Derby Day

Said it before Ambarish Haarland is football’s Jonah Lumu of All Blacks fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKoTGdIhO-U

Tony
I once met the late Jonah Lomu at a work thing in Paris in my office about 12 years ago. I thought he’d be quite a bit taller than me but we met almost eye to eye. I’m 6ft 3 (or I was til I started the geriatric shrinking thing…). Anyway I think he thought he needed to get one up on me. No word of a lie, he tried to crush my hand when we shook to say hello. I think I got the better of him because I laughed in face. I fared better than Rory Underwood anyway.

Fergo almost looked like the lights had gone off in his eyes. He must’ve reduced his red wine addiction though because he looked pasty and no longer ruddy. Swings and roundabouts.

Those Manure trashings are a gift that continues to give. I just wish we’d provided one too.

@Tony
The story of Jonah Lomu is actually told pretty well in a two part series on TV3-NZ aired on 2019-08-18 and the actor playing him is doing an excellent job. Amazon picked it up and if you search for it it is available at your usual NZB download places as:
onah.S01E01.Part1.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

The defeat of Manure was made sweater when Bruno FuckAll got yellow carded for mouthing off at the referee.

Just found these images of the All Blacks meeting AC Milan in their training center December 4th, 2008.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/36130fy.jpg[/img]

Lets try this again
December 4th ABs and AC Milan
Ronaldinho looking a little bit confused
https://imgur.com/36130fy

Dan Carter meets Kaka
https://imgur.com/BRCBJ5p

Shevchenko looks terrified
https://imgur.com/Thn4Pek

No wonder he doesn’t get into the scrum
https://imgur.com/DccblSc

Kilroy my son and I watched that series and loved it. Thought it brought the urban side of him much more less of the myth. I’ve mentioned my wanting to do a trip round the south islands before and my son is eager to absorb the sheer enormity of the Passion for the All Blacks.

K’phobe Never had you for shying away from an alpha challenge and being 6′ 3″ confirms that thinking. That and all your secret squirrel forensic shit. Sorry, I meant meaningful work clandestine or not.

I struggle at times to understand how your hearing has deteriorated in one so young.

Blindness, however, I’ve heard is somewhat rampant with sock sales on the up. More rampant, though, in the 50s apparently, in fact John Kellogs said he invented Kellogg’s corn crispies to keep the little wankers hands’ busy. Some marketing tool that, if true.

Not very smart if you ask me, I mean the poor young lads just got fueled up on the carbs and were at it at least twice a day. If your dad calls your granddad a wanker, you know what he’s on about.

Back to the hearing loss, I’ve heard that a swift kick in the nuts expends wax from both ears at some pace with only none kick needed, I’m reliably told. Fortunately, my ears are fine but do let me know if it works.

Anyway, whatever is afflicting your hearing the answer may well be Line Source speakers. At the very top of the totem pole is Wisdom Audio. https://www.wisdomaudio.com

Although elite speakers come at elite prices, Wisdom doesn’t compromise quality with their more reasonably priced speakers. After all it’s the same tech.

It’s a never ending changing world is audio and visual where Barco is probably the best projector where their top model is around £180K+.

Meyer and other elite brands do Line Source speakers and you’re not limited to Wisdom electrics, but …..

Worth investigating for Barcelona if you ever decide to build your own Reference room. Sound proofing is the key to a good room.

When my mate surfaces I’ll get the details of his little condo quad system.

K’phobe, Very easy to set up and a great sound for a small space for sound emersion. Schiit Audio are also very good for DACs.

Something easy to pack up with you when you Viva Espania that would suit a terrace nicely, if you were to go for the Reference room experience.

“topping dx7 pro dac, mini dsp / 4 channel processor,
yamaha hs7 active monitors x4,
mac mini 2012 – 16gb ram, i7 quad core 2.2 ghz processor,
500gb ssd.
JHA Roxannes IEMs for Late night loud pure sound and keeping the neighbors happy.

After reliability issues with the dac i would go for the German rme/ad1 or 2. also you need a directional mic to set up the processor – its the processor that makes the sound work well with the 4 speaker set up”

Hi Almunia, Kroenkephobe, Tony, Mb and all.
Thank you for the warm welcome and generous words, I should return the compliment because I enjoy your contributions too, there is a lot of deep untapped knowledge of football and many topics outside of football.
Kroenkephobe – Did you see Kier Starmer start his Conference speech with a reference to Arsenal being top of the PL. As for your long term pain with Cardiff (good fight back to earn a point against Burnley), at least you have 1927! I think you’d get away with celebrating and enjoying it because it was so long ago, and it was just prior to Arsenal becoming a Superpower – (which was incredibly short, and has never been seen again since the end of WWII).
Hi Tony, you disagreed with something I posted on Le Grove regarding Arsenal’s historical character, I wasn’t deliberately ignoring you, but wasn’t prepared to discuss it on a forum that has become a toxic dictatorship. Why you put up with the disgusting disrespectful insults from some empty-headed sheep is beyond me.
Whether I post there again is up in the air, because while there are some decent people on there, I don’t appreciate being told how I should feel about a club I’ve supported for almost 60 years.
Great result Saturday, but we’ve never had an inferiority complex with Tottenham, and the bigger tests are coming.
Erling Haaland is scary.
Almunia – After our epic Lge Cup semi with them, I loved it when Coventry beat them. They finished above us in the league that year, but we finished with silverware, which was all that mattered back then.
Quickly on the subject of Clive Allen, does anyone have any clue as to why we signed him in 1980* (could be 81?), and 41 days later (before the season had started), swapped him for Kenny Sansom?
Couldn’t the club afford both?

Great stuff lads. Some really good issues to get into.

Tony – I cannot swear to it (because doctors have relatively little knowledge about deafness) but I had a shocking cough about 5/6 years ago that simply wouldn’t abate. They both started going down hill after that and my Doctor said loss of hearing can be brought on by certain viruses. It’s a shit thing to happen and it now severely limits my social life (no one likes spending time talking in a pub to someone who keeps asking the speaker to repeat themselves). I also find it dull.

Oh, and thanks mate – I’ll never eat cornflakes again. Anyway, look after your lugholes lads! I’m going to research your hi fi suggestions butcare you sure there’s a brand of speaker called schiit? 💩😏

Hi Herb
He and I were in the same N5 social circles in the 90s when he was a lawyer, and we played lots of matches together in NE London. The Hoxton – Homerton – Hackney – Highbury quadrangle. I was playing centre half by then (a very agricultural Tommy Caton type who imagined himself as Beckenbauer (without the skills or the fancy boots). Keir, by contrast was a tireless midfield terrier and the off field organiser. We must’ve been over 30 by then. He had bags of energy but little end product (which could have been a metaphor for his tenure as head of the Labour Party until Kamikwase and Leeds reject Truss provided him with an open goal.

But a proper Gooner. I shared a few Saturday afternoons with him on the clock end and he might have joined us in a few forays into Europe.

I’m going to research that Clive Allen issue but I did read somewhere that relations between some London clubs at the time were so bad that we used Allen as a stalking horse specifically to get the great Kenny Sansom on board. I remember when he and Viv were our fullbacks. I thought that pairing would never be bettered until nutty and dicko came along a few years later.

Herb,
The Clive Allen transfer fascinated me. Over a million quid for a teenager in 1980 only to swap him without playing a competitive game? The quick answer is that no one knows. There are theories. Terry Neill himself claimed that the pre-season had shown him that an Allen Stapleton partnership wouldn’t work,a pretty weak explanation. Others have suggested that Palace would only sell Sansom if Allen came the other way and refused a straight cash deal for the left back. A more extreme conspiracy theory is that Palace had wanted to sign Allen from QPR but their chairman wouldn’t do business with Venables who had left under a cloud. Hence Palace and Arsenal contrived to create the complex scenario we all witnessed. Allen himself still claims that he wasn’t consulted and held a grudge against us ever since,often inflicting pain on us on the pitch if my memory serves me right. All in all it was bizarre. If you have Netflix I highly recommend the documentary on the Figo to Madrid transfer. Absolutely fascinating.

Tony,
It’s great to hear from you regularly again,I haven’t checked out your tunes yet but I’ll make time later.
Kroenkephobe,
We should start putting a few quid on our predictions,sure as hell we’ll get them all wrong then. Did you see Wales’ Ryan Day win the British Open last night? He was excellent, delighted for him. It’s hard to take to Mark Allen to be honest.

Kilroy, we have lived to see Federer, Messi,Lomu,Schumacher, Hendry and many other GOAT’S. We have been very lucky in that regard.

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/10-most-short-lived-transfers-ev

This sheds no light Herb and it’s typical of Allen (who I predictably never liked after he moved on!) to be disingenuous about it. I’m sure he’d know the backstory.

Really sorry K’phobe I didn’t realize you had real audio impairments. I was joking and it must have seemed flippant or facetious.

https://jhaudio.com/iem/JHA-CIEM-LAY1

You can get these IEMs custom made and I’ve had a pair of Roxannes for about 8 years and just gave them to my practical engineer mate as payment for helping out with the preinstall of my LCR and Sub upgrade. He’s flying in and out to help out.

My son is 6’1″ and just 14, so his ears are similar size to mine so I’ll get us a pair of Lalas to share customer to his ears. I promise you you will have no problem hearing because both Lala & Roxannes have 12 drivers in each ear perfectly balanced with virtually zero phase crossing of frequencies. You also have a 4 level bass adjuster for the IEMs. For you that would be crucial I believe. Try them ands see when you’re next at a decent size airport or city.

In short perfect clarity of sound. Excellent on planes if you get them custom fitted.

I’d say, and I’m no expert, but you probably muddle up the low mid timbers of sound, where as the higher frequencies are more clearer even distinct, is that right? In crowds in-doors the low mids are/can be destabilizing the sound waves making it difficult for you to hear your mate’s voice’s lower tones, as they get lost with the others around you, is that right?

If so, both choices I posted earlier would offer clean sound emersion you’ll hear well, especially if you have the speakers raised to unobstructed ear level for the Yamaha suggestion.

For a main system Line source is your best bet because they create an uninterrupted corridor of sound, as you’ll see as you look into Line Source more deeply.

I was always going to buy B&W Nautilus as my bucket list, but a friend in Singapore told me to look at Wisdom first. I also looked at Meyer, as I have 14 Meyer speakers already in my Reference room. It will have 18 speakers in all with the new upgrade. That will complete the audio side for hi res music and all formats for movies and TV sound.

In my mind only Meyer and Wisdom can keep both sound signatures for cinema and elite level music sound. To do this you have to spend US$20k+ per speaker.

https://www.bowerswilkins.com/en-eu/product/loudspeakers/nautilus

Let me know if I can help more, K’phobe.

Herb
I’m going for your third hypothesis, ie ElTelGate. TV was the forerunner to ‘Arry Redknapp wasn’t he? You probably already know this but TV was also a published author who co wrote the James Hazell novels and screenplays under the nom de plume PB Yuill. Hazell was conceived as South London’ s answer to Chandler’s Philip Marlow. He didn’t quite pull it off but they’re worth a read.

Your GOATs grabbed my attention. Controversial or what! 😊 They could keep us going for ages debating the whys and wherefores. Snooker-wise, you’re on the same page as Almunia with Hendry. He loves him. I’m more of a Ronnie follower, not least because he’s a Gooner.

Hey Tony
Nothing you said was even mildly iffy so no problems whatsoever. I’m living with it and have no stigma. It would be far worse if I’d been born with deafness and they’re the people that really need support.

Your description of when I struggle to hear is spot on. I’m looking at the prospect of cochlear implants if it really drops off a cliff. I think apart from conversations in those environments you describe, what I really miss us the pleasure of hearing clear voice and music broadcasts. Your advice is brilliant.

Herb
Those pre game predictions would be fun. Maybe have a go this Friday? Also I didn’t know you were a green baize aficionado – that’s always something good to turn to when Arteta takes us on another losing run! Almunia is a huge snooker fan.

K’Phobe happy to be able to offer something workable. As a guy who had a quintuple heart bypass mid 30s and 5 stents in the last 8 years I’m all for putting things in my body to live longer or work better. If there’s no downside I’d be knocking on the Dr’s door as per your usual ADHD guy devoid of patience wanting to be better.

Herb I guess with LG I wouldn’t be ground down. In then you never knew how many personas Pedro took on so the debates became baseless: just the shutting down of valid concerns povs.

We’ve all got personalities and lives that make fun reading for all. Almunia funny as and a gentleman with it.

It would be great to make this place like an online Tolly Pub type any name thoughts? Then we can make it like a pub having chats about various subjects always with The Arsenal up front and forward. In time I believe people will find the blog and enjoy the history, a bit of banter and great football chatter.

MB you up for that? What say you fellow bin escape artists?

Thanks K’phobe and Almunia for your research.
It struck me as really odd at the time, especially after losing our ‘crown jewel’ Liam Brady.
I don’t know what you both think, but for me, Malcolm Macdonald was poor business. His career was done after two seasons, he never produced on the big stage (anonymous in two FA Cup finals – ’74 & ’78 – and as he was the only major signing in Neill’s first summer, it felt both underwhelming and an appeasement, because although we slightly improved, we were still nowhere near the top.
The same summer Arsenal paid a then record fee for ‘Supermac’, Aston Villa paid £100k for Andy Gray from Dundee Utd, who they sold 3/4 years later for £1.5m.
Apparently Liam Brady decided to leave after the signing of John Hollins because it displayed a total lack of ambition, when you think back, Neill also signed journeymen strikers John Hawley and Ray Hankin, which sort of supports Brady’s claims.
But Terry Neill was a very uninspiring appointment, a safe manager to steady the ship rather than the shot in the arm the club needed.
We needed a quality striker and should have been competing for Clive Allen’s signature instead of conducting cosy deals with so-called rivals.
It’s never a good look when you sell your main striker (Frank Stapleton) to one of your hated rivals without a proper replacement, but looking at the bigger picture, isn’t it incredible how quickly Arsenal dropped completely out of contention after winning the Double in ’71? And selling Charlie George to Derby!
Imagine what might have been with Charlie George and Liam Brady in the same team. With the right manager we may even have won a European Cup, which as Forest and Villa proved was easily attainable in those days.
The curse of having unambitious Old Etonian owners handicapped Arsenal for decades after the war. One of their biggest mistakes was turning their backs on Fergie, after agreeing a deal in the summer of ’86. After what he did at Aberdeen, I believe he would have transformed and revolutionised Arsenal.

Sorry Almunia and Herb
I think i got you mixed up there. A senior moment.

And Ray Kennedy.

We struggled for an identity in those years. But I was in my early teens then so hardly understood. The sadness of Brady’s departure was matched only by the club not bringing him home from Italy and watching him go to the Hammers instead. Given where we’d fallen by the mid 70s, it was amazing that we even managed to reach any finals in the late 70s (even if we lost most of them). I don’t know know if its just me looking back through rose tinted spectacles but I remember the Howe era much more fondly than the T O’N one.

I was no massive fan of supermac either. Am I right in thinking his exact fee was 333,333? Being good on ‘superstars’ (did you get that TV show in Ireland Almunia?) and banging 5 goals in against Malta in an international were not guarantees of sustained success. He was always a NUFC and Fulham legend really. Herb – when did Raphael Meade have his moment in the spotlight? Was it a little bit later? I always wanted him to do well.

No worries K’phobe.
I don’t watch a great deal of snooker but like the WC’s at the Crucible.
I’m with you on Ronnie, for me the most naturally talented snooker player of all time, and to be winning World titles (as well as equalling Hendry’s seven), at 47 is incredible.
The Welsh have produced some fine snooker players too, Ray Reardon (one of Ronnie’s heroes I believe), Terry Griffiths, Mark Williams (great player), and Matthew Stevens. When I first saw Stevens, I thought he would have the kind of career that Selby has had, because technically his snooker was top quality. It was good to see him back at the Crucible this year.

@KP
When I started to have ringing in the ears I went to an audiologist and was surprised what tech can do these days. The hearing definitely improved and the ringing was reduced. In addition he remotely could tweak and adjust the device if needed. However, I decided I can live with the annoyance for the time being rather then shelling out several thousands of dollars. However I can see the time may come when I have to part with the cash or learn sign language.

Hi Kilroy
Hope you enjoyed the game on Saturday. I can’t shake off this image of Klopp shitting himself and playing ‘good old Arsenal’ on the scouser sound system all week so Salah et al will be accustomed to the noise at the Emirates…. Or maybe not.

I get all my ear paraphernalia from the national health service so I’m lucky. They even give me the batteries so it could be worse. As I said earlier, look after your ears as much as you can. Put defenders on when you’re using power tools etc. and draw back from the speakers in clubs and at concerts.

Might watch the E Midlands derby tonight. Should be pretty full-on.

Loved the Saturday game and the punditry afterwards as they finally give Arsenal a nod to finish top 4. Also loved the Disunited derby but especially as Bruno Fucker got yellow carded for yelling at the ref for not stopping the game after Varane twisted his ankle.
I have real high hopes for the Pool game, there is a decline in their defense, Allison doesn’t catch what he caught last season, VVD is not playing up to his last season’s standard and teams figured out bring the attack down the left side as TAA does not know how to defend and is exposed because of Pool’s defense. Plus their attack masked a lot of these problems last season but it too is misfiring. Scoring 3 goals at Anfield and not winning says it all. So I think we can beat the scousers.

Definitely think we can beat Liverpool this weekend,I have watched them a lot this year and I keep waiting for them to click,no sign yet. Let’s hope we don’t offer them a way back to form.
Kroenkephobe, I threw Hendry in there to poke you,sorry!! Also sad to read about your hearing difficulties, getting older is challenging enough. I hope you find some solution or ease with that.

Herb,
You are always linking current failings with historical ones,I find that very interesting. Stapleton = RVP Cesc = Brady would be such analogies. But the real link is with the latter year Wenger’s lack of ambition which many suggest were Wenger losing his touch,but you seem to believe was Arsenal simply returning to type. From that perspective it’s easier to have sympathy with Wenger who,despite his early success, was eventually sucked into the Arsenal way of thinking. Is this how you see it?
Personally I range from anger with the club for their lack of ambition to disbelief with the fans who not only accept it but defend it.

Almunia

If we look at the dynamic and trajectory Arsenal were on after the appointment of Chapman – (who had already taken Huddersfield to three successive titles) – it was a meteoric rise. But he wasn’t held back, the club backed him completely, he went out and bought the best available players of the time, and even transformed Highbury.
But Arsenal were formed in 1886, so to win their first title in ’31 was a long journey.
To get to that point, Henry Norris moved us from Woolwich to Islington in 1913 and tried to merge Arsenal with Fulham for the purposes of playing in the First Division. As a Tory MP, Norris was known for influencing/conducting ‘dodgy’ deals.
People (mostly disgruntled Spuds) use the 1914-15 Second Division table as evidence of Norris’ dishonesty, because after WWI, having finished 5th in Div. 2 (14-15), Arsenal suddenly found themselves in the new expanded Div. 1 immediately on the resumption of football. Tottenham had finished bottom of Div.1 and assumed they’d keep their place, which is another reason they hate us.
But he stopped at nothing to make Arsenal the best, and the results of this are there for all to see. Between 1930-39, Arsenal won Five titles, and three FA Cups. Three titles in succession, and the last time that Arsenal successfully defended a title. How Arsenal never won a ‘Double’ during that period is incredible.
But where after WWI Arsenal arrived guns blazing readying themselves for complete football dominance, after WWII, whatever had motivated and compelled them had gone. The desire and hunger to be the best just wasn’t there, probably because Norris was long gone, to be replaced by Old Etonians, the Hill-Wood’s and Bracewell-Smith’s, who clearly didn’t feel the need to put in as much attention or effort as Henry Norris.
Norris and Chapman went full throttle and blew the opposition away, the Hill-Wood’s applied the handbrake quick smart, and after their 7h title in 16 (football) years, Arsenal went 18 years before winning their 8th, and another 18 years before their 9th.
So from 5 titles in 8 years before the war, to 4 in 43 years post war.
To say the competitive edge was sucked out of the club is being polite, Arsenal’s owners for decades have rinsed their fans on false premises.
But that’s only my opinion, Almunia, I’m bonkers and often haven’t a clue what I’m rambling on about 😁

Or 8 titles in the last 76 years.
Fergie won 13 in 26 years, or 13 in 20 years if you count it from his first in ’93.

Sorry for the long-winded post, I am just confused as to why you move heaven and earth to reach the top, and then casually give it up as though it was never that important.
The two clubs above us in the title count, United and Liverpool have had far more stability and more general football intelligence than Arsenal. United appointed Matt Busby manager in 1948, and within a few years had the best young side in the country. After surviving the tragic air crash that took eight of his first team players in ’58, and being comatosed for months, he would have to rebuild the club again. And he did, finally realising his dream at Wembley just 10 years later.
Liverpool appointed Bill Shankly (from Chapman’s old stomping ground, Huddersfield) in 1959, and they went from strength to strength. After promotion from Div. 2 in ’61-62, Shankly established Liverpool as a major force and built the foundations that led to near two decades of total dominance in England.
Both clubs transformed and put on the global stage by two shrewd Scotsman, whilst Arsenal were drifting into insignificance caught in a loop of appointing rookie after rookie.
The ‘Double in ’71 feels like a ‘Leicester – 2016’ thing, because there was absolutely no clue leading into the season that Arsenal were capable of this incredible achievement, and as soon as it had been done, Bertie Mee tinkered Arsenal into ordinariness again, even flirting with relegation.
Arsenal are a frustratingly strange football club to support, and it has to be said, the pain and misery far outweighs the joy.
As for Wenger, the final straw for me was OT August, 2011, although my resentment towards him began from the 2009 CL semi against United at the Emirates, when he threw 18 year old Kieran Gibbs under the bus putting him up against peak Cristiano Ronaldo. He was arrogant and self-serving, an absolutely fantastic manager when Arsenal were a smaller operation at Highbury, out of his depth on the bigger stage. He left Arsenal in a far weaker state than when he arrived.