Fear and Loathing of The Arsenal Returns: And We Love It 

Howes Growls with Delightful Derision: Read our Gooner Fanzine print columnist on City vs Arsenal 

Ahead of his second comeback column in the next print issue of The Gooner, Richard Howes gets nostalgic about Arsenal animosity.

Conspiring against the Gunners is fashionable again — get used to it.

Tyrannised Gooners everywhere are once more nursing Monday hangovers, lamenting biased referees and partisan pundits. Crybabies, the lot of ‘ya.

Me, I like the smell of anti-Arsenal bile in the morning. I enjoy spittle running down my face.

I was 10 years old when we won the league in 1991.

The club released a video that captured a season memorable for a brawl during our 1-0 win at Old Trafford in the October. I used to watch it obsessively, in all its grainy beauty.

Days after the game, George Graham, our manager at the time, sat the players down at the training ground and shared some home truths.

His speech was included on the tape, and it was one of my favourite parts.

The gist of it was that it’s fashionable to jump on the bandwagon and “get at the Arsenal,” as George put it.

The camera panned across the faces of players like Alan Smith, Paul Merson, and Anders Limpar, who scored the infamous match’s only goal.

Seemingly, like many of today’s fans, it was as though it was news to them that the world enjoys turning on us.

It hasn’t sunk in with Leandro Trossard or Declan Rice yet either; both players have cost us with needless red cards this season, as farcical as both decisions, against Manchester City and Brighton respectively, seemed at the time.

I’ve heard it suggested that referees Michael Oliver (Trossard) and Chris Kavanagh (Rice) could’ve shown leniency or common sense. Since when did either apply to Arsenal?

We were deducted two points for our involvement in the historic Manchester United fracas, while the home team had just one docked from them.

Did we cry into our beer about it? No, we went on to win the league.

Nobody was bothered by us during a near decade long trophy drought, were they?

Love the loathing — it means we’re back where we belong.

Read current issue 307 of the Gooner Fanzine for the return of the brilliant Howes Growls column. Buy it here