Arsenal and the Zombie Narrative

There Be Monsters!

What a weekend, what a game, what a goal! It appears the rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

The storm of adverse predictions battering our club over the past week or so had been gaining in strength and certainty. The Soothsayers were out in force and the future was looking bleak. And then, in a second half when the Mighty Arsenal awoke and an “unbelievable lesson” on fighting to the very end was learnt, the Prophets, the Oracles and the Fortune Tellers Of Doom were all banished from the land.

These thoughts were swirling around as the dog and I watched two skaters navigating the thin ice of an under-frozen lake, their ice probes tapping the grey mass as they swished along. When a frozen lake thaws in early spring, it sings like a pod of humpback whales, beautiful eire songs of shifting softening ice sheets. But when thin ice is strained in these erratic winter temperatures, under the weight of a wild skater, it bellows like a tight wire fence in a fierce wind like a laser firing through a chorus of pops and creaks.

We looked at each other, the dog and I, as these gamblers staked their day on the thickness of the ice, and we returned to the forest paths, away from the tension, where I thought about these “skaters on thin ice” tempting the world to break into their dream and plunge them into the depths of reality. And I thought that we, like skaters on a veneer of our own making, swish along in a story we’ve written ourselves.

So when we got back, with these thought still fresh, I wrote this. Enjoy. (Oh, and welcome to all you new subscribers that have arrived this week, good to have you here).

Normally here on Arsenal Wonderland (if normally can apply to such a newly born endeavour) I write entertaining word snow globes to bring a smile and (hopefully) an original perspective into your Arsenal life. Open the article, sit back, have a read and enjoy. Boom, job done. It’s not as if life isn't complex enough, let’s just enjoy the beauty and drama of football with some absorbing writing thrown into the mix.

On some level, by writing Arsenal Wonderland, I’m also writing a world into existence. It’s not only that I’m trying to make sense of the endlessly onrushing flow of perceptions (although I’m doing that too) but in the very act of telling, I’m creating a world. You’re doing the same thing. We’re all doing it. We tell stories about ourselves to make sense of the world and in doing so those stories somehow become the world. Stories don’t simply reflect our lives, on some deeply spontaneous level the stories we tell become our lives.

The late (and great) David Graeber described storytelling perfectly when he said “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it’s something that we make, and something we could just as easily make differently”. I guess the naive fool in me just wants to write up a more benevolent and beautiful world. And Arsenal Wonderland is just a tiny teeny place of stories in a sprawling wild and turbulent territory of unchecked storytelling.

Which brings me on to this weeks “Tale”, because, let it be known in this sprawling wild and turbulent territory of storytelling there be monsters. Strange wild-eyed mindless mutants that heave and spit their “truths” so incessantly at us that eventually we’re so overcome and exhausted that we do their bidding for them. Beware these hideous story-form creatures that attempt to retell our world dear reader, The Arsenal Zombie Narrative is out there and it’s coming for you. Take measures because otherwise before you know it you’ll be spreading the “Truth” too.

These Zombie narratives, which are mostly dreamt into existence by media (mediocre) outlets (in the crazed pursuit of notoriety and clicks), are hard to resist. In fact they are so stealthy and insidious that in my weaker moments, I’ve found to my horror, that I too have breathed them into life! So, let me introduce you to a few of the bigger and more persistent of them.

Here’s one, it’s called “Same Old Arsenal” and you’ll know it well because it’s been roaming the Arsenal world since time immemorial. “Same Old Arsenal” bellows, barks and blusters that Arsenal has a certain DNA which carries instructions for inevitable collapse, that Arsenal is laden with flaws and deficiencies and eventually these frailties will bring about failure at any moment. Lose a game after topping the table for weeks - Same Old Arsenal. The opposition scramble a draw in the final moments because the guy tasked to draw lines on the VAR actually fails to draw the lines (!) and Arsenal drop points - Same Old Arsenal (naturally Zombie Narratives have no shame).

And there’s plenty more of these shameless zombies too. There’s the multiple offspring of “Same Old Arsenal” that go by such names as “Southern Softy”, “Spiritless” and “Bottler” and even the derelict commentator’s newborn favourite, “Touchline Antics”. Zombie Narratives are rabbit-like in their procreative impulses, each birthing another and another until, like an oncoming storm, the horizon is purpled with nothing but nonsense and blather. Watch out, here comes “Defensively Rash” and “They’ve Seen Through You” parading about in tandem with zombie twins “No Pride” and “No Passion”!

Okay, enough, you get the gist already. But let’s dissect this first zombie a little and see what’s in there. After all, how can a fluid and constantly changing body of different players and managers actually convey through time the same old anything? The only thing that’s the same old is the zombie narrative itself, a living breathing entity that’s come alive and kept alive through nothing more than constant repetition.

For a Zombie Narrative to come to life and prosper it needs a few simple characteristics. It needs to be easily conveyed, passing from person to person like a cold. It needs a clear-cut negativity, a Scroogey Grinchy grouchy old bastard outlook with a penchant for circular reasoning that always confirms its predictions, no matter what. And it needs the tiniest kernel of truth. Because weirdly enough, when Arteta spoke about changing our culture wasn’t that kinda, sorta what he meant? Wasn’t he trying to say Arsenal needed to rid itself of evil angels lurking in dark corners that whisper tales of imposter syndrome and fear into the ears of team after team?

Well, that’s the thing with the mythical Zombie. They used to be people, but they’ve been reanimated for a whole other purpose. And that’s the thing with Arsenal Zombie Narratives, deep down is the kernel of a recognisable idea, but it’s been reanimated for a whole other purpose. All clubs have a sense of themselves to some degree. All institutions of any kind have an imposed vision of who they are. When people talk of changing the culture within organisations this is what they’re referring to, tackling the internal relationships that create external outcomes. In a very real measurable way you could say Same Old Amnesty International, or Same Old Sony.

But that kernel of truth is then so wrapped in a skin of fiction, malice and brashness that it’s no longer a kernel of truth but instead becomes something entirely different. It becomes an attempt to rewrite the world in its own image. It becomes an attempt to control the interior emotional landscape of others. The Arsenal Zombie Narrative robs us of complexity and nuance as it grabs the intricate and delicate pattern of happenings and rams it through a predetermined outcome.

So where Mikel engaged with a frayed self-esteem, the AZN would encourage more fraying. Where Mikel brought healing the AZN would bring decay. Where Mike established camaraderie, the AZN would entrench isolation.

Journalist after journalist throw various AZN’s at Arteta and time and time again he bats them away with the skill of an experienced zombie hunter. “You’ve been found out by teams who now play the low block!” claims one journalist in a press conference last week. The room shivers as the AZN starts to flex its muscles and rise up once again. A cool and calm Arteta stares fixedly and serenely asks, “How many low blocks have we faced this season?”, The journalist, trying to resurrect the faltering AZN dodges, but Arteta grabs the AZN by the neck and squeezes, “Sixteen low blocks we have faced this season, so we have won a lot of those games. We have merited at the end of the game to win most of those games”. Bish Bash Bosh another AZN bites the dust.

And Arteta’s calm Zombie hunting heroics bring us back (in a fine narrative arc) to the beginning.

If the stories we tell don’t simply reflect our lives, but on some deeply spontaneous level they actually become our lives, then the Arsenal Zombie Narrative is a perilously irresponsible monster that should be shunned at all costs.

Football is weaved into our fan lives with passionate threads, embellishing great tapestries of actual experience onto our hopes and dreams. The stories we tell have value because they morph from story to, dare I say, reality? So here in Arsenal Wonderland you’ll never get me repeating any tired and tedious, monotonous and thoughtless nonsense, there’ll be no purple clouds on this horizon. Instead I’ll write up a storm of thought and ideas to surf along those intricate threads that make up our fan experience and reflect the reality of our complex lives. They’ll be no zombies here!

So, there you go, next week I’ll be back with some lyrical musings about an actual real life player, writing up a world free of zombies, but in the mean time, make sure you avoid those hideous story monsters out there and enjoy this Arsenal season to the full.

Have a great week Gunners, share the joy and subscribe to Arsenal Wonderland.