Pessimism of the Intellect Optimism of the Will

On Cup Final Saturday in May 2002 I was in Sarawak, Borneo, sitting in the Holiday Inn with the tattooists Lal Hardy, George Bone, and Naresh from Flamin’ 8, drinking beer and watching the rain fall like a beaded curtain around the open air terrace of the bar; the rain popping on the roof and against the palm trees like hail. It was fairly late in the evening when the game kicked off. A Swiss Gooner had tried and failed to get a TV set up to watch the game, and I was now at the mercy of Naresh, his mobile, and his Chelsea supporting mates at the other end of the line in London. The presence of the genial but abrasive Hardy, a Spurs fan, spiced things up. As befits a man who was acknowledged for a time by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most tattooed man, George Bone, unforgettably attired for the jungle in full on Indiana Jones mode, surveyed the proceedings with Olympian disdain.

A less happy experience was ringing my wife from the lobby of the Riverside Marriot in San Antonio, Texas, to find out that Chelsea had dumped us out of the European Cup in April of last year. That was a short telephone call. Like a lot of you, I’d guess, I’ve found myself in some out of the way places trying to find out the Arsenal score; from Mexican villages to dive boats in the back of beyond. It is, it will be admitted, a little easier to stomach a reverse when the sun is shining and there is the prospect of a fifty -metre wall dive after lunch.

I’ve just come back from a trip to Ghana, West Africa. I was in Accra when I heard the Boxing Day results on World Service, but our win hardly registered. A couple of days later I was sweating under a rickety ceiling fan, drinking Star beer in a guest house room down on Cape Coast, watching BBC news in disbelief when news of Pat’s deflected goal at Newcastle came up on the ribbon of text that ran underneath the endless pictures of desolation. Perspective, it need hardly be said, is everything in these matters; my youngest daughter spent this afternoon playing with her best friend Anoush, who will not take off her golden beach sandals; the only things she managed to save from Sri Lanka. Her mother is not sleeping, because when she does she remembers hanging on to her two daughters as the water tried to separate them, and thinking that she would have to let go, like so many other parents must have. Football shouldn’t still matter of course, but of course it does.

I managed to listen to the second half of the Charlton game on World Service back in Accra. I was at the Airport when I found out the City score from a fellow who, like me, was waiting for our endlessly delayed aeroplane to finally materialise. While it’s too early to call, seven points looks like a lot; if we’re going to stay Champions, it is clear that we can’t drop many, if any, more points.

The Italian Marxist writer and leader Antonio Gramsci, who was imprisoned by Mussolini and who died in prison, summed up the politics of the Left under Fascism as ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’ I’d imagine this sums up the feelings of many Arsenal supporters just now; it can be done, but a clear-eyed analysis leaves one pessimistic that it will be. One obvious reason is the gulf in our respective resources, but it is wise to remember that the success we’ve had recently has come against a team, United, who have always had vastly more money and a stronger squad than ours; it’s no use bleating about it now that Chelsea have apparently got people like Geremi making the tea, and have so much money that, like the Mafia in Palermo, they probably have a House of Money where the Russian keeps his surplus cash. This is not to suggest that Abramovitch launders his gains through the books of the West London outpost of his empire; or that these gains may in any sense be said to be ill gotten (Heaven forbid; Ed). Nonetheless, if Arsenal do retain the title in a season that will in all probability (to offer one example of the difficulties Wenger is facing), see a teenager making more than thirty starts in midfield, would be both a fantastic achievement and a timely reminder that great teams are made, not bought.

Paul, the fellow at the Airport, told me to keep my chin up, that I’d remember our conversation. The wheels will come off in February, he said, when Barcelona knock Chelsea out of the European Cup (though having just watched Barcelona get thumped 3-0 by Villareal last night there is a real possibility that that particular dog won’t hunt). I would settle, happily, for the gap being down to three points when we come to play them on April 20^th. Whatever happens I’ll try and keep things in perspective, and remember that a lived experience, a life, is as momentary, sudden, and impermanent as a raindrop falling on a stone courtyard.