Midweek Football Ruminations

If football be the love of food, play on;
I have excess of it, forfeiting
An appetite that sickens, so do I
Refrain again.

I have been watching way too much English Premier League football. I see that now. I have had a love-hate relationship with it for years. Grainy black-and-white Division One footage was my mainstay in the long and boring weekend afternoons. I supported Liverpool when I was young and knew no better. Ray Clemence's steady acrobatics between the sticks, Bruce Grobelaar's steady antics anywhere except between the sticks... I wondered at times why I ever supported a team which only seemed to run on interesting goalkeepers, and with Bruce I sort of gave up.

For a brief spell, I supported the quixotic behaviour of Nottingham Forest. I suppose I had dreams of Robin Hood and stuff like that. Well, least said is best.

I've been an Arsenal fan since the 1996/97 season I think. (I have always had an affinity for creative teams founded in 1886, like Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz.) The thing that caught my eye was not at first style and passion and all that stuff, but the fact that a team named Arsenal would have a coach named Arsène. A decade later, I am a great fan of Mr Wenger.

Wenger was born in 1949 (yes, he will be 60 next year, along with Billy Joel), a younger son who grew up to have an undistinguished playing career. He eventually surfaced with degrees in engineering and economics, and a manager's diploma. This was where his career really took off. Wandering around the world and ending up in Japan, he developed a sound resumé by displaying unflappable Gallic cool, an intellectual streak, and a penchant for rigorous philosophy backed by the test of hundreds of football matches. Eventually, he reached England.

Not many gave him a chance at first, but he proved his mettle by taking charge subtly and firmly. He never insulted his predecessors nor his players. He worked with the stingy and physically brutal 'boring, boring 1-0 Arsenal' sides of his earlier years and also with the 'Unbeatable' 2003/2004 side that lost no games. Along the way, he won over the fans and even had an asteroid named after him. He has received France's highest civilian honours and accolades from round the world. And his management style, while open to some criticism, could certainly not be worse than that of many other world-class leaders.

Most of all, Mr Wenger has shown competence, fairness and stability in all his dealings. I am sure he has had a few lapses here and there; most of these have been at those junctures where competence, fairness and stability clash. He has had to be ruthless in building up his side repeatedly after the loss of key senior players, but he has always been consistent in nurturing the young into leaders, movers and shakers. He is not one for drama or Byzantine dealings.

This midweek, surfeited with football, I reflect on Liverpool and Arsenal. I have long been a fan of Liverpool FC and never of its managers; I have long been a fan of Arsène Wenger, and also of his club. When the two meet in battle, I find it hard to be partisan; when the two battle other foes, I am firmly in the red.