Welcome, my fellow Gunners, to another year in which we faithful worshippers have been privileged to celebrate our favourite Saint’s Day.
And why is St Totteringham’s Day our favourite holy occasion?
Well, I believe it’s because it combines all the qualities of the other, lesser, Saints’ Days that we mark throughout the year.
It has the wonderful drunkenness associated with St Patrick’s Day; the love (for our team, our club and each other) that St Valentine is famous for and the unapologetic pride of St George’s Day. Best of all, there’s a big dose of St Schadenfreude’s Day, the occasion on which it is acceptable (indeed, obligatory) to laugh at the afflicted.
St Totteringham’s Day bundles all those marvelous feelings into one – and you have to say, this has surely been the best St T’s Day ever.
Lasagna-gate in 2006 was fun, but that season the Spuds were behind us most of the way and only really closed the gap right at the end.
This year, of course, was different. This year they opened up a 12 point lead over us and that tribe of pox-eaten donkey pizzles who call themselves their supporters kept telling us to “Mind the Gap.”
Oh we minded it alright, you fool-born codpiece-sniffers. We minded it right up the Seven Sisters Road and shoved it up your collective jaxey. How d’you like that gap?
In years to come, happy Gooners will sit around reminiscing about the 2011-2012 season.
Someone will say: “Do you remember when the Tiny Totts thought they were going to win the league?” and everyone else will just fall about laughing…. “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, aaaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”
Play the clip below whilst you read on…….
“Do you remember when they told us to ‘mind the gap’ and that the balance of power had shifted in North London?” “Aaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, aaaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”
“Do you recall a certain Mr Henry Winter saying that Robin van Persie was the only Arsenal player with a chance of getting in the Spuds’ first team?” “Aaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, aaaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”
This season has put us fans through the wringer, but it has not lacked for drama. And at the end of it all, the table does not lie. The team that finishes third deserves to be third.
Just pause for a second and consider that.
We finished third. After our worst start to a season for half a century.
We lost our talismanic captain late in the transfer window, followed quickly out the door by a fat greedy Frenchman. Our most creative player suffered a season-long injury. We started terribly and lost 8-2 at Old Toilet. Our new signings were all scooped up in a special edition of Supermarket Sweep (Yossi Benayoun came free with a packet of Daz).
We were as far up Smelly Creek (it flows into Tottenham Beck) as we had ever been in living memory and we didn’t have a paddle or even a boat. We were swimming up Smelly Creek. Without armbands.
And at that time do you know what smelled worse that the River of Runny Stuff? It was the attitude of the haters, those so-called Arsenal supporters who relished every mishap and calamity; who rejoiced in disaster because it meant they could say “told you so” about their campaign to oust the most successful manager in our club’s history.
How many times did they tell us that we would be lucky to finish in the top half of the table? Or that we would face a relegation fight?
Their attitude, just like the quality of their “support”, stank the place out and contributed to a mood of infighting and fractiousness that only made the problems worse.
But through it all Arsène Wenger kept working.
Recovering from that disastrous start and securing third place is undoubtedly one of his most impressive achievements. It proves as a lie the haters’ contention that he could never get his team playing well again, but I suppose the haters will move their goalposts to continue slaughtering him.
By the way, I have no problem with people criticising the manager or his decisions – I just have a problem with the ones who have become so obsessed with their opposition to him that they want Arsenal to fail. That’s like noticing that your brickwork needs repointing – and deciding it would be for the best if the house burnt down.
Anyway, enough, enough.
I am so proud of our team and our Club. I’m proud of every player and I’m proud of Arsene and I’m proud of Pat Rice and I’m proud of the fans (most of them, anyway).
Of course there’s work to be done to make us better next season. Quite a lot, in fact, but we have put ourselves in the best possible position to do it. What exactly should be done is something we can discuss in the days and weeks ahead.
Officially this should be a match report – and there is plenty to talk about from yesterday’s game. But right now I have no inclination to pick holes, talk about defensive frailties, questions Arsene’s team selections and substitutions.
We had a simple job to do – go to West Brom and win. We did it. We didn’t do it as comfortably as most of us would have liked but we did it all the same.
I will however, give some player ratings:
Szczesny: 10
Jenkinson: 10
Koscielny: 10
Vermaelen: 10
Santos: 10
Coquelin: 10
Song: 10
Rosicky: 10
Gervinho: 10
Van Persie: 10
Benayoun: 11 (joint MoTM)
Fulop: 11 (joint MoTM)
Subs
Walcott: 10
Ramsey: 10
Gibbs: 11 (joint MoTM)
Finally, a question: What do T*ttenham H*tspurs have in common with Hank Marvin?
Answer: Always in the Shadows.
And what grows in the shadows? You got it: fungus – stinky, weirdo fungus… the stuff God came up with as an experiment before he perfected plants and animals.
That’s you, Tiny Totts: the fetid, spongy mass that grows on decaying matter (in this case the decaying matter is your hopes and dreams. Enjoy).
Happy St Totteringham’s Day everyone.
RockyLives
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[…] The Best St Totteringham’s Day Ever […]
Absolutely brilliant Rocky.
I usually find one or two classic lines in your posts that I like to copy and paste. I cannot do that today, without copying and pasting the whole thing.
There is something epic about having St Totts Day on the last weekend of the season. You just know how much it must hurt the knuckle draggers 🙂
Morning all – Rocky, you are naughty. I didn’t think you was going to do an incendiary piece ?
Anyway, what the hell, let’s all larf at Shittenham:
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa !!
Anyone got Micky Hazard’s cab number?
Masterpiece Rocky.
Brilliant Rocky, thank DB10 that we haven’t got to endure a nervy week before the CL final.
There is a sobering message – save the triumphalism until you’re mathematically safe. I shall be collecting a few bets from totnum fans who were convinced they’d finish above us …. hahahahhahahahahaaaa
There are a couple of serious observations I’d like to make after yesterday:
1. We now know that any criticism of Sz was misplaced because he’s been carrying an injury for 6 weeks and having pain killing injections. Great stuff by him, but what does it say about the faith we have in our other GK options. We need to buy a 2nd choiice keeper this summer, I expect Al, Fab2 and Vito all to be off this summer.
2. Kieran Gibbs did what the QPR defender couldn’t against Aguero and saved the game for us …. he’s done really well and should be our 1st choice LB, Santos can give him a rest and come on in midfield occasionally – he’ll score more goals than Gervinho
3. Kozzer has to be considered for player of the season
4. Why does our defensive play fall apart when we score to go in front – this needs to be addressed. We’ve had our worst season defensively conceding 49 goals – and that with our best keeper!
5. We need a midfield general. M’Vila fits the bill – let’s get him early and relax for the summer.
Rasp,
100% agree on all those points. Hopefully Stevie Bould will help address the problem you mention in point 4.
M’Vila would certainly help me to relax, but for me to attain the horizontal position, then an AM is absolutely imperative. How many goals have we scored from tha position? 3 or 4?
Hi Micky, I agree we’ve missed a top midfield attacking playmaker this season, but I don’t think we’ll buy 2 midfielders so I’d have to opt for the one who protects the defence best and hope that from the choice of Wilshere, Ramsey, Rosicky, Song etc etc we can create more chances from midfield.
Really a gud week 2 be a gunner
Rasp,
I hear what you are saying about buying two midfielders, but there is not a cat in hell’s chance of one of those midfielders you mention taking us to the next level as an AM, and again, no chance of them scoring 8+ goals. Nice guys and all that, but nowhere near good enough to orchestrate a 4-3-3. They’ve proved that.
Nice 1 man.We’ve got the tiny tots in our hands
I wonder whether we’ll move into the market this week ie before Spuds/Chavs can convince players to join them with a promise of CL football.
Thanks Micky, well in that case, we’d have to let one/some of them go because they’ve already shown they are not great DM’s 😦 although I think Jack alongside Arteta could be a fantastic partnership for a couple of seasons.
I’m still waiting for Micky Hazard’s cab number 🙂
“Shift in the balance of power in North London”
ha ha ha ha ha
For some reason this post has not come up on News Now – what a shame when it’s such a classic. We are contacting NN to see what the problem is.
Loved it. Laughed out loud. Thanks for that
Rasp,
Good thinking. I also share your thoughts that Song may go. I just don’t think he sees himself as a defensive midfielder. He, like Ramsey, is much better suited to a 4-4-2. In my opinion.
Marvellous post Rocky upbeat, pertinent and entertaining, yes yesterday will long live in the memory not just for Arsenal, but for football all round, and what a day it was.
So now we start the soul searching, wishing, recriminating, dreaming and fantasizing, a time to enjoy and celebrate, a time of hoping, discussion, deep breaths and belly laughs and most of all of celebrating that we are the Arsenal.
My fervent wish this wonderful stress free day:? That all who profess to be gooners, take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves the question, did I give Arsene and the club the support they deserved, amid the drama of this topsy turvey season and the recent run in. Am I a supporter or simply a seeker of reflected glory and bragging rights. More worried about my personal standing than the teams:
We have enjoyed an amazing 15 year run of club football at the very highest level, yet to read many posts you would think we were the spuds, constantly dodging the gap and swapping managers like Pokémon cards.
We are not, we are the Arsenal who feed at the top table, not because we have any footballing god given right so to do, but because the club and its employees have earned us that right and are entitled to expect the respect of us the fans in the good times and our support in the tough times.
So from me, thanks once again lads, especially Pat Rice as he comes and joins us in his retirement after a job well done and a warm welcome to Big Bouldy, that’s some act you have to follow matey.
Here’s to the next 15 years and maybe, just maybe a pot or two along the way.
PS, have a bit of sympathy on those poor spuds they have had a bad month, and who knows maybe Chelski are gonna make it even worse next week. 🙂
“we didn’t have a paddle or even a boat. We were swimming up Shit Creek. Without armbands.”
One of my fave lines out of so many classics I’ve read on AA from so many quality authours.
My thanks go out to you all for your camarderie through the toughest of seasons for many many years.
Fantastic, laughing out loud 🙂 Thank you Rocky
But i must admit – for the first time ever, I am actually delighted that the season is over. I am not sure if my heart could take anymore of the rollercoaster. Some would find such emotions pleasurable, but not me, I like it safe. I like it boring.
BTW – congrats to Man Shitty fans. I am glad for them and watching the tragedy at Old Trafford was sheer joy
Rocky, Rocky, Corky, yet another example of your creatively fecund imaginative despoiling of those poor wretches known as the swamp dwelling, neolithic nose pickers who inhabit the swamps of N17! 🙂
Classic! 🙂
To be fair, I think that the Swampies, in trying to traduce us, were just doing their mealy-mouthed best to boost their flagging morale, while their season was coming to its usual crepuscular conclusion, and to that extent they deserve our pity! 🙂
In contrast, the ersatz Arsenal supporters who were sharpening their crayons in readiness to crassly slander Arsene, when we were losing 1:2, deserve only our utter opprobrium for their continuing odious behaviour.
They have gone quiet for the mo’, but they will be back, and in the meantime they will soon start picking the bones out of individual players in order to indirectly criticise Arsene for having the temerity to play them, or include them in the squad!
OK, 3rd is not as good as winning the Premiership, but given our limited resources and the calamitous pre-season disloyalty that initially engulfed us, and which in turn resulted in a dreadful start to the season, as well as the contiguous, unforeseen loss of so many defenders, (all of which you have referred to) that final position is the equivalent of having scaled a footie Everest!! 🙂
You are a wonderful scribe, Rock Candy! 🙂
Hi Mr Sureghost – true, it;ds been one of our toughest seasons in ages. And in the light of Dandan’s question, I am a bit embarrassed to admit I’ve gone into Mugabe media lock dowm(or hidden behind London’s sofa) when things have got a bit sticky.
My bad, I shoud get some backbone, like Peachy and Raspers.
Posted by McTwitcher on the Harry Hotspur blog:
“And there off…. first is Bale, followed by Modric and Ade is closing in…
The only one staying the distance is Arry, more of a donkey than a horse….
Reading the comments has made me laugh, Arsenal were rubbish last night, but our Rubbish is better than the spuds best season in 50 years.
It’s only going to get hader next year. you boys had your window, and instead of going through it, you lot decided to lick it.
Happy St Totteringhams day window lickers. “
Hi Dandan, 🙂
I did not get the chance, yesterday, to tell you how envious I was while reading about your bucolic and idyllic sounding list of intended activities.
I hope your hound appreciates the lengths you go to in order to please him!!!!
Wow!! 🙂
How do you get a cork back into a champagne bottle? Ask a Man United fan
Top stuff Rocky! ‘St Schadenfreude’s Day’ 😆
We are all emotionally drained (as IrishG put it yesterday), but you had the energy to do yesterday’s result, and what it means for the club, total justice.
I totally agree, we should not discuss today what needs to improve for next season. Today is about focussing on the incredible journey to third place, the way the team got their on their gums (as the Dutch say) and by sheer determination rather than quality. Somehow, they did it and it was all epitomised by the way Arsene lay on Pat’s lap in the end, as he just could not bare the tension any more. Didn’t we all want to lay on that lap, in a non-brokeback mountain kind of way – to quote G-Glic?!
The tank is thoroughly empty now but we have reached the best possible destination: the land where the fruits hang low and the silver-linings are on our new paths rather than in the sky. No CL-qualification stress this Summer, and a proper period of preparing for the new season now lay ahead – in the meantime, we can all enjoy a great summer with ‘easy’ blogging and hopefully a great European Championship of football to enjoy and talk about.
A big thanks to Pat Rice and Arsene Wenger to guide us through this transitional year so incredibly successfully, and to the players who fought back so well since that horrible January collapse. It makes me sooooo proud to be a Gooner! What a club we are! 🙂
Dandan 🙂
Chary,
You never have anything to be embarrassed about.
One of the great things about football is the different opinions and emotions it brings out in people.
Dandan mentions “looking in the mirror”, but the thing is even when we do, we see one person one day, and on other days, someone quite different. There are other factors in our make up that may alter the way we see football and our love/hate relationship with The Arsenal. It is not clear cut.
So my biggest thank you for the season goes out to Rasp and Peaches for keeping this site so many cuts above the others. Long live the difference of opinions, and long live the civility of all on here.
HI RA had a great day, got as you may have guessed a happy city son. But and here is what he will not live down, he walked out and drove off when they went 2 I down and would not answer his mobile did not know they had won until we called him at home.
His brother giving him merciless stick:
🙂 🙂
Rocky, this supports your views on the Spuds.
you.tube/AOxINqEJIdQ
dandan,
I have a son like that. He is a terrible loser and nothing will change that. I learnt a lesson when I stomped off from the TV during the ’79 Final. Its a tough lesson to learn, but when you make the error on the biggest of day’s, you never do it again.
masterpiece Rocky, loved every bit of it!
i agree with evonne, i am thankful for the first time ever that the season is finished. We really did limp over the line! But as you’ve said Rocky (and like TMHT says all the time) the foundations are there! We will be an amazing title winning team with a few additions and hard work during pre-season!
‘It’s only going to get harder next year. you boys had your window, and instead of going through it, you lot decided to lick it”
that is brilliant!
We have found out why the post has not featured on NN, it seems peaches’ mum is also their moderator 😕 . We may make some subtle changes to allow it to reach a wider audience.
Morning guys, are we ready for SBS ?, I had a dream last night that we beat the Baggies 3-2, it was so real, then I came on here and noticed that the league table still says we have to play another game . I`m off to hide behind my settee, I have a strong feeling of Deja vu.
@ micky 11.20
last paragraph very well said. this site has kept us sane, without it i’m sure we’d be either sucking our thumbs while we rock in the basement, hiding under our doonas hoping never to see the light of day again, in hospital due to stress related illnesses, serving a prison sentence or converting to cricket!
It seems you all had the same dream as me, wow, spooky . The table doesn`t lie !
That will be a great post for tomorrow Rocky, if we win !
Nice one mate
Mickey I agree with the pleasure that Peaches and Rasp bring to many through their splendid site, I love the talented and varied authors that write for them and delight in the basic civility we employ and the friendships that are evolving.
But it is those who this year have at different times called for the sacking/selling of varies individuals only to sing their praises later or Vice Versa, that I find disconcerting and that is a reflection on the individual not the blog.
Of course all should have their own opinions and to air those is the purpose of a blog, it is the inconsistency of some these opinions that I question. Those that like Rasp who comes often with opinions that I do not agree with, but which are based on a consistant standpoint or modus operandi I have no problem with at all.
I do not for a moment consider that I am anywhere near always right, I do hope that I am consistant though.
Off subject, a little advice would be greatly appreciated.
Glic jnr, after a few years at contsruction college and a lot of work experience has got a job with a builder. I dont know what it`s like in your parts of the world, but down here, most of the builders are self employed. My boy is very dyslexic and me and Mrs glic still have to help him with forms etc, neither of us have ever been self employed and haven`t got a clue where to start. We want him to do everything above board,but are there legal loopholes for him to pay less tax or claim for tools etc ? , honestly, haven`t got a clue where to start. Help !.
Last night i dragged the St T decorations out of the attic, (Chris Waddle mullets for the kids) and i stuck the the black and white footage of totts last title, it was probably a silent movie but i muted it and played some chas and dave over it.
we poured over the comments from tottenham players over the season – how the power had shifted, how they were better than us, how Harry was a genius.
oh how we laughed
our laughter was shortened when we thought about the real meaning of St Totteringham’s day – its not about the puns, or the roasted cockeral, its not about Diamond lights or carling cup semi final commemorative dvds
Its about thanks for what we are and what we have.
To Arsenal Fans everywhere –
Have a happy and holy St Totts day and always remember, there go we but for the grace of a gooner God
Morning everyone
In a few minutes I’m going to re-publish this article with a slight change to the title as NewsNow can’t publish this one even though I’ve changed the profanities.
I’ll come back and let you know when I’ve done it and close the comments on this page so you’ll need to press the Home page to get to the new one.
Back in a bit
The new one is up now and I’m closing the comments on this one ….
Press the Home button to get to the new one …….
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