My dear friend and (dare I say it), colleague, for, after all, are not we not both wordsmiths, spinners of tales, like the bards of olde? (The extra e is to indicate “days of yore”.), Where was I? Ah, yes—some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. Pundit became, well, I’ll leave off for there and let imagination step in. In the wake of this juicy, splashy Ronaldo-spills-tea 16-part miniseries, I’ve used up my annual allotment of hyphens. Along the way, Piers, you seem to believe that you have become legend…in your own mind, at least, if not on Twitter. To be frank, I don’t really care one whit about Ronaldo making his case on your channel or program or station. You call yourself a Gooner, and I can’t abide that.
I hope your feelings aren’t so tender as to have prevented you reading any further. As I’m sure you can see coming, there’s the all-too-predictable anti-Morgan screed based on The Mirror‘s atrocious rush to judgment of Arsenal fans in Copenhagen when we faced Galatasaray in the Champions League. Despite the details still being very murky, The Mirror, of which you were editor at the time, ran with a story that blamed riots on those traveling Arsenal fans, 35 of whom lost their season tickets, jobs, and homes. It turned out that many of them were either not involved at all or were defending themselves from the Galatasaray fans. Your meek, mealy-mouthed apology, relying heavily on passive voice, came eight years too late and did nothing to rectify the damage you’d done.
That’s just the most-pertinent peccadillo on the minds of many actual Gooners—you know, the ones who actually understand football and support the club. There’s also the fake photos of British soliders abusing prisoners in Iraq, the tone-deaf headline “Achtung! Surrender – For You Fritz Ze Euro 96 Championship is Over!” before England lost to Germany at Euro 96. Oh, I almost forgot the encouragement or at least tolerance of phone-hacking of British politicians by Mirror journalists. In case that doesn’t cause you to recoil in remembrance of your own repugnance, I would be remiss to omit the hacking of a dead thirteen year old girl’s phone. That’s grisly, Piers.
Now, should you ever read this, I’m sure you’ll roll your eyes, scoff, and grumble that this is all old news. I’m going to type another sentence here to create space between that previous one and the follow-up. If you did any of that, it only proves how irredeemable you apparently are. These are at best the machinations of an amoral sociopath, a word that sounds worse than it is, but that’s different from saying it’s off-target.
By this point, my other objections (and those of most other Gooners) will sound trivial by comparison. You’ve been a relentlessly inconsistent critic of the club, of Wenger, of various players, of Arteta, and of other fans, to name just a few. I’ve seen teenagers on Twitter with greater consistency and clarity than you, Piers. Perhaps it’s just that you’re quite astute at reading the zeitgeist, of shifting your position to parrot the popular mood so as to curry favor with the madding crowd. Maybe that’s the wrong literay allusion, considering where this little missive started. Then again, maybe it’s quite apt: Thomas Gray’s “madding crowd” wanted to live simple lives, free from deceit, duplicity, or dishonesty. In other words, the very stuff you seem to traffic in.
I’d thank you, then, to leave off of your on-again, off-again “support” of this club. Most of us, if not all, are all too happy when a celebrity supports the club. It lends a veneer of, I don’t know, class? There are some dignitaries on the list: Mo Farah. Idris Elba. Matt Damon. Roger Daltrey. Spike Lee. Dido. Nick Hornby. Daisy Ridley. The list of course goes on, but I’m leaving you off of it, petty and spiteful though that may be. Your support, much like much of your news coverage, comes across as opportunistic and cynical rather than sincere or heartfelt.
Now that Arsenal are flying high, I’m sure you’re smugly tweeting about how you’ve supported Arteta all along and have trusted the process since the start. Frankly, I haven’t checked, so I don’t know. Maybe it’s unfair of me to cast unsupported allegations hither and yon without checking my sources. Maybe that’s more than a bit ironic, eh?
