The anger shown to the Arsenal manager by some fans is absurd – but so is Arsène Wenger’s stubbornnessOver time,you arrive to realise that football, for all its charms and addictive qualities, or is an inherently furious position. It’s unshakeable,there will always be eruptions of temper and no matter how much our grounds have been sanitised in recent years the sport is still essentially the same as when Arthur Hopcraft wrote in 1968 how football crowds are “never going to sound or gaze like the hat parade on the club lawns of Cheltenham racecourse”.
My intellect goes back to Martin O’Neill’s early days at Leicester City, barely a few weeks into the job, and the unpleasantness of a 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield United when the crowd at Filbert Street made it clear that they did not want him at their club. O’Neill went on to become the most acclaimed manager in Leicester’s history – prior to this season anyway – but that night was toxic,culminating with an attempt to kick down the front doors of the stadium. I was standing beside Martin in the technical area,” John Robertson, and his assistant,recalls. “I remember Martin taking a deep breath and saying to me: ‘It’s wild, isn’t it?’”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com