Happy St Thomas' Day

It would be remiss of me not to do a short blog about one of the greatest days in the club's history. The day that led to the single 'We're back (Back where we belong)' We only had a minute but then we went and did it!

I remember being nervous for about 3 days before this game. Nobody went to Anfield and won. We've come so close but if you lose to bloody Derby at home you don't deserve to win anything!

I remember very little about the game apart from screaming at John Lukic to not throw the ball but to "FUC*ING KICK IT!" Thank goodness he threw it!



Mrs Feverpitch and I went travelled to London the next day for the victory parade and we followed the bus all the way to the town hall in Upper street. The best street party ever. If you missed it watch 'Fever Pitch' (a film close to my heart obviously) where the final scenes will give you a flavour of the atmosphere.

Lukic, Dixon, Winterburn, Thomas, O'Leary, Adams, Rocky, Richardson, Smith, Bould, Merson - It was up for grabs now. We salute you.

'arry and the dust cloud.

So that’s that then. Another season done and dusted although the only thing dusted were Sp*ds passports after many years in the drawer. I’d like to congratulate Sp*ds on winning the Champions League, World Cup, Boat race, Grand National and Britain’s got Talent .......... Sorry? What? They’ve won nothing? I assumed they’d had a massive win what with all those people walking around North London with a Cock & Ball on their shirts.

And there you have it. We finish 3rd and are a bit upset. They finish 4th and win manager of the year. I feel we have finished where we deserve to be. We are not as good as the two above us but we are better than everyone else. Third is our rightful place but not by much. With a fit Van Persie and a goalkeeper worthy of the name we’d be right in the mix. We all know where we need additions and it sounds like, for the first time since our move, Arsene has the funds.

Last season was a disappointment but it’s a measure of our aspirations and it’s our manager that has raised them. He’s a victim of his own success. The Unbeatables were the pinnacle. How do we reach such heights? Arsene is trying and I appreciate that. How do we compete with these classless, historyless midtable clubs who are pumped full of money and buy trophies? We move to a big stadium, we follow a strict business plan to deal with the debt that move brings, we play decent football and we keep the fans happy. Unfortunately to achieve the latter we need a trophy soon.

However, what is success? When i started watching The Arsenal any trophy led to an open top bus tour but football has changed. Would we be happier with an FA Cup win and a fifth place finish? A season without Champions league! Imagine that! It’s all about the money. It’s all about the Champion’s league. That’s the clubs view (see how Spu*s reacted to finishing 4th and winning nothing.) If we as fans had the clubs views of success we might not feel quite so deflated by our success.


(Fantastic video on YouTube that sums up our season. It's been superbly put together. Great work. http://www.youtube.com/user/charmdes)

#MessiToArsenal

What do you do with yourself if you have no interest in football? There are people like this all around us. Ive seen them myself. They don’t organise their year around the fixture list. They don’t sit at the back at weddings listening to the radio or checking their phone every minute. They don’t do 100-500 mile round trips to stand or sit in the cold to, maybe, see no goals. They have nothing to say to strangers!

Yesterday I was unfortunate enough to have a brief insight into this hollow world. Arsenal have two post season friendlies to see out and one of them is deemed important enough to televise last thing on a bank holiday weekend. No Arsenal interest yesterday. Usually I have a fall back with watching or following Cambridge City while I wait for The Arsenal but their season finished last week. There was nothing to get excited about. It was a horrible look into the summer abyss!

It was this nightmare vision that led me to Twitter yesterday. It started with the man from EastLower complaining about boredom and yearning for the new fixtures but worried about the 900,000 column inches of 'Cesc to Barca' rumours that will come before. It struck me that we should start our own rumours and who better to annoy than Barca themselves. If all the twitter Gooners ended every tweet with #MessiToArsenal it would make a point that we are sick of Barca looking down on us and unsettling any player they please. It will, of course, achieve nothing but it was great fun.

Messi has Arsenal in his blood. Well he has red blood doesn’t he? #MessiToArsenal

Silvestre dreams of Barca move. Swap deal on cards. #MessiToArsenal

Barca chairman says Arsenal don’t need Messi and he wouldn’t get in team anyway. Messi Upset. #MessiToArsenal

You get the idea. It soon transformed into having a pop at everyone else.

Messi dreams of linking up with Almunia. #MessiToScunthorpe

Messi wants to be known as a massive C**t. #Messi ToSp*rs

Messi doesn’t like big crowds. #MessiToChavscum

Great fun and it kept many of us amused for a day in footballing no man’s land. The game tomorrow means nothing! We still need a point to get 3rd but the excitement has gone. We are like people who live without football.
But we’re not are we?
Tomorrow we will mould our day around that 5pm kick off. We will be next to the pitch, a TV, radio, internet stream or mobile phone wherever we are in the world. We will shout at goalkeeping errors. We will cheer our goals. We will celebrate St Totts day like a cup win. A nothing game? Only someone with no interest in football would say that. And remember if you read it enough it must be true ..... #MessiToArsenal