During all the hussle and bussle of the transfer window a lot of gooner fans have, rightly or wrongly, complained about a list or problems as they see them. Why did we sell our striker for £25 million, why did we sell an invincible for £16 million and why did both go to a club who want to challenge us for our place in the top 4. Others claim it was good business but now lets go out and spend the £41 million on 2/3 players and solve all our problems. Then of course there are the fans who claim that everything is the fault of the board who are tight fisted, trying to get our club on a steady footing and competing at the top while our competitors rack up debts of hundreds of millions with little enough return to show for it.
Before we jump on the high horse and slam Wenger, Ade, Toure, Fiszman or Gazidis imagine the following scenario. Every second week you go to your teams home ground and pay your hard earned money to passionately support your football team. Mostly you win but sometimes you lose. Sound familiar, good keep with me. A few years back a manager from a foreign land takes over your club and promises great times. He gets a chairman and revolutionises the league as we know it. The cups begin to arrive and all seems right, your glad that your manager chose your club and not someone else. Then however the silverware doesn’t flow as free as it used to and things get a little anxious. The fans start to climb on the managers back demanding to be put back on top straight away. The manager decides he would be appreciated more in a different league and along with his chairman washes his hands of your club and leaves. The new owners have problems keeping their knuckles off the ground and before you know it your club is in massive debt, players start to leave to bigger clubs with more money and you wonder why did you ever demand so much so quick. New owners promise a new dawn but fall just as quick, your club is now in serious debt and the Inland revenue are knocking on the door demanding to be paid.
Now the days of continual competition at the top doesn’t look so bad. In fact knowing that your club will keep its very existence is a very welcome prospect, regardless of its league ranking or what league you are in. This might all seem a little far fetched but today at 12p.m. in an Irish High Court a company which owns the rights to a long standing and reputable professional soccer club were told to wind up and cease trading. Cork City F.C. are to be no more. They might seem like small fry to the big boys in the premiership but to people in Cork they are the be all and end all. Your club is your club and that’s what makes them special. The sum total of their bill to the revenue is €440,000 or approx. £375,000GBP. That’s less than we pay one of our top players for 6 weeks of football yet it is too much for a very proud team in a very proud sporting city. At the start of the coming season Cork City will have 12 former players playing professional soccer in Britain. Amongst them Kevin Doyle at Wolves, Shane Long and Dave Mooney at Reading, Roy O’ Donovan with Sunderland, Colin Healy with Ipswich and John O’ Flynn with Barnet. For John O’ Flynn read Thierry Henry, for Colin Healy read Patrick Vieira for O’ Donovan read Ljungberg etc etc. To put this into perspective imagine Wenger and Gazidis going to Spain because we wouldn’t give them support and then we sell 12 of our best players also to Spain. If that’s not enough the new owners run us into big debt and the following owners are no better all of which results in a chairman reading a statement on the steps of some court about how he is very sad to see the end of Arsenal F.C. and this isn’t how he wanted things to go.
The next time you go to Emirates take a minute and look at the magnificent stadium you now call home. Go inside and look at the talent playing in your clubs colours, and when you have done all that take a moment to thank your lucky stars that we have a manager who can not only get us to the top and keep us there but can do so turning heads and with one financial hand tied behind his back. When that is completed I suggest you show unwavering support for your club, your team, your manager and everyone who is contributing to get it into the healthy state it is in today. I dare say our neighbours down seven sisters road would swap places now if they could. For those of you who are doubters I suggest you click on either of the following links. One is to Cork City F.C., the other to Leeds United F.C., remember them. The moral of the story is things are never as bad as they seem.