NEW FAN, HELP REQUESTED
by jdsailors16 on Jul 21, 2010 10:15 PM EDT
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PrintHey everyone, I'm coming into my first season as an EPL fan and have chosen Arsenal as my team. Before the season starts, I plan on cramming as much knowledge about the EPL and Arsenal as I can. My question to you all is, what are the key points that I absolutely need to know before I get into the fine details? I have a decent grasp on football as it is, I'm looking for Arsenal/EPL specific knowledge.
I'm looking forward to the season, thanks for yall's help!
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Nickname: The Gunners
Part of the “Big 4”
Had an amazing season with Henry, when we won the Title in the 2003-2004 season. We play quick, up-tempo style football.
We have lots of young talent, and Wenger believes in his philosophy of grooming the young players and slowly introducing them to the squad. We rarely go out and spend tremendous amounts of money on star players, like Chelsea, Man City, Barcelona or Real Madrid.
Sweet 16
Gunner Class 101
The First thing is the players here is a link to your mothership of Arsenal First team Players. First Team and coaches
Next is the young players and 2nd team 2nd team
Next the places to watch arsenal in America. There is arsenal tv from Arsenals mothership. Arsenal TV then there are other sites like cough/ustream.tv/cough and cough/justin.tv/cough. Next the reading. Arsenal Football Club (also known as Arsenal, The Arsenal or The Gunners) are an English professional football club based in Holloway, North London. They play in the Premier League and are one of the most successful clubs in English football, having won thirteen First Division and Premier League titles and ten FA Cups.
Arsenal were founded in 1886, though they won their first major trophies in the 1930s, with five League Championship titles and two FA Cups. After a lean period in the post-war years they became only the second club of the 20th century to win the Double in 1970–71, and during the past twenty years they have been one of the most successful clubs in English football – in this time Arsenal won two further Doubles, the Premier League in 2003–04 unbeaten, and in 2005–06 became the first London club to reach the UEFA Champions League final.
The club’s colours have traditionally been red and white, although these have evolved through history. Similarly, the club have changed location over time; the team were initially founded in Woolwich, south-east London, but in 1913 they moved north across the city to Arsenal Stadium, Highbury. In 2006 they made a less drastic move to their current home, the Emirates Stadium in nearby Holloway.
Arsenal have a large fanbase, who hold a string of long-standing rivalries with several other clubs; the most notable of these is with neighbours Tottenham Hotspur, with whom they regularly contest the North London derby. Arsenal are one of the richest clubs in English football (worth over ?600m as of 2007), and thanks to their stature, have regularly featured in portrayals of football in British culture.
I will end it with some shacky camera of
Arsenal Songs
Arsenal songs written down
Good choice and have fun watching the best football (soccer) out there.
by PSUkegreen on Jul 22, 2010 12:25 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
Having just subscribed to Arsenal TV Online
I find it to be a treasure trove of good things to watch about Arsenal’s recent history. PSU’s post is a nice capsule too!
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" -Nicholas Rivera, MD, HUMC graduate
They're having a sale right now
£40 (about $63) if you subscribe in July. You should know, though, that you don’t get live game video with it – you get live audio and extended highlights. There’s lots of other good stuff on it too, but if your primary motive is to watch Arsenal matches live you’re out of luck.
If you follow baseball at all
Arsenal are similar to the Red Sox. A very good team, with a passionate fanbase and very deep pockets, who live in the shadow of Man Utd as far as “big” teams go. Arsenal, as noted above, occasionally win championships, but in more recent years you’re likely to find them coming up juuuuust that little bit short. Arsenal play a wonderful yet sometimes extremely frustrating brand of breathtakingly beautiful soccer – when it works, it’s something to behold, but when it doesn’t, it’s 845 lovely passes and then a turnover. Still fun to watch, but it can get frustrating when they try to walk the ball into the net all the time.
Any new Arsenal fan needs to be issued his or her own copy of Fever Pitch, and while I’m not rich enough to buy everyone I’ve never met who becomes a fan a copy of the book, I will link you to where you can get one.
Arsenal are a fun team to watch, and they will be for a long time to come – the Premier League, as you may or may not know, is one of the most economically imbalanced leagues in the world (outside Spain), and a lot of the success of the bigger clubs was fueled by massive amounts of debt. Arsenal’s foundation is a lot more solid – they turned their old stadium, situated in a very desirable part of London, into condominiums that sell for £truckloads, and that is what is fueling their growth and expansion these days. A stable board, no buyouts on the table, and a happy management team means that Arsenal will be right up there in the top 3 or 4 for years to come.
Welcome aboard!
I wouldn't say they are like the Red Sox
the Cardinals might be a better comparison.
"We're investigating the investigative procedure of the investigation of Tony Bernazard"---Omar Minaya (he really didn't say it but he would"
by firejerrynow on Jul 23, 2010 10:54 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm an AL guy so the Red Sox leapt immediately to mind because of the perpetual second-ness
but the Cardinals are a good comp also.
wow
You guys went above and beyond what I was expecting in response. I greatly appreciate it!
And we just scratched the surface!
We didn’t even talk about legendary former players, like Dennis Bergkamp, Tony Adams, David Seaman, Ian Wright, Patrick Vieira, and so on and so on (and those are just the more recent ones!). Go to YouTube and look up both Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright and you will see some of the most sublime goal scoring ever.
don't forget Thierry Henry!
and though he isn’t really in the same level, youtube Robin Van Persie. He has some SPECTACULAR goals on display.
Who says long-time soccer fans are snobs to neophytes?
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" -Nicholas Rivera, MD, HUMC graduate
by HoodRiverDuck on Jul 23, 2010 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions
The only thing I'm somewhat snobbish about is lexicon
I hate the acronym EPL. It’s called the Premier League. And I hate when people call them “goalies” because those are hockey players. But I’m all about attracting new people to the game and educating them when they get hooked.
Oh and speaking of which, jdsailors, PSUKegreen mentioned Arsenal’s “rivalry” with Tottenham. It’s a “rivalry” in the same sense that Yankees-Red Sox is a rivalry, that Michigan-Ohio State is a rivalry, and that Celtics-Lakers is a rivalry. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys.
I've actually never experienced this supposed phenomenon
which some would say is Reason #326 That Soccer Will Never Be Big in America.
When I ask, fans have always been gracious to me no matter how stupid the question.
I think we all have our colloquial peeves, pdb. Is EPL a common irritant? I use it only out of usual typing laziness for the most part. And ‘goalie’ vs ‘keeper’ will probably die as hard as ‘soccer’ vs ‘football’ here, I imagine. I know for the ten years of my young life I spent playing the game, I was “the goalie” on and off the field. Erm, pitch.
For the moment anyway, in my experience, it’s still thought of as being pretentious for an American to call the game football, or the playing surface a pitch. But it should really be no different than other American v English verncaular terms, really. Realise, colour, lift, tube, rubber, etc.
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" -Nicholas Rivera, MD, HUMC graduate
by HoodRiverDuck on Jul 23, 2010 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
I don't think it's a common irritant
I just don’t like it because it’s trying to Americanize something that’s not American. All American sports leagues are called by their acronyms, obviously, but no major European league is – there’s La Liga in Spain, Serie A (pronounced “aaah”) in Italy, the Bundesliga in Germany, the Premier League in England, etc.. Most Americans try to fit the Premier League (or “Premiership”) into their American pattern of sports knowledge, and while it’s not “wrong”, per se, it’s unnecessary and it kinda grates on my ears a bit. I’m probably the only one that ever complains about it though, so feel free to ignore me on that.
As for the whole “football or soccer” thing, to me that’s a totally false choice because the English came up with both terms. So to me there’s no wrong way to refer to the game, unless you’re a non-Latin/Hispanic person and insist on calling it “futbol”, in which case you should be punched in the face.
I can’t not call it the pitch, though, even though every other sport is played on a field. Just sounds weird in a soccer context.
There really are no stupid questions – you’re new, how would you know? Soccer’s a great game, and the more you get into it the more fun you will have, and if I or anybody here can help with that we are glad to do so.
every country has its own terms and its own culture
I don’t think there is a point to deciding that people shouldn’t be allowed to call things this or that just because.
Unless its american football, cause that make no sense at all seeing as only 1 player touches the ball with his feet XD they should call it Tackleball :D
Well, they stand on their feet while they play so that's something
but yeah, the whole “gotta call it X and not Y” debate is tiresome and pointless. We all love the game, it shouldn’t matter what we call it or its component parts, right?
I'm reading 'The Ball Is Round' at the moment.
Not too far into it yet, but the chapter on what football became outside England is pretty interesting stuff. Rugby league, rugby union, soccer, Gaelic rules, Australian rules, Canadian rules, American rules, evolutionary speaking it was all the same once upon a time.
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" -Nicholas Rivera, MD, HUMC graduate
by HoodRiverDuck on Jul 23, 2010 4:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Yea they all started from the same
but its hard to know when some started because futbol and rugby started so long ago.
The really interesting thing
is that it’s precisely the places Britain should have had the most influence (US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, South Africa) that soccer didn’t take hold. Which would suggest cultural backlash against The Empire. It’s a good read, weighty at 900+ pgs but worth it so far.
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" -Nicholas Rivera, MD, HUMC graduate
by HoodRiverDuck on Jul 23, 2010 6:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Thats a cool take on it.
soccer goes back before Britain by a lot goes back to Han dynasty in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. There is also the roman and greeks used to play for fun. Bathroom Readers mans best friend.
Welcome aboard, jd
I know you’ll love being a supporter of the best-run and most entertaining football club in the Premier League.
I too am really leaning towards Arsenal as my Premier League side, I follow MLS and La Liga mostly, but I do have a question to ask, as I am a La Liga follower, is it bad to be a Barcelona support AND like Arsenal at the same time or is it taboo right now?
No problem
So long as you don’t start posting “CESC 2 BARCA” threads.
I had great respect for barcelona right up until this summer.
by silverace99 on Aug 10, 2010 10:50 AM EDT up reply actions
I concur
I don’t follow La Liga too closely, but I watch Barca every time they’re on GOL TV. They are absolutely beautiful to watch. I have had a hard time stomaching Pique, Puyol, Xavi, et al. this summer, but I refuse to miss any chance to watch Lionel Messi.
"Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!" - Matt Daddy
by HoodRiverDuck on Aug 10, 2010 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions
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