So Paddy Got Up - an Arsenal anthology Read Online Free PDF Page B

secondary school in South East London when Wright was in his prime at Arsenal. To my recollection, nearly all of the black pupils at my school were Arsenal supporters and Wright was a big reason for that. He exuded charisma in a way that was rooted into hip-hop culture. The swagger and self-belief remained a constant, even when he found disillusion with the establishment. Nike cleverly exploited that connection with their early 90’s advertisement depicting Wright’s goal scoring feats against the strains of A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It’.
    With the arrival of Sky television and Internet technology, which allows games to be streamed all over the world, the relationship between a club’s fans and its community is no longer as pronounced.  Somebody in rural New Zealand is as likely to watch an Arsenal match in real time as somebody in N5. So whilst the supporter net has become wider and more diverse, these changes are more a wider symptom of the global village we inhabit. The reason Arsenal were greeted by thousands of excited Malaysian and Chinese fans in the summer of 2011is less to do with the fluctuations of the Islington community and more a result of instant technology and marketing.
    It would of course be incorrect to paint Arsenal as having always been a puritanical liberal utopia entirely free of prejudice. The prevalence of the Jewish hamlet in Tottenham means that unfavourable anti-Semitic language has been commonly heard on Arsenal’s terraces through the years. Aggressively anti-Semitic songs are heard rarely in this day and age at Arsenal, yet use of the term “Yids” in reference to Tottenham fans is still part of the everyday lexicon at matches. However, in its 125 years, the club’s support base has vacillated. Different cultures have become implanted into the club’s identity. Maybe I am looking generously through the prism of club bias, but Arsenal genuinely strikes me as a club with a more dynamic tapestry behind it. The club’s status as that of liberal progressive institution has been furthered passionately by Arsene Wenger. Lest we forget, Mr Wenger is the only manager ever to name eleven different nationalities in his team for a Champions’ League fixture against Hamburg in September 2006.
    The club and the supporters that breathe life into it have come a long way, baby. From the dirt underneath the fingernails of the munitions workers, who hauled the club up by its bootstraps through the jungle of Victorian football. The club became a migrant in its own right a touch under a century ago. The club’s nomadic history, from the Manor Ground to Highbury, and latterly to the Emirates, is a fitting indication indeed of the array of cultures that have enriched the institution ever since.
     
    ***
     
    Tim Stillman has been blogging on all matters Arsenal since 2006. Tim has been shunning human relationships to follow Arsenal over land and sea since childhood.
     
     
     

4 – DENNIS - Paolo Bandini
     
     
    It takes something quite special to give Ian Wright an inferiority complex. “We are not worthy,” hailed Wright, leading his team-mates in a deferential bow, as Dennis Bergkamp attempted an introductory speech at his first Arsenal training session back in July 1995. The tone may have been light-hearted but the sentiment was sincere. Never before had London Colney played host to a talent quite like this one.
    Dennis Bergkamp. The Dennis Bergkamp: blond-haired, blue-eyed star of the Dutch national side, joint-top scorer at Euro 92 and artful annihilator of England’s World Cup 1994 qualification hopes. A graduate of the Ajax youth academy who had been mentored by Johan Cruyff and topped the Dutch scoring charts for three years running and twice finished in the top three of the Ballon d’Or voting. A player who had joined Serie A’s Internazionale two years earlier for an eye-watering £12m – just £1m shy of the then world transfer record.
    If Arsenal was hardly a