Arsenal And The Gods of Football
Clambering to the mountain top
I’m not a religious person. I never have been. I never will be. I don’t care for the paraphernalia of the dominant monotheism’s, the perversion of power or the funnelling of funds heavenwards (never quite making it off the earthly plane). I’m not interested in having my philosophical attitudes policed, or my moral maps drawn by duplicitous organisations. The major power organisations that masquerade as religions are in most ways utterly terrifying. From the 1513 justification of indigenous enslavement in the colonisation of the Americas, to religious nationalism dominating so many political parties of today, I wonder why so many want to be represented by such cruel and blatant behaviours.
Although, I’m far from interested in indulging in the kind of aggressive prancing of the New Atheists by diminishing the religious as insane or irrational. No, that’s not me. I say enjoy, find solace, pray and think and philosophise on the deepest of questions. There’s so much in the rituals and practices that’s beautiful and important and soothing. And the architecture. Oh man, the architecture!
But there’s a plainly a universal human experience that generates religious ideas and thoughts and practices. Philosophy and sciences and religion and even novel writing all come from the same stable. They are attempts to explain, to understand, to fathom and to find meaning. To create meaning in the empty void. And they’re beautiful things that we humans do. And I find myself engaging in all of them all of them time. I ask myself why? And how should I respond? I ask myself what even is meaning? What things have value? What even is value? And I feel a delicious sensation that there is more that I understand.
And sometimes, like the ancients, I am inclined to feel that there’s reason in this madness, that there are hands directing this great theatre of life. I’m prone, I suppose to a polytheistic leaning. I’m more hunter gatherer than agriculturalist. Give me a god for everything, a god for the wind and a god for waves, a god only for luck or a god for fishing, a god only concerned with birdsong or a god hunting only red deer. It’s easy to feel the power of the gods when out in the wilds. And it’s easy to feel that these gods have personalities, they’re magnanimous or selfish or petty or comical.
Now be honest here, tell me straight, after Arsenal’s game against Brentford aren’t you inclined to agree with me? Don’t you feel there might, just might, be a god of football, a mischievous brilliant god with the mind of an evil scriptwriter? The kind of god that’ll make you suffer for months and months agonising over a player like Kai Havertz, tantalising you with his skills and potential, infuriating you with his failures and his demeanour, teasing you with his near misses and almost moments? Is it really just brutal coincidence happening in the empty void or is there a malicious playful genius god behind Arsenal’s season?
We haven’t played with anything like the gorgeous fluidity of so many of last season’s games. But our Arsenal god is playing the long game, there’s no delivering satisfaction week after week, oh no, that was last season’s fare. And that was only delivered in order to make this season all the more excruciating. Our Arsenal god is messing with immense narrative arcs, not just handing out small packets of joy. Our Arsenal god is Tolstoy of dramatic dimensions.
As the gorgeous possibility to clamber our way to the top of the pile presented itself on the weekend, our devious football god made sure we’re attentive to the last minute. Wait, wait, not yet, wait…nope, not yet people. And when finally we are delivered from our excruciating pain, who does our football deity choose as the deliverer of joy? Of course our god picks out the player we’ve all been praying to score for game after game after game. But nothing. Nada, Zilcho. Then, when at last the opportunity finally presents itself to bag the biggest goal at the very latest of moments and drag us kicking and screaming to the top of the mountain, our god smirks and smiles and offers the glory to Kai Havertz. Crack goes the lightning and boom there you go!
See what I mean. Isn’t it easy to feel there’s some fiendishly impish god directing all this? Doesn’t it feel like there’s method behind this seemingly fathomless madness? Isn’t it all too much like a narrative to not be a narrative? Those crazy commentating human priests of football can go on delivering their sermons from their studio pulpits, raving on about the morality of Arteta’s decisions, chest thumping about the fouls and sins of the players week in and week out, defending the righteousness of the rules and worshiping the PGMOL no matter what mistakes they make. But all that is just the perpetual preaching of earthly men.
The gods of football are the one creating the real drama and they’re not finished with us yet. Keep making your offerings to the gods fellow Wonderlanders because this story is far from over. Hand out your alms and make your atonement’s. Find a river and throw in your gold and carved figurines, because maybe, just maybe, the mischievous gods of football will deliver that which is surely ours and we’ll end up with a bountiful hunt as the sun rises and summer arrives in full bloom.
So there you go fellow Wonderlanders, a somewhat whimsical offering this week, a plea, a prayer perhaps, go burn some incense or offer a plate of your finest foods and who knows? Maybe your dreams will come true! Have a divine week and maybe luck will favour us in the Olympian League, sorry, I mean Champions League.