The following is a series of reports involving some of society’s most deprived and impoverished people- Arsenal fans. Those of a nervous disposition should be aware that, though not designed for this purpose, these real accounts of human suffering, misery and pain are liable to upset. Please only read on after considering the above. All donations welcomed.
This is Andy. When Andy was twenty two, Arsenal had just won the FA Cup and Andy was just about to graduate with a third in Digital Media and Animation from Nottingham Trent University. It felt like the beginning of something exciting for him. It has not worked out that way. “It started when the lead singer of our band, Toby, got a job handling deeds in a small Mortgage Brokers in Northampton and knocked the music on the head. Then I couldn’t find any work in animation so had to take a job in a call centre for a few months. It was actually a while before I got my footing. I lost both my parents too. It’s not much fun as a twenty six year old having to ask the lady with the microphone at the customer service stand in Tesco to put out an announcement about a missing child, but I had no choice with my dad having the car keys on him.”
Andy maintains that, were it not for Arsenal’s inability to win a trophy since 2005 he would now be working in the animation room at Pixar. “It seems that everybody on my course who supported Chelsea or Man Utd went the Hollywood route. And a Portsmouth fan I sat next to in seminars before they started to clash with band practise is now storyboarding the new Winnie the Pooh film. It’s hard to not make the trophy connection.” There’s a tragic irony in Andy’s one word answer when asked to describe his memories of the cup final win: “Sketchy.”
This is Amy and James. They watched the Cup Final from the poolside bar at their five star honeymoon resort Marley’s Spa. “I remember spending the night sipping exotic cocktails, sampling wonderful local cuisine and being treat like royalty as attentive staff catered skilfully and unobtrusively to our every whim. Afterwards, the pair of us retired to our superbly appointed suite and made wild, yet uniquely tender and intimate, love,” says Amy. “Afterwards, James looked me in the eye and said than wherever we went physically, our souls would forever be as one together on this beautiful island.”
Six trophy-less years since and the couple have noticed a marked decline in their relationship. ”It’s like we’re more friends than anything else now,” says James, from his shed. “The sex gradually petered out. But it wasn’t just that: we would be driving and she would want to stop and ask for directions when I insisted on using a map; her mother would come around to visit. Numerous disputes over remote controls. Christmas is always particularly problematic. It’s like, of all the married people ever, we have been cursed.” He still retains fond memories of that win in 2005 and the night of bliss that followed it. He is convinced Amy does too, but doesn’t want to ask her when she’s in one of those funny moods she gets in.
This is John. Since that FA Cup win in 2005, John has found his perspective thinning noticeably, and now faces up to having lost it all together. “Obviously, it’s a big thing, to lose your perspective,” he said. “But it’s the process that bothers me most, you know? Like if somebody had came and just taken my perspective that afternoon, I would be over it by now. But it’s been gradually eroded. Every day I would wake up and find little bits of perspective on my pillow. The bathroom mirror became something to dread. I couldn’t look at myself without considering the increasing lack of perspective, and in turn I couldn’t consider my rapidly diminishing perspective without considering the wider implications of ageing and inevitable death. I tried to talk to the missus about it, but they don’t understand do they? She’s a Luton Town fan and they won the Football League Trophy the other year. This is an Arsenal thing.”
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