Arsenal and Conspiracy
How football reflects these fractured times, and why we're all so cross
I, like many football fans, dedicate a significant portion of my life to the Guardian Football Weekly podcast. Three times a week I am lulled by the Max Rushden et al’s middle-aged banter and Barry Glendenning’s broguish tones.
The show is incisive yet consciously inoffensive, a refuge from the oft-manufactured hot-takery and antagonisation pedalled by influencers and broadcasters. Despite this, a trend has crept in over the past few months, one unfortunately pertaining to the footballing sect to which I belong: Arsenal fans.
Seemingly every week, Football Weekly panellists report their social media being swarmed by irate Gooners, enraged by a perceived slight towards their (and my) team. Alleged causes of this tri-weekly fatwah vary; it may be undue criticism of performance one day, insufficient praise for a victory on another, the failure to chastise prima facie refereeing errors on the third.
The result is a virtual mob gathering at the gates, slinging barbs at these journalists’ personal and professional lives, hunting street justice for daring to criticise our beloved Arsenal.
Fan vitriol towards pundits is not new, and this trend is not exclusive to Arsenal fans. But there does appear to be a well of fury and anxiety in N5 that Football Weekly, and other football podcasts, are unintentionally drawing from.
Why all this rage?
Ever present is the football fan’s standard bias and fatalism, the belief and accompanying dread that one’s team is always getting slighted. But Arsenal fans are also struggling with expectation.
Having gone so close these past two seasons, there is a feeling it is time to rip the albatross which has hung from the club’s neck for over two decades. We want a league title, and with that comes pressure. The stumbling start to the league campaign has therefore induced panic; in the era of Manchester City’s near-invincibility, our chance may have already slipped away.
Fans need few further reasons than poor results to whip themselves into fury. But, I believe there are broader factors.
Football is a vehicle for human nature, particularly on the pitch. When Kylian Mbappe declines to pass to a teammate, what follows will represent either the profit of self-belief or the pitfall of ego. Cole Palmer is the current embodiment of confidence, Marcus Rashford the opposite. The game itself represents a most basic human trait, the invention of purpose; the creation of an aim, the pursuit of which allows our lives structure and meaning.
Whilst football represents us, it is also reflects the world around us. The game exists in our society’s atmosphere, absorbing and continuing the often-conflicting values we hold. It is a stage, an opportunity to air grievances or dig lines in the sand, explicitly or otherwise.
Take the recent pearl-clutching at Thomas Tuchel’s appointment as England men’s head coach, the mere presence of the German grating against this country’s fragile nationalism. Or consider players taking the knee before kick-off, a once powerful gesture borne after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, which now feels more representative of the watered-down lip-service commonly paid towards racism.
Arsenal fans’ rage is a similar reflection of the now. If cultural commentators and comment sections are to be believed, we are living in the age of conspiracy. Faith in our institutions has whittled to nothing, replaced by paranoia, a fear of dark, invisible forces bending reality to their desires.
War rages in Europe, children are bombed in Gaza, economies are creaking as governments, who sit idly, demand our votes in elections around the world. This is a fractured time.
The vitriol unleashed after each Premier League game is thick with similar tales of distrust and murky, manipulating forces.
After William Saliba’s red card against Bournemouth, I was told by a stern-faced colleague, “the VAR is a Liverpool fan”. Gooner influencers whisper of “maximising punishment scenarios,” inviting moral panic about officiating, painting referees – usually bald Northern men named Mark – as meddling, corrupt deviants.
Over all this hangs the accusation that Manchester City were flaunting Premier League Financial Fair Play rules for nearly a decade. To many, this is further proof that those tasked with ensuring fairness are tainted and inept, another example of the forces of capital and power being irresistible.
We wail at Manchester City’s 115 charges, but that is not all we are wailing at.
Anger and fear pervade all corners of life, leaving our collective skin thin and easily pierced. And so, when Jonathan Wilson makes an off-hand comment about Ben White having a poor game, it is more than some people can take. It is the pressure release valve on a sense of mistrust and injustice that most are feeling.
This is my prognosis for the ‘why’, the terms by which I understand the rage which spills onto timelines. I don’t think it’s excusable, but at least understandable.
I also think, for Arsenal fans, it’s a grand shame.
Recently, having been inspired by Andres Iniesta’s retirement, I have been watching old football games in full.
It is strange to watch the build-up and fanfare surrounding these matches knowing the result, seeing the seeds of history sewn, the raw events which will solidify into myth. Without the crushing weight of the present, it is remarkable how frivolous it all seems.
With this, I have made a resolution.
Yes, the emotions of the moment are undeniable, and crucial to the footballing experience as a whole. However, I now refuse to let them curtail my enjoyment of the greatest Arsenal team I have – or statistically speaking, anyone – has ever seen.
The 2-2 draw against Liverpool oozed narrative, talking heads picking through the games’ entrails, searching for what the events mean. Yet, when Bukayo Saka, that plucky genius, caressed the ball through Andrew Robertson’s flailing legs, and howitzered it inside Caoimhin Kelleher’s near post, it was beauty, not meaning, that I registered.
I am desperate for Arsenal to win the Premier League, but not at the expense of joy. I am happy to risk disappointment, but not rage, when I watch my football team. And this comes down to a choice each fan must make.
We may choose to weave intricate conspiracies about our teams, and let our anger splash out onto the lives of others. Or, we can shake it off.
After all, the devastation of today will simply be the highlights package of tomorrow.