Tag Archives: Ryan Shawcross

Open Letter to the outcake eatin' Potters…

Here we go again, eh? Before getting too far into it, let’s bury at least one hatchet, eh? Shawcross’s scything of Ramsey is seen ’round these parts as horrific accident brought on by bad timing, not sinister intent. It was horrific to watch, and you can see how shaken Shawcross was in its aftermath. One other factor Gooners overlook is the help Glenn Whelan offered to Ramsey as he lay there on the pitch. To say that the incident only poured more fuel on an already burning fire is an understatement. Keep in mind, though, that by this point, we’d already witness two other similarly stomach-turning leg-breakings, those of Abou Diaby and of Eduardo da Silva. “Once bitten, twice shy” and all. Thrice broken? Well, you can see where we might get upset.

Neither one of us does ourselves any favours, though, do we? We at Arsenal continue to bang on about playing football the “right way,” with precious passes and delicate, balletic interplay set to music played by flutes and oboes and the occasional patter of applause just a whisker softer than that at a golfing event. You at Stoke continue to maul and maim, supposedly, while the ground shakes… the drums, drums in the deep.

There are rivalries, and there are rivalries. Some of them are borne of history or of geography, but this one is borne of sociology. Are there any two Prem clubs further apart in their identities than Stoke and Arsenal? The contrast between our clubs and followers would make The Hunger Games pale by comparison. Stoke inhabit one of the far-flung, backwater districts whose labor and toil supply the capital, in this case Arsenal, full of effete snobs who sneer down on those who dare to dirty their fingers for a living, preferring instead a manicure and Malbec to manual labor or manufacturing. These are the caricatures of ourselves we each endure, accept, or embrace.

The departure of Pulis might have dampened these caricatures but for the hiring of Mark Hughes, perhaps the only manager who might infuriate Gooners more than José Mourinho. Arsène has been high-handed with Hughes in the past, but the man has brought some interesting changes to Stoke’s set-up. Players life Bojan, Shaqiri, and Afellay, to name just three, indicate that these Potters are not content to rely on the old hoof-‘n-hope; indeed, they mght even prove that a squad can play some pretty-damned pretty football. If anyone can graft Pulis’s pure physicality with Arsène’s arrogant artistry, maybe Hughes can. He’s engineered a few upsets over Arsène in the past, if memory serves.

I’ve only met one Potter in person, and he was far more posh than I’ll ever be. We chatted a bit. His mountain bike cost more than I’ll earn in several months. The car to which that bike was strapped cost more than I’ll earn all year. There are caricatures and stereotypes, and there are actual people.

Feh. I’m gettin’ right preachy, ain’t I?

Long story short, let’s move past the complicated socioeconomics. Let’s kick a ball around the pitch and see who wins.

Open Letter to those oatcake eatin' Potters

Leave a reply

Dear Stoke:
Well, we’re at it again, aren’t we? Another chapter in the seemingly endless psychodrama that is the Stoke-Arsenal hate-fest. In this corner, we apparently have the knuckle-dragging Orcs of Stoke, making up in stitches and scars what they lack in teeth or manners; in the other, we have the ostensibly effete Gunners, sipping chardonnay and escargot while eschewing the hoi polloi and nitty gritty. Each of us comes from central casting, falling into a script so predictable that even Jerry Bruckheimer slaps his head in stupefaction. For each of us, it’s a role we seemingly have no choice to but to play, each hating the other when, perhaps, we should be hating the script itself.

A study in caricature…

By now, we each know the drill. 2010. Shawcross. Ramsey. From there, no amount of explanation or apology from either side will encourage the other to budge. Thankfully, Shawcross will miss Saturday’s clash. I say so without any hint of schadenfreude on my part, no shred of relishing the pain Shawcross must be in after back surgery. I’m not so certain of my role in the universe as to be doling out karma. Yes, it was a crunching, horrific tackle, but none of us knows anything about intent, and we should all therefore keep our yaps well and truly shut, rather than demonising each other about an event so gut-wrenching that even the erstwhile villain was ushered away in tears. It’s been almost five years now. If Shawcross hasn’t apologised properly, that’s his burden. If he has apologised properly, it’s on Ramsey to acknowledge it in order to lay this feud to rest.

Beyond that, though, there’s the larger socioeconomic issue. Even moreso than any other London club, Arsenal seem to embody a certain je ne sais quoi, a certain élan, that stands in stark contrast against the oatcake-eatin’, working class stereotype that is Stoke-on-Trent. Yeah, I was using a few Frenchified phrases there to further highlight the idea that Arsenal for most of the last twenty years just hasn’t been British enough; worse, they’ve been sissified, while the Potters have been dehumanized, reduced to rabble, with the Shawcross-Ramsey tragedy highlighting, symbolising, and exacerbating the chasm. Shawcross, through no real fault of his own, is an Orc—tall, gangly, intimidating. Ramsey, somewhat more culpable, is a dilettante—increasingly ostentatious hairdo, flamboyant if not entirely productive (of late) style of play.

Each, then, serves as a caricature to his opponent’s fanbase. We Gooners can demonise Shawcross and, by extension, the Potters who stand by him. You Potters can demonise Ramsey and all he seems to represent. Meanwhile, each club seeks that which it lacks: Stoke, in signing Bojan, Ifellay, and Shaqiri, looks to add a more-creative flair to its attack. Arsenal, in signing Gabriel and Čech and recalling Coquelin, looks to add more grit and tenacity to its defense.

At a risk of revealing myself to be just another of those effete, elite Gooners, I’ll appeal to Søren Kierkegaard: “when you label me, you negate me.” Neither of us is the label or stereotype we’ve been assigned by the other. Not fully, at least. The more we resort to and rely on those labels, the more we negate ourselves. I’ll say this: the only Potter with whom I’ve had any real conversation with was driving a car far fancier than any I’ll ever own, and on it was strapped a road-bike that I couldn’t pay for even with several weeks’ salary and that he used for ‘recreation’, not transportation. In other words, somewhere between the stereotype and the reality, there’s enough complexity to contemplate. If any among us is too complacent to engage in that contemplation, well, that’s their own cross to bear.

By daring to suggest that Gooners shouldn’t hate Potters and vice-versa, I suppose I’ll lose support or interest from other Gooners. Meh. Let’s set aside all of the complicated socioeconomics. It’s just football.

Shawcross, Ramsey, straw-men or symbols?

6 Replies

Ever since that fateful day in February 2010, the Stoke-Arsenal rivalry has become one of the most fervent fixtures of any Prem season. At the Arsenal end, of course, we have Tottenham and Man U. Stoke have West Brom and Port Vale. Stoke-Arsenal, especially at Britannia, has become a match marked by one horrific tackle, a tackle thas has reduced two men to caricatures of their respective clubs while reducing fans on both sides to foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics. The storyline could come from right out of The Hunger Games.

In it, we’re the residents of the lavish Capitol, complete with our effete, urbane fashions, frou-frou foods, and sissified morals. The Potters, then, are denizens of one of the backwater, hardscrabble districts. It plays out an old, old tension between the urban and the rural, made into even more of a parody by the styles each club purportedly plays. On one hand, Arsenal play an aesthetically “pleasing” style consisting of intricate passing and balletic movement, performed by spritely, elvish middies who scamper and flit about the ball. On the other, Stoke play a more-rugged style, involving aggressive tackles and long-balls delivered by oafish lummoxes who are just as happy to run through an opponent as they are to score a goal—maybe even more so.

It’s all a bit reductive, isn’t it? Sure, Arsenal are famous or infamous for that style, just as Stoke is for theirs. However, each style has become a straw-man for the other side to knock down. Each side now serves as a scapegoat for the other’s frustrations. The two individual men involved, conveniently, play their roles. Ours is dapper, dashing even; theirs is gangly and looming. Both then serve as the villain against whom fans can fulminate, venting their deepest frustrations on two who arguably deserve better from their opponent’s supporters.

As for each of them, I doubt that they enjoy the role into which they’ve been thrust. Does Shawcross want to play the role of vicious leg-breaker? No. Does Ramsey savor the role of helpless victim? Again, no. There is more to each man than that, but it’s a lot easier for us to rely on caricatures and stereotypes than it is to notice nuance and subtlety. Quicker, too.

However, so intense and so ingrained have the emotions become that it’s hard to imagine a future without them. Some kind of catharsis is needed, some kind of emotional purge that will allow fans on either side to remember that this, after all, only a game, and such games were meant to allow culture-clashes to be settled without outright war or bloodshed. As tempting and as emotionally satisfying as it may feel to continue to nurse that bloodlust, wishing ill on certain players, segments of fans, even entire towns, that strips us all of a little something that separates from our more-primitive forebears whether we reside in Stoke or London. At some point, we’ll have to realize that it is just a game, and the villainy we ascribe to our perceived enemies exists largely in our own fevered imaginations.

Having said all of this, I hope you don’t mistake me for some kind of namby-pamby who hopes that the two squads will form a circle and sing “Give Peace a Chance.” I want to see the Gunners score and score often, pummeling the Potters into submission. Again, none of this comes from hatred of Stoke or of Shawcross. It’s not personal. It’s just business, and I hope we take care of ours on Saturday.

That, however, is probably a bridge too far to cross. So intense and so ingrained have the emotions become that it’s hard to imagine a future without it. Some kind of catharsis is needed, some kind of emotional purge that will allow fans on either side to remember that this, after all, only a game. As tempting and as emotionally satisfying as it may feel to continue to nurse that bloodlust, wishing harm on certain players, segments of fans, even entire towns, that strips us all of a little something that separates from our more-primitive forebears whether we reside in Stoke or London. At some point, we’ll have to realize that it is just a game, and the villainy we ascribe to our perceived enemies exists largely in our own fevered imaginations.

Having said all of this, I hope you don’t mistake me for some kind of namby-pamby. I hope we pummel the Potters with goal after goal after goal. Again, none of this comes from hatred of Stoke or of Shawcross. It’s just business, and I hope we take care of ours on Saturday.

An open letter to Ryan Shawcross

31 Replies

Dear Ryan—
If I may be so bold as to address by your first name, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jon Shay. I’m a Gooner. I live in the United States in a small town by the name of Evanston. It’s a suburb just north of Chicago, Illinois. I’ve been a Gooner ever since stumbling across some First Division highlights at some point in the early 80’s. Late night telly. Truth be told, I was lookin’ for The Young Ones. When I learnt that there was such a thing as professional ~~soccer~~ football, mate, I was floored. Naturally, I fell in love, what with the red-and-white and my red-green color-blindness and the name itself: Arsenal. None of that –wich or –ton or City. Just Arsenal.

Growing up as a footballer in America, I’ve had to learn to deal with more than my fair share of goons (I know, ironic, innit?). In the Chicago Catholic League, I had to face off against more than a few American footballers who were only playing proper football to keep up their fitness. I’m full-grown now, measuring a hulking 1.7m and some 10 stone, but back then, I was a more modest 1.5m and 9 stone (more like 8, but give a guy a break). On a twice-weekly basis, I had to square off against opponents quite a bit taller and considerably stockier than me. Suffice it to say, I was floored, leveled, and stampeded on a regular basis. I remember one match in particular when I found myself in the area when a teammate’s cross sailed over my head. A defender cold-cocked me with a fore-arm shiver, right between my shoulder-blades, and I was seein’ stars. It probably took me 10 minutes before I could see straight.

Even without realising it, I was a Gooner in how I played. I’m not talking so much about the current squad. I’m a feisty, third-generation Irish-American and look more to Liam Brady for my inspiration than to, say, Aaron Ramsey, just to pluck a random name from the sky. I loved having the ball at my feet, but I loved more than that creating chances for my mates. A clever through-ball, a lofted cross, whatever artistry was available. I can hardly claim to have been a world-beater, though, not by any stretch, and so I end up living vicariously through those who play for Arsenal, imagining, remembering, visualizing myself as Brady or Ramsey or Cazorla—far-fetched, I know!—but dribbling, passing, carving out chances for others…

And this brings me back to you. Not you, specifically, but maybe so. You represent something to me personally and, yes, to Gooners more broadly. Whether you chose the role or had it thrust upon you is not my concern. For whatever reason, Ryan (again, a thousand pardons for the boldness of using your first name), you have come to embody a baldly cynical style of play that seems to borrow more from American football than from football itself. If you ever tire of the technical requirements of football, you might consider a career in rugby or Gaelic football. If you can stomach it. By the admittedly foppish rules of football, you’re a right thug. By the somewhat more-rigorous “rules” of Gaelic football, friend, you’re the fop.

It’s not that I wish any specific harm; it’s just that I wonder when, if ever, the numerous injuries you’ve inflicted will come back to haunt you. You’re on four yellow-cards already this season, so I hope that I can safely assume that you’ll be on your best behavior?

Yours truly—
Jon