The North Bank in 1802. Joke! It is now some rich peoples' apartments.
Today, we're continuing our look at Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s 1992 book about his life as an Arsenal fan. We’ve chosen a few of the most thought-provoking moments in the text to share with you; feel free to let us know your thoughts.
Professional footballers are as beautiful and unattainable as models, and I don't want to be a middle-aged bottom-pincher.
The next fifty pages of Fever Pitch take Hornby through adolescence and to university. He travels to his first away games, graduates to the North Bank from the Schoolboys' Enclosure, fantasizes about hooliganism, and starts to support Cambridge United. Again, Hornby's memories of Arsenal matches past have the effect of an opened time capsule; the Football Specials, dilapidated trains filled with football fans heading to away games, are a relic of the past, as is the quaint idea of a Schoolboys' Enclosure. As always, though, the emotions, of frustration, of belonging, are just the same as we experience today.
But the plain truth is that the club means more to us than it does to them. Where were they twenty years ago? Where will they be in twenty years' time? Where will they be in two years' time, a couple of them? (At Villa Park or Old Trafford, bearing down on the Arsenal goal with the ball at their feet, that's where.)
This particular revelation occurs when a young Hornby has a chance encounter with left-back Bob McNab, in which all he can muster is a "Are you playing, Bob?" Though just like Hornby, it's all too easy to imagine conversations with players about the minutiae of Arsenal life, we forget that for many of these players, football is, well, a job. It's maddening for us to watch Almunia fail to stretch for a reachable ball, or see Clichy get easily outpaced by the opposition, and it's that very sense that we care more than the players that can be both heartbreaking and unnerving. And, perhaps, these niggling doubts that such moments engender endanger our own devotion. What I think we all love about Arsenal is that it's a way of feeling a part of something, the regularity, the way matches structure weeks and weekends; once the curtain is pulled back, our players leave for Man City or other teams who throw money at them, the dream is damaged.
Over the summer of 1972, things changed. Arsenal, the most British (that is to say, the dourest and most aggressive) team you could imagine, went all continental on us, and for half a dozen games at the start of the 72/73 season decided to play Total Football. (This, for the benefit of those with only a sketchy grasp of football tactics, was a Dutch invention which necessitated flexibility from all the players on the pitch. Defenders were required to attack, attackers to play in midfield; it was football's version of postmodernism, and the intellectuals loved it.)
Ah, Total Football, the tactical theory often ascribed to Arsene Wenger. If any team could be described as playing "postmodern football," of course it would be the current incarnation of Arsenal, with their intellectualized passing game and physically nonthreatening players. Though Arsenal's 1970s experiment with this historically Dutch fluid system of football failed, and is used in the text to describe Hornby's own confusion at the time over meeting his father's new family, with the ascendancy of Wenger, a cursory investigation reveals that Arsenal's current tactics can be considered an heir to the Dutch way. Though sometimes it can be stunningly successful--defenders like Vermaelen scoring goals--we all know when it doesn't work (say, our entire current front line playing out of position regularly.) Does Total Football work in the modern Premiership? It's up to you to say...
Keep reading along with us...we’ll tackle some points from the next fifty pages next week, as well as share some of our favorite passages and moments sporadically throughout the week.
