re: Arsenal Football Club 2011-2012 Season Thread

quote:

---

A lot of people see jobs as laboring towards a paycheck and middling into a life of quiet desperation, with hobbies existing as an blissful escape into whatever passion compels you forward. As an American several hoursa behind UK time, my weekend hobbyjob begins at the crack of dawn: I get up, brew some coffee, read the news, and go and kiss my sleeping roommate on the forehead like he was my own child (and hope he wasn't awake to sense it), head downstairs and clock in with the Clock End. It might be difficult for some the grasp that spectating could be a "job." Watching someone else physically exert themselves is hardly effort in the traditional sense.

But gradually the consistency of showing up to the couch each weekend (or midweek, as the case may be), strongly corded emotional connections start forming between you and players who don't speak your language, who don't know you and probably never will; I get into one way arguments with Arsene, harangue midfielders for quality control issues, complain to forwards about productivity, and have anxious talks with our defenders about diminishing returns.

But it's not all sorrow of course. The Pavlovian response to a goal sends a starburst of pleasure through me and I race circles around the room like an overstimulated dog. The anticipation of a rivalry match adds an extra bouyancy to my outlook all week. Superlative strikes and glorious victories tide me over in ways that intimate interpersonal connections often fail to achieve.

I've caught flack before for not being a "real fan," because of course I didn't win the geographic lottery to be born in the N5 of London. Instead of being able to claim a heritage, I feel I at least worked to earn my connection with the club. Learning about past legends, unforgettable fixtures, and songs that seem more like folk ballads now (Ian Wright! Wright! Wright!). Following blogs, twitjournos, and transfer outlets have my interests inextricably linked with the Gunners. Instead of Christmas slowly degrading from a boyhood day of splendor to an adult ritual of receiving socks and underwear, I've now been able to revert to back to unabashed happiness in receiving a new replica kit each year.

Yes, I feel like I've steeped myself into the very anthropology of the Arsenal culture. And my connection strengthens itself on those quiet, gloden sunrise mornings before everyone else is up. Although I'm merely plopped down on my couch, inwardly a theater of emotion plays out for 90 minutes with a breathless 20 minutes in the middle. I feel responsible when things go wrong, joyous when right. Because Arsenal to me is like a tonic of work and play, it fizzes in me not as a quiet escape, but with passionate desparation, the stuff of life: the Arsenal.

---