I’ve written before about the statues on the grounds of the Emirates. Just behind the statue of Theirry Henry, there is a giant objet d’art, a wall depicting every Arsenal team member–we assume–since the beginning of people taking pictures of teams. One team picture morphs into another, from ancient to modern. The left half of the image depicts players in black and white film, and somewhere in the middle the teams are depicted in color. They are, naturally, wearing the red home jersey.
The message is clear–all these players–they are the Arsenal. They have each taken their place in the team and in the wall. And after a time, far too short or too long or just right, they left the team and were replaced by others. While “the team” was still “the team” after they left, if you think about how teams are formed, a departed player leaves a gap that must be filled. Not just a position, but possibly a gap in some form of artistry that might easily be replaced like-for-like or might require many different changes.
From the first moment I saw the picture wall, that time we came for a “once-in-a-lifetime” pilgrimage to the Emirates in 2012, I was captivated by how it must have been made, and how difficult the upkeep must be as the team keeps changing.
It turns out there is no upkeep. If my googling of the art is correct, that particular installation depicting the players who rolled on and off the team was replaced, in my absence from the Emirates, by this:
This is also a historical depiction, of “iconic goals and celebrations,” according to Arsenal.com. It’s nice, and to gets a similar point across, but it’s not quite the same point. The original piece was a celebration that contained some darkness: “Things come to an end, don’t get comfortable. It may end well, or not.” The new art is a bit too cheerful. I’m reminded of what my husband, who grew up Catholic, said about attending my Methodist Easter services: “I can’t stand Easter at your church. Everyone is too damn happy.”
The upkeep of the original art, if ever that was the intent, in the past two years would have been very difficult indeed because the team has almost completely turned over. Jack Wilshire, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Laurent Koscielny, Carl Jenkinson, Kieran Gibbs, David Ospina, Santi Cazorla, Danny Welbeck, Gabriel, Aaron Ramsey, Francis Coquelin, Nacho Monreal…..all gone. Alexis Sanchez is so gone that he’s already left the club he left us for. Petr Cech and Per Mertesacker are both retired (though our BFG has a coaching gig with the club).
Really, only Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil and Hector Bellerin are still on the team. Xhaka, to my questioning eyes, has become a regular starter, presumably undroppable. But Ozil and Bellerin–neither of them is even making the bench. Bellerin because he’s coming back from serious injury, Ozil because, well, no one seems to know.
Saddest of all, my hero, manager Arsene Wenger is gone. He retired at the end of the 2017 season, beating the team to the punch before they fired him. He got a nice sendoff that brought tears to my eyes, but it was bitter deep down. He’s been replaced by Unai Emery, a coach who looked promising at first, but now just seems like he’s not quite sure how to put it all together.
On that first visit in 2012 when I became captivated by the wall, we visited over the Christmas holidays, watching a cracking match against Newcastle United that ended 7-3. My small son had been a fervent Santa defender. In the year prior to the trip, I had explained to him that Santa needs a lot of help from me: I had to listen throughout the year for what my kids wanted for Christmas, I had to buy presents, I had to wrap them, and I had to put them under the tree. My explanation didn’t leave much for Santa to do, but somehow my son’s belief in the power of Santa remained well intact. He was a smart kid; I can only assume that he really, really didn’t want to know. The machinations of a trip to London over Christmas fully exposed to my son the sad realities of Santa, but the trip remains one of the most fun Christmases we’ve had as a family.
That small boy left home for college this Fall. We dropped him off in Rochester, NY and won’t see him again until Thanksgiving. He’s having an amazing time. Our daughter is little more than a semester from graduation from College. I miss having them around and building my life around them and their activities. I miss their noise and mess and fun.
Since we moved to California, I’ve been to the Emirates only once, before my husband and son relocated from Chicago. The trip is much farther from the west coast and we didn’t really have the same support system for our son in California that we had in Chicago.
But did I mention he’s in Rochester, NY now?
This is a tough season. Arsenal have talent–maybe better than ever–but haven’t clicked as a team, not even close. There are some exciting young players and some excellent older players, but my feelings for them havent gelled. We now have David Luiz for heaven’s sake: excellent luck, or Chelsea Trojan horse? Xhaka–can he possibly be undroppable from the lineup with so many questionable decisions? Loanee Dani Ceballos–yes, he is a fan favorite, but when he throws a stepover with no one even defending him, I shake my head. The team doesn’t feel the same.
So this weekend, we are doing what must be done. I’m getting ready to board British Air in San Jose and head to the mother ship, the Emirates. We’ll see the new art, have a pint, and, most importantly, try to come to terms.
Suddenly I’m feeling good about it. In the very Uber I’m in, the driver is playing House of Pain’s Jump Around. (Not the “clean version,” I add.) Obviously a sign!
“Oh no,” you say, “That’s not the song played before the second half at the Emirates anymore”?
Fine. Fine.
Although our new players probably won’t find their way onto the wall behind Theirry Henry, they have a good chance of finding a place in our hearts.
I was lucky and got lost only briefly, close to the shop. I was seated quickly, ordered my precious scone, and paid my bill immediately so I could run away as soon as I had the last yummy smidge of cream. It wasn’t the most relaxing breakfast, but mission accomplished. My only disappointment was that the clotted cream was not as giant as I remembered it. When the clotted cream was gone, I abandoned the rest of the scone and rushed back, again getting lost only once. I arrived at the Citizen M a minute after official checkout, rushed up and grabbed my bag, and headed out to the Tube to get to Heathrow.
My husband and I stayed through the weekend to check things out and experienced an Arsenal match on Pacific time zone at Jacks’s Bar and Lounge in San Jose. I had a resigned feeling when we stepped into the small bar at 7 a.m., realizing that they had no food….and my husband couldn’t drink because it was right before a planned, minor surgery. I was going to have to hold down the fort at the bar for our Arsenal viewing single handedly: What beer to have for breakfast?
There was supposed to be a big protest in advance of the West Ham match by the Wenger Out crowd. They were planning to stay out of the stadium for the first 13 minutes of the match, one minute for each year we haven’t had a Premier League trophy. I have no idea if they did it or not. The stadium was packed as of kickoff, and there was no notable change at 13 minutes. The crowd was in fine voice throughout. On my right, in the seats that contain new people each time, was an American who required much explanation of what was happening in the match, which his also-American associate delivered with reasonable accuracy and far less impatience than I could have mustered.
The refereeing in this match was far worse than in the Man City match (itself pretty poor). It boggles the mind that Martin Atkinson continues to get Arsenal matches. Three obvious penalty calls waved away. Meanwhile, he didn’t see much contact from Arsenal on West Ham players that he failed to judge a foul.
A West Ham fan had managed to make his way onto the train with us and he said loudly that Arsenal was no longer Arsenal, we used to be a good team but no more. He protested that he was not just being an asshole, just stating facts. He acknowledged that he might be making people mad.
The Churchill war rooms was the basement from which a team, along with Winston Churchill, conducted the British response in World War II. For years, a dedicated team of men and women directed the war effort, charted, conveyed information mostly underground and in secret. At the end of the war, Winston Churchill was out of a job and the others left the basement pretty much as it had been during the effort. They simply shut the doors and walked away. Much of it was exactly as it was found years later.
Before we arrived at the museum, we crossed the Westminster bridge that had been the site of a terror attack last week. Many people people lost their lives or were seriously injured as a car ran up on the sidewalk. A week later, the bridge was thronged with tourists and business people just as always; the only signs of the terror were the flowers and letters people had left at various locations on the bridge.
One of them was holding a “Wenger Out” sign in front of the statue of Tony Adams. The statue looked to me quite uncomfortable being used in that way. The real Tony Adams may well believe that Wenger should move on, but Statue Tony Adams believes no such thing. I’m sure of it. After the protesters left, I snapped a picture of Statue Tony. He was looking modestly relieved, both to see the protesters leave and to see me return to the Emirates. Yes, I’m sure of that, too.
After our beer, we found our way to our seats in Block 98 and watched the lads warm up. Elneny took a shot above the goal in warm up that found its way not that far below Block 98, a bad sign. He didn’t even play on Sunday, so that was his biggest contribution to the match.
Arsenal finally got another goal, this time directly from a corner kick. Defender Mustafi got his head to Ozil’s ball and put it in.
When we finally got back to our neighborhood in Tower Hill it was too late to engage in our Sunday Roast tradition. We were lucky to find anyone still serving food, let alone roast. We found the Horniman pub open on the other side of the Thames after crossing over the Tower Bridge. A large boat was crossing under the bridge and the drawbridge was up when we got there. Pretty cool.
We headed out into the evening across the Tower Bridge to get a bite to eat, settling on Cote Brasserie on St. Katherine Docks. It is right across from a chain called The Slug and Lettuce. Although I’ve walked by this chain many times, somehow I’ve never chosen to eat there. At the Brasserie Cote I had roasted chicken with wild mushroom sauce and my husband had the Beef Bourguignon. Both delicious. We topped it off with profiteroles.
WholeArsed 