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It was a moment, albeit one that had become pretty common in recent years. Arsenal were playing Norwich, and a particularly impressive spell of play saw the faithful chant in unison, tongue firmly in cheek – “Boring, Boring Arsenal…Boring, Boring Arsenal”
Down on the touchline, one man looked visibly much happier than he had appeared in years.
Arsene Wenger normally reserves his smiles for his often ironic press conferences, but on that night the not-so-subtle irony in the chants warranted one – his side was growing up.
And even if the Arsenal faithful have a number of chants that grow ever so louder each time this team takes to the field these days, there is perhaps no other one that shows Arsene Wenger’s reign for what it truly is.
And it is such a simple, delightfully ironic one. “Boring, Boring, Arsenal…”
The chant of opposition fans back in the 80’s and early 90’s, when Arsenal built a reputation on grinding out results, with stoic, if uninspiring, performances.
A French revolution later, today opposition fans pray they do not have to face the music – literally – because it would mean their team is being overwhelmed out there by one man’s quest for beauty.
They will talk about the trophies, and the glory days of old.
To the point where they talk about the lack of trophies today.
They will talk about his role as a torch-bearer for the influx of foreign talent in the league – as both players and managers looked to the British shores in his stead.
To the point where today an English public silently grumbles at how “them foreigners” have taken over the league, making it nigh impossible for local talent to flourish.
They will talk of how he taught his players to take care of themselves, to think of themselves as elite athletes – at his insistence on a proper diet and a sober lifestyle.
To the point where today his once revolutionary methods are considered commonplace in the world of football.
But they will never grab at the true essence of the man – and perhaps they do not deserve to – until they come much closer to home. Here, in Ashburton Grove, where he is watching over proceedings, knowing full well that if Arsenal were to challenge for trophies again, it begins here, at home.
I am incapable of playing with any other team than Arsenal FC on FIFA 13 – even if my loyalty does come at a cost. The commentators drone on and on about how Highbury was a great place to play because of all the memories of all those glorious triumphs.
Arsenal old boy Alan Smith effuses that if the state-of-the-art Emirates lacks in anything, it is in these memories. And that is what Arsene Wenger himself is striving to accomplish, in this, the latest challenge he faces in a career that has perhaps seen more than any one man has before him.
Wenger understands the simply overwhelming power of belief – and this belief was not lacking in Highbury. Not when fans and players alike could practically feel that belief in the very air in the famous old ground.
Mesut Ozil’s signing was more about bringing that belief back to the Arsenal faithful – for at the time the club was being ravaged by self-pity and in-house-fighting.
And as good a signing the German has been on the pitch, it is not difficult to understand that it is the statement that his signing has made that has made a much bigger difference to the fans, to the world at large, and to the team itself, most of all.
I remember a moment in my early teens, when I was strictly a football neutral, having no allegiances to any club. It was in the aftermath of the final match at Highbury, a day Thierry Henry immortalized with a hat-trick.
On the podium that had been erected in the middle of the pitch in honor of the occasion, Thierry Henry and Ashley Cole sat alone, as their team-mates applauded the fans, drinking in their affection.
The duo watched their mates in the distance, even as they seemed to share a profound moment together. Their smiles were evident, but laced with a tinge of sadness and incredulity.
As if they were asking each other, do you realize all that we have seen in out time here? How could we possibly play anywhere else?
The hyperactive Englishman, a product of the club’s famed youth system, and then a shining example of what every youth player hoped to accomplish.
Sitting alongside the smooth Frenchman, one who found his true calling in Highbury, reinvented and rechristened for all the world to see. Henry’s Golden Boot award lay forgotten at their side, the sheer significance of the occasion dwarfing all else.
Freeze that moment in time, and display it proudly in Arsenal’s museum, for more than all the trophies and the adulation, it shows what Arsene Wenger has accomplished.
The unenlightened may not comprehend, but I suspect Wenger will give a knowing smile, Mona Lisa-esque even, if he catches a glimpse of that moment again.
He is French, after all, and they delight in moments like this, where there is more to it than meets the eye.
That day represented the closure of Wenger’s greatest accomplishment as a manager – for Arsenal would forever be known as a team that lives and breathes a slick, sexy brand of football that is so easy on the eye, and yet leaves you mesmerized in its delightful intricacies.
Swaying to the beat, hypnotized in its wake, I lost myself in my love for this club in their first season at the Emirates. And that is what I will regret the most – that I did not develop my footballing sensibilities in time, to see Wengerball through the eyes of a fan in their time at Highbury.
I do not regret that this club has not won a trophy in my time as a supporter – it may well have aided my evolution as a Wenger loyalist. There is so much more to this club – so much more to Arsene Wenger the visionary – and that can be seen in the trophy-less years that have gone by.
To have unwavering faith in your principles in the face of incessant opposition – from every quarter imaginable – that has been Wenger’s greatest challenge. Even as he has overridden so many challenges before, and proved so many stereotypes wrong, he has never had to defend himself the way he has been doing for the last eight or nine years.
And that is because his methods proved hugely successful early on – he always had hard evidence in the form of trophies to back it all up.
But in ceding ground to a beast that cannot be slain – money – Wenger has not lost sight of his vision for Arsenal FC.
And in rising up from the ashes to which he was eternally condemned to, the Frenchman has shown how much more he has left to offer a football club that is already synonymous with his own name.
For all his achievements, future generations may well refer to Arsene Wenger as a man who was unappreciated in his own time.
But then, God only tests the worthy.
And for that, I raise my glass to you, Le Professeur.
I would like to pretend that it is glass of Bordeaux wine that would bring an appreciative nod from the man himself, but it is in fact an overlarge mug of my morning tea.
But I do not think the great man would mind too much – he would be far more interested to know how he has shaped my personality, in a way few others could even imagine.
