Dear broken children of Woolwich

Dear broken children of Woolwich,

How many times do we have to do this? You can't disappear for 12 months then reappear kitted out in clown costume and holding foam pie, posting gloating comments on the blog and expect us to not sit up and take notice of your laughable efforts. Here I am, pointing and laughing, what more can I do as you gave up all your other rights thanks to the worm like qualities you possess, incapable of straight up discussion unless you believe yourselves to be in a position that is protected from any come-backs, crawling out of the dirt and multiplying no matter how many times you get cut up. In fact you don't do straight up discussion full stop. You just shout sound-bites and la la la la las with fingers in ear-holes.

Graciousness is not a virtue you are blessed with is it? You lot are known to be the worst ilk of supporters in the country. You need to concentrate less on the gloating and more on how to support your own. You know what I'm referring to. Empty seats when it's not going your way. Bin bags. 'Manager Out' banners. Laughable really calling us deluded when the reality is you lot can't accept it. Free yourselves from the weighty prison of your over inflated egos. You think other clubs outside the collapsing Sky Sports Top Four era are of no consequence because they failed to suckle at one of the available t*ts on Murdochs bosom?

I keep telling you, I don't care for visiting Arsenal forums and blogs. I don't post on any rival forums or blogs. It's you lot that frequent this place, persistently letting us know you're out there. It's you telling us 'you don't care, it's no big deal' finishing above Spurs and yet you do nothing but talk it up and celebrate like a plucky team that done good changing your perceptions to suit the moment so you wont lose face. In hiding for over a year without your riotous banter, absent and lost and then we have the pleasure of your company again. Internet connection back up?

I remember the last viral attack from your hordes. Gloats about playing the Brummies at Wembley. A cup that traditionally meant nothing to you suddenly meant the world although you all played it cool and nonchalantly like it didn't actually matter. You lost that game. None of you could be found in the aftermath. I saw you on tv though, crying over that Mickey Mouse cup. Was the irony too much for you to share with us? Oh the lonely lonely nights.

You don't care about us? You care alright, you care. You care about us more than you care about yourself. Without us you have nothing. It's funny that - Chelsea, West Ham. They also have nothing to do with us geographically and yet they're forever humping our legs too. Seems for a club that nobody cares about everyone seems to care about making sure we know how much they don't care. Ooh, brain melt.

What's that? I'm doing the same now by obsessing about you, ranting away like a maniac punching the keyboard with rabid disdain? Not quite. I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying proving my point. It's because I know you'll be back on this blog reading this because you wont be able to stay away, holding up your laminated cheat sheet of quick fire retorts, unable to stop yourself from posting a comment. You're reading this right now, aren't you? Tut tut, you lose. Go on, hit the comments.

So how brave of you to return and gloat. The same display of bravery we witness when you throw your dummy out the pram if things are not going well on the pitch. The same display of bravery it takes to purchase bin bags to cover empty seats where your equally brave brethren decide not to turn up altogether because...well, I don't know why exactly? Perhaps you all believe you're entitled to something because you simply believe you're entitled to it? From league titles to the Carling Cup to now finishing above Spurs. Have we caught up or have you fallen down? Who cares? No matter where you stand nobody can escape your stench. No one else in the country could give a **** about you so your desperation holds no bounds as you attempt to scratch your names in the Lilywhite surface.

We're accountable all of the time and not when we choose to be. Do we gloat? Don't all supporters gloat? But we're there to take it on the chin when thrown back at our face. It does however get tiresome if there's no one there to throw it back at again what with the constant sabbaticals you lot are inclined to taking. Mind the gap? Yep. Make sure you point us in the direction of the trophy cabinet where the 'Finishing above Tottenham' Cup will proudly sit. Once upon a time you had a bit more weight in your punch. All feels a little ticklish nowadays.

We're aspiring. You're perspiring.

We are reaching out. You are holding on.

Forever in your shadow? What shadow is that? The one casted down by your insecurities and necessity to validate your existence by crawling out of your swamp to beg for attention? You could win the title for 20 successive years and it still wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anything. You're still a soulless, franchised entity of sh*t. You don't have an identity.

No, hold on, my mistake. You do have traditions and you do have an identity. It belongs to the man who turned up at your blank canvas of a club and proceeded to paint a self-portrait that covered every nuance of his mind creating clone hybrids from supporters to players. Arsenal is Arsene Wenger, Arsene Wenger is Arsenal. A fitting replacement for Nick Hornby and prior to that the ex-Tottenham player whose head sat pretty in your marble halls. You're not a football club, not really, you're just an extension of Wenger's ego. Which is illustrated by the characteristics and the non-existent personalities of the supporters; unimaginative, self-satisfying megalomaniacs in ghastly red who only care when they're winning, completely devoid of wearing ones heart on sleeve without prejudice and without shame. Your hearts sit in your inside pocket then get stapled on at appropriate moments when you like to show off, removed and taken out of sight when you don't want anyone to know what team you 'support'.

You're like nomadic ants, nesting under stones and logs and in cracks in rocks, all identical and unspectacular, all following each other without diversity and without soul. More specifically, you are the species of small ant, Temnothorax albipennis, which abandons established nests at the first sign of any threats. Running away to settle somewhere new, with one single queen laying the eggs with a workforce of non-breeding females leaving the nest to forage and collect building materials. You are ants. Living under rocks. A collective that do as they're told and told what to think.

What did you have before your queen? A clock and Liam Brady.

Not forgetting porn dealers, drunks, coke-heads, a bent manager, bland boring nondescript football, results counting more than entertainment. Does the past 10 or so years erase the previous 100 or so? Even your double side from the 70s is more famous for winning at White Hart Lane than it is for its brand of football and impact on the English game.

Don't pretend you don't know because you do. Deep deep down, you can see it. You know of your birthplace you know where you came from. You know you've gone out of existence and changed your name, more than once. You know you're a franchise, a business created from the death of another and squatting in north London purely for financial gain on a foundation of bribes, lies and fabrications. It's Gillespie Road. It's transparent. We can all see through the paint work. It was all done purely to take advantage of the masses of support available in that part of London. That part of London being the north part, although let's not pretend or forget your owner didn't first attempt to merge you with Fulham, at the time, a far bigger club with a far nicer stadium.

Think about that for a second. First choice, merger with Fulham. I can't be the only person laughing out loud. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with Woolwich? Are you ashamed of your own home? Why would you be so ashamed? What kind of **** is ashamed of their own personal history, their own home where they were born? Perhaps I'm being a little harsh, it's not your fault you're all broken. You're all dirty and broken.

Deep deep down, you're all so conflicted and confused which is why you struggle so much with the more emotive side of football. Because you know had that south London club not run away and aborted its dead foetus outside of SE18 you'd all be Spurs fans now.

You. Yes you.

No matter what you say, what you have to show, no one wants to be you. You're forever in your own shadow of self-hatred.

Regards,

Tommy Tottenham

The North London Derby - presented in Technicolor

Ninety minutes. One interval. A couple of award winners in amongst the supporting cast.

Key strengths and weaknesses of the story arc?

Easy on the eye attacking bum off seats football. Lack of clinicality up front, sometimes because of the lack of chances created however mostly because there's too much of the tippy tappy and not enough of the smacking into the net ruthlessness. Dodgy keeper too. Defence can sometimes find itself all at sea, prone to lapses of concentration, what with key players usually missing from the back four. Midfield is tasty. Although if you listen to some, elements of it are over-rated. Choke? Yes. On occasions can throw it all the way.

One thing is for certain, the gaffer is much maligned. Splitting fans either side of the fence, even with moderate on the field success if not of the sustained silverware variant. The type that matters to most.

So in conclusion, deficiencies in amongst the quality. It's obvious what's wrong but patience is a commodity with a supply and demand problem with many despondent that fundamental errors occur without correction, always drowned out by familiar sound-bites. Nutty.

I'm obviously talking about Arsenal here. Actually no it's Tottenham, I've just described Spurs.

I think.

Is it?

We don't choke any more, what with them appearing to have taken that indignity off our hands. Then again, we have choked a couple of times this season with some notably under-performing, home and away, dropping valuable points. We're hardly tippy tappy, more swagger and swashbuckle. When we're not hoofing it up for the knock-down.

Arguably where it matters most, both sides are masters of making it an art form in how to almost score a goal at pivotal moments.

We only have the one dodgy keeper not a collection of them like they do. That's probably open for debate what with our second keeper being as erratic as our first choice and having never seen our third I dare not comment.

The good, the bad and the ugly amply shared between the two divided parts of north London.

The only discussion point beyond argument is colour. We play in white, they play in red.

United in our hatred for each other. Binding us like brothers (I guess from different mothers) fighting endlessly over a piece of land that both seek to claim as their own. The story is rich in history. Always entertaining, always captivating. Never boring.

And if we - Tottenham and Arsenal - decide to turn up this evening and bring us some ding-dong blood and thunder tenacity and desire we might just be in for a treat.

Both teams on the brink. Arsenal dreaming of mathematical possibilities having remained anchored all season long when countless times others cited a sunken ship. Spurs once more reaching out to claim back something made theirs last time out by sheer determination and unity that they once more hope to discover, even with a fixture list uncanny in it's form. A throw-back to the aforementioned last time.

Down to the wire, it's all in the game.

So what of it then? Whether you are white or red. What does your heart sing? What does your head quickly whisper?

I will be bitterly disappointed if we don't take the game to our visiting neighbours. Really want us to embrace the 'best team wins' mantra. In fact I want to see both sides go for each others jugular, with Jurassic drive and juggernaut effort.

We're at home. And we have to win. So says me, so says any of you lot in red too.

Last time out at the Emirates, we did some of that grand olde choking, freezing up in the first forty-five to find ourselves focused and spirited in the second half and thus pass the baton of bereavement over to our arch rivals who held it firmly to their bosom then proceeded to do some choking of their own.

Last time out at the Lane, it was win or die for their title hopes and plausibly win or die for our Champions League dream. For all their possession play they lacked any type of forceful damaging punch. In fact, we happily took their body blows before dishing out a couple of haymakers to knock'em flat out. A wonderful exercise in containment and counter aided by a sensational schoolboys own stuff strike and some heart-stopping keeping with a dab of luck-riding making a cameo for good measure.

Rather than be reactive to the occasion, I'm asking for Tottenham to be proactive this time round.

Pick up the pen and write the script from the start, rather than taking the responsibility of completing it after the initial author has become disillusioned with writers block and can't think of a definitive ending. Although you and I (being the ones who frequent N17 every other week) wouldn't complain much if that happened again. Considering we are rather good at satisfying all but a select group with a traditional satisfactory 'where on earth did that just come from?' twist, leaving us dizzy and giddy.

Box office smash please. Make me throw my popcorn up in the air and cough up my Coca-Cola. I want to see men in Lilywhite man-hugging and gesturing ecstatically to the camera as the credits roll, with the men in red despondent and dejected.

Two NLD league wins in one season? I'll take the drama not the fantasy.

Thoughts will then turn to the second and third parts of the trilogy. One filmed on location at Stamford Bridge. The other on location in Eastlands. May we be the ones taking the plaudits, the critical acclaim and another ceremonious bow and ice bucket at the finale.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Let's wait and see how encouraging the write-ups are for the first part.

The North London Derby. Might contain scenes of an adult nature.

I wouldn't even complain if it went straight to DVD.

An actual conversation with a Spurs and Arsenal fan

Directors cut. Because I don't like to edit. Not safe for work. Unless you plug in your earphones.

You'll have seen one or two 'conversation with an Arsenal/Spurs fan' videos doing the rounds in recent weeks. Below is my own version. A short film. Well actually its not mine, it's yours, whether you're a Spurs fan or one of them lot from down the road, I've weaved your words into a conversation as the material used is regurgitated quotes, sound-bites and commentary taken from recent forum posts, blogs and discussion threads.

Well done all of you.

You can also view the video here.

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