Catch a fucking grip people
Thursday, 19 November 09, 09:15 AM · Comments(16)
I'm iller today than I was yesterday and can hardly see straight to watch TV let alone put something out there in a blog but after the reaction to Henry's hand I felt I had to blog. On Twitter
last night as I signed of for the evening I advised everyone to keep a look out for how this would all be Arsenal's fault. Somehow, Anelka's dive and Henry's handball are evidence of a cheating
culture inbred into Arsenal players. Will we hear the same thing about Manchester United everytime Ronaldo doves at Madrid? How many years ago did Anelka leave us? Henry has been gone two
seasons now, yet still, somehow, despite never having done anyting like this at Arsenal, it is all Arsenal's fault.
Then we get to the actual handball itself. As Arsenal fans we should know how it feels to be on the end of an over-reaction so nuclear that it ruins a players reputation completely. Do I agree
with what Henry did? No. Did he plan it? No. Would any other player in the same situation have done the same thing on insticint? You better fucking believe they would. Don't forget, it wasn't
that long ago that England players admitted they would happily dive to win a penalty to win the World Cup. Don't you dare tell me the reaction wouldn't be different if it was the other way
round. If it had been Robbie Keane's hand which had deprived the French of a place at the World Cup everyone would be having a great 'ol chuckle at the French right about now. Had the French
done it against any other nation except a 'home' one, no-one would have even commentated.
Yes, Ireland were the better team, but did they score the goals they needed to go through? No, they didn't. This is something else we should get as Arsenal fans, how many times have we
outplayed a team only to lose or draw to an unfortunate, unlucky, or even dubuiously acquired goal? Too many for me to remember in my present state. Football is about results, that's what we're
told. Ireland had 210 minutes in which to score more than one goal. They didn't. Robbie Keane himself had enough chances to put the tie beyond France, just because he's too shit to know where
the back of the net is most of the time does not give everyone the right to tear Henry apart. And that's not even taking into consideration all the matches played in the group stages where
Ireland had enough opportunity to seal their place at the World Cup without having to go to a play-off.
210 minutes. 12,600 seconds. Yet all the papers and fans seem to care about is the split second in which Henry made his decision, the half a second it took for him to handle the ball, and the
years which he spent as an Arsenal player.
It's a load of fuck. As much a load of fuck as the Eduardo 'incident.' How can that one split second wipe out everything he has achieved before? How can it sully everything he will do from here
on in? How many times do you think it will be referred to in South Africa next year? It's an absolute joke and as Arsenal fans, Irish or not, we should know better.
You don't have to condone him, but unless you are a walking, living, breathing saint, don't you dare condemn him either.
It's a sad state of affairs when one of the only people defending him is Alex McLeish. He is right, it was an instinctual thing. It does not make him a cheat. And for Arsenal fans to be up in
arms as they are is nothing short of hypocritical. I know some good friends of mine on here have taken it hard. I would suggest that you take a giant step back, take a long hard look at what
Eduardo was put through, and ask yourself HONESTLY if your reaction is rational, or if you are behaving exactly as everyone else did when Eduardo 'dived' against Celtic.
I think you'll find you are...even just a little bit.
(typos, words missing etc? Apologies, double-vision makes it all but impossible to proof properly)
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16 Comments · Add yours
Have you gone to the doctors, LA?
You must... you hear?
Your ongoing ear complaint is worrrying me here.
I've been to the doctors and spoke to him three times on the phone, waiting on a hospital appointment to get it checked out and the doc is now saying i might have to be signed off work until they find out what it is...which should be fun come pay day
have meds which he's told me I can double if I need to....it's so frustrating, I can't leave the house and most of the time I'm having trouble even just watching the TV...and the best part is my ear feels relatively fine, it's all just dizziness now 
Reply to LadyArse:
Surely you're entitled to sick leave and, at the least, statutory benefits?
Well, I hope you get it all sorted soon, LA. Sounds rotten.
Yep I'll get statutory sick as I've used all my sick days...isn't that only like about £50 a week?
Reply to LadyArse:
I'd imagine it'll be around that mark.
Get one of the benefits people around and see what you're entitles to while you're off.
Explain that you can't leave the house due to your condition. I'm sure they have personnel who do house visits.
Just discovered this blog (female gooner here), great post! Exactly my thoughts! Unbelievable how Eduardo, Ngog and now Henry are the incarnation of Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin combined.
While Owen, Gerrard, Rooney et al. are all just smart, gritty English guys.
To have felt cheated by Henry was a natural reaction for me and I had never imagined anything like that would happen. I still regard him as Arsenal's greatest player ever but I don't like him at the moment. In my opinion it's different to Eduardo because there was some minimal contact with Eduardo and Arsenal already had a 2-0 lead from the 1st leg. What Henry did has denied Ireland the oppurtunity to at least go to penalties for a place in the World Cup and on the night they deserved that chance. As Arsenal fans we have seen the favouritism that the likes of Manure get and I'm sure France are getting it right now. I'm not saying the referee saw what happened but I held Henry up as a role model and it's never nice when your role models fail to live up to your expectations as they invariably do. There's nothing wrong in Arsenal fans having different opinions on our own players never mind ex players.
Reply to JamrockRover:
I agree, it would all be very dull if we all shared the same opinions
. Maybe I didn't feel the full force of it because of my altered mental state, or perhaps I've just become desensitised to the cheating we see week in week out in every single match that I've come to expect it, even from someone like Henry.
Cheating will, unfortunately, always be a part of the game. That doesn't make it right, or hurt any less, but the calling for Henry's head that has gone on today has, from my disabled point of view, seemed rather excessive.
I wasn't so much comparing his cheating with the perceived cheating of Eduardo, rather the media reaction, which picks and choses its outcries rather than applying a blanket rule to all offences which might actually do some good in driving it from the game.
I find that more hard to swallow than a footballer making a split-second decision in one of the biggest games of his career to send his country to the world cup...legend or not, we should hold all players to the same standards. It doesn't seem fair that a player who does it once should be castigated more than those who do it regularly. Like a man who drinks & drives slightly over the limit once versus a man who does it loaded every day, neither is acceptable, but which should we be more outraged by?
You're right, we should be outraged by both, so why aren't we?
Reply to LadyArse:
What annoyed me most was the whole ex Arsenal thing as if it's our fault what our ex players do.
Agreed 100%. I'm an Arsenal supporter, and you know what really annoys me about this? A lot of Arsenal fans seem to have forgotten that this is the Thierry Henry who won us the League and Cup double in 2002. This is the same Thierry Henry who took us 49 games unbeaten. This is the same Thierry Henry who took the ball at midfield in the Bernabeu and ran through 4 players to score. This is the same Thierry Henry who we loved and adoringly called our "King". For all the joy he has brought us over the years. For making our club a household name. The least we can do now is to stand behind him, right or wrong. Because there is nothing more disgusting than abandoning the man who was the very face of our club for a decade.
all this criticism thats been levelled upon henry is simply not justified.....i fully agree that things or actions like these are purely instinctive that are simply triggered in the heat of the moment.Hearing that the majority of the people blame even arsenal for this is testimony to the fact that favoritism and prejudice are going to be part and parcel of the game.I can understand Irish people blaming henry, but non-irish people who are levelling unruly criticism on him have no reason to be so saint-like
First off I am Irish and I am not blaming Arsenal.
But saying keane missed chances and we had chances to win the group are completey and utterly irrelevant, thus by extension making your entire blog redundant. Also his second touch with his hand was definately purposeful. I can't believe you have the gaul to condone what he did, its an utter disgrace. I used to admire henry's skill and prowess, "used to" being the operataive words. Now he will be forever be remembered as a cheat.
Reply to Richard:
You obviously didn't read my 'redundant' blog as at no point did I condone him, and quite a few times said he was wrong for doing it. If you are so shallow that ONE incident can overrule his hundreds of other achievements then so be it. And for your information, I'm Irish too, I just happen to be an Irish person with perspective.
You use the same system to rate my blog, one comment or incident does not reflect an entire blog or career, but that's the problem, too many people make sweeping judgements.
And for you to say that Ireland had plenty of other chances to gain qualification is irrelevant shows how much you actually know about football.
Reply to Richard:
And you might remember him as a cheat, I'll remember him as the legend he is who unfortunately cheated on one occassion. There's a big diference there, and for you and others like you to say different is the true 'utter disgrace.'
Get some perspective, it'll save you heart attacks in later life...
Reply to Richard:
and as Arseblog says...
Not many Ireland fans complained when we got a penalty in Georgia which wasn't a penalty. From a match report:
A long ball found its way to Robbie Keane who seemed to control the ball with his hand only for the referee to let play continue. The ball was then cleared but only as far as Kevin Doyle as it deflected off the Waterford man and into the path of Ucha Lobjanidze. The referee then gave a shrill blast of his whistle for what appeared to be an offside by Keane.
Instead to everyones surprise, Hyytia pointed to the penalty spot and deemed Lobjanidze to have handled the ball. Replays showed that Keane had handled the ball in the lead-up to this decision and that Keane was also offside as play continued.
Watch the footage. What's the difference?
(you can get the links to the footage on Arseblog here LINK)
Gentleman that he is Henry has said the game should be replayed and Ireland deserved to qualify.