 23.

You’re young  and can look forward to Arsenal after Lord Wenger.

Managed by Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal will win the Champions League.

Starved of  my comments? Don’t be silly.

While I appreciate your loyalty, I’ve a book to finish and the  summer is a good time to do that. This morning I printed out a 38-page file called ENDWRAP3.

Since the middle of my  70s memoir  had sprawled into hundreds of thousands of words, and become a trilogy,  I eventually realised I needed more focus.

So I decided to write the end of  the first book  before finishing the beginning and the middle.

I’ve printed out those 13,000 words and  started scribbling on them. I don’t know how other authors do it. But that’s what I do.  Just as every cripple has his own way of walking, every writer has his own way of writing.

The original ENDWRAP file aimed to wrap up the end of the book, which covers my first spell as a rock journalist, from 1970 to 1976, a golden era for groups, live gigs and  rich record companies.

That was a colourful period with a lot of laughing and a  lot of rock stars.

I started writing this book  because none of the  interesting things I did  ended up in the features and reviews I wrote.  One way or another, all those things fell outside the format of the papers and magazines I wrote for. Or they happened after the article was written.

Your questions, Steve, show that you’re a nutcase. But a  nice nutcase.

This old beatnik can’t compare today’s footballers to  those of the Sixties and Seventies. And I can’t compare them to rock groups either, you fanciful boy.

I think if Joe Baker played for Arsenal today, he’d  be sold to Real Madrid for £70 million.

It makes more sense to compare players to cars.

Don Howe said Dennis Bergkamp was a Rolls Royce of a player.

ANR reply from Steve Phillips : Scrooge Wenger/ Fabregas/ Barcelona

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Myles,

I heartily disagree with those who say that Wenger is preventing Fabregas from fulfilling his dream move to Barcelona.

Barcelona is employing dishonest tactics to attempt to prise away the player at a cut rate price. We have seen the reports of Barcelona’s financial losses and debt load. All of these appeals from Barcelona players and all this cuddly-wuddly chumminess towards Fabregas is a typically cheesy Barcelona attempt to unsettle the player.

Fabregas is on contract to Arsenal. He is highly paid and honoured as the captain of the team and is the first name on the team sheet for every game. If Barcelona want the player, they can cut the crap and pay up. Oh, and none of this five pounds now and five pounds a year in perpetuity garbage either… they’re broke, and if they were anyone else in business, it would be cash on the barrelhead, your credit’s dodgy, mate. I’m not falling for any of this, and Wenger is right not to allow them to get away with it.

If the player doesn’t want to play, then sit him down and wait them all out. This tactic cannot be allowed to succeed, not for Barcelona, not for Chelsea, not for Man City, or anyone else who uses the media to unsettle players and force transfers. We are seeing a pullback in the transfer market because the reality of the recession and financial matters and the price punters have to pay for a ticket these days is affecting clubs finances, and clubs in good financial condition, like Arsenal, shouldn’t accept dodgy financial arrangements for player purchases. Can you say Portsmouth, boys and girls? I knew you could.

Furthermore, I think Wenger knows he has a goalkeeping problem, but he needs the right person.

He cannot simply go for whoever is available, and he cannot be held to ransom because we have money and other clubs want it. That Italian guy looks flaky to me, maybe Frey has an attitude problem, Man City would be idiotic to let go of Joe Hart. I think Schwarzer is probably about right.

Big clubs like Arsenal, Man United, Chelsea, Barca, et al do not need small shotstoppers along the lines of Robert Green (Fabianski, Almunia). They need big guys who can command the 18 yard box, organize the defence, and come out with authority for the crosses and corner kicks, and be strong enough to tell guys like Vermaelen (and Gallas) to get on their mark. They must also be mature enough to keep themselves involved in the game, even if they haven’t seen the ball for half an hour, and be ready to make that important save or block, and be able to distribute the ball well, and in Arsenal’s case, quickly.

He must also be cool-headed in big games and have the experience to handle the EPL and the Drogbas of this world. Lehmann almost filled the bill, but he lacked the cool head required, which is probably why he was cheaply priced. Perhaps Wenger thought he could change that.

On that, I think that Schwarzer most closely delivers what we need, as well as being mentor to Sczesny  and whoever is around as backup (likely Fabianski for now, I guess – although I’d be tempted to throw the kid with all the consonants in there from time to time.) Also, Shay Given is too small for Arsenal’s small defenders, Joe Hart is a better option, which is why Man City would be nuts to lose Hart in favour of Given.

That’s enough from me for now, we’re waiting for that book, the music tome you keep threatening us with…

Love to Ian, we miss his cool-headed analysis.

Cheers,
Steve in Vancouver

 

 

Myles replies :

Agree on Shay Given, who does not come for crosses.That rules him out.

I’m hoping Ian will write again, as he is a Gooner who balances me. Ian created ANR as part of Arseweb, another website, long before I’d heard of a new-fangled phenomenon that they called the wordlwide informationsupersteveheighway.

I’m not threatening anybody with the memoir till it’s finished. 

The book is part of a trilogy and covers the years 1970 to 1976.

It starts at the Jimi Hendrix Isle of Wight festival and finishes with arrival of a single from EMI.

I was alone in the house, as Jan was down the routes somewhere with BA, and I’d just got out of bed and it was about 10.30 a.m and I opened the cardboard envelope and took out Anarchy In The UK and a great photo of four very young-looking rockers, the famous photo where the spray from a can of beer went on the camera lens.

Then I did something I had never done before that morning.

I put a record on the turntable before I’d had a cup of tea. Before I had really woken up.