It's only Ray Parlour's Birthday

It’s only Ray Parlour’s birthday!

This week we celebrate the Bulgarian National Liberation Day on March 3^rd. Also International Women’s day on March 8^th. Plus Mother’s Day in Ireland, where I am from, on March 10^th. Am I missing something? Of course I am as March 7^th is the one and only Ray Parlour’s birthday. The Romford Pele, probably our biggest joker, deserves a statue, a bridge and a stand named after him.

You'll never regret buying this book

Well maybe not but he brightened up all our days as a player who was very underrated but still managed 466 games, at least two hat tricks that I can remember against Werder Bremen in the UEFA cup in 2000 and against Newcastle that same year, and the only goal in the penalty shootout against Galatasaray in that year’s UEFA cup final. He also got 10 caps for England in 1999-2000 when England had lots of top players in midfield as Scholes, Gerrard, Beckham and Lampard spring to mind. And how about 3 league titles, 4 FA cups, a League cup and a European cupwinners cup? The boy was a winner. And I probably forgot to mention that he was an Invincible.

Beg, steal or borrow, or even buy his book

I reviewed his book “It’s Only Ray Parlour” here and it is one of the best football books ever. It is funny, but as it encompassed George Graham, Bruce Rioch and Arsene Wenger plus David Dein, he lived through the most sustained spell of success since the 1930’s. We became Arsenal again with Ray Parlour. It is a unique background insight to the collapse of Tony Adams, the bung era with George Graham and the tumultuous changes brought about quite gently really by Arsene Wenger. Read that book even if you don’t normally read books.

C'mon City - get a draw

Probably his greatest achievement as a player, though, was winning Arsenal player of the season in 1997-8. The list of greats there at the time was astonishing, Bergkamp, Wright, Anelka, Adams. Pettit, Overmars, Seaman, Platt, the list goes on. But it was the local boy who came through.

Laugh and laugh again

Although he is most likely best known as the prime joker on the football circuit, with hilarious anecdotes and a top career as an after-dinner speaker, he does deserve to be rated as a top class baller as all the above demonstrates. Few players got the amount of trophies he did, nor such a long career.

A Villa and Spuds draw at the weekend would be nice

But, if you do nothing else, search for his stories online. There are plenty of youtube videos to keep you laughing. Martin Keown trying to strangle Arsene Wenger, Kolo Toure’s trial, drinking on a plane and many other places, saying hi to two Tottenham mates as we won the title at White Hart Lane and nearly getting them massacred, the Igors Stepanovs prank played on Wenger, and many more.

Our own Pele

And so he is one of our own, a trainee from Romford who rose through the ranks to win titles and trophies with two different managers, who scored important goals in finals, and no matter who came to play for Arsenal, he always got plenty of games. And even captained the side against Inter when we won 5-1 at the San Siro. No wonder he was called the Romford Pele.

So why was his book called “It’s Only Ray Parlour”? It was his famous goal against Chelsea in the 2002 FA cup final. Tim Lovejoy the commentator, a well known Chelsea fan, said, as Parlour came through at about 30 yards out, “It’s only Ray Parlour” who then proceeded to lash the ball in from that distance. The name stuck. Don’t underestimate Mr Parlour, there’s a reason he is called the Romford Pele!

Thanks for all the memories and the laughs.

Happy birthday, my son, and many, many more.

Update to the Table of Doom

We must win next weekend against Brentford as all the rest may drop points

No change again as all five win. The teams have become relentless and are desperate not to give up any ground. That will change next weekend as Liverpool play City and Spurs host Villa.

We must Bee better than them

All made it hard work, particularly Liverpool who scored after injury time. I was disappointed with the way it was done though, as that is blatant cheating. Caoimhin Kelleher should not have accepted the ball from referee Paul Tierney or should have directly passed it to Forest. It is a topic I regularly return to in these columns, that cheating is accepted in football and no sanction is given to those who even blatantly cheat. We do no one any favours by accepting all the brazen cheating that goes on in modern football. We must be prepared to call out our own team too.

I reckon Tierney made a mistake and was not trying to give Liverpool an advantage but the Liverpool players would have known that it was a Forest ball and should have kept to sporting ideals. Arsene Wenger and Arsenal against Sheffield United are the only team to make amends for a similar decision to this day, and probably we will never see such a gesture again. I doubt if Arteta or any other current manager would have done any different to Klopp but still Liverpool should hold up their hands and say that it was cheating. An offer to replay would be a fair gesture. Will it happen? Will it heck as like!

Liverpool are fighting like demons

One has to say that Liverpool are tenacious, always battle to win and will be hard to knock down. They could come through the tough battles ahead to win the league. They want it badly and that may be the deciding factor. Have the rest got their bottle? We will see. City, Villa and Spurs had tough moments but all pulled away from Man Utd who are now 19 points behind Liverpool and can only see them through binoculars. That fifth place, if it turns out to be good enough for Champions League, may be beyond Ten Hag’s men.

Jayden Bogle has scored as many goals for Arsenal as Timo Werner for the Spuds

But Arsenal did not make it difficult for themselves, the only one of the five not to. 3 goals up after 15 minutes and the game was long gone for the denizens of Bramall Lane. I have to say I feel sorry for them, Burnley and Luton. The top five are firing like Ferraris and points are so difficult to pick up. Sheffield United, with whom we have a long and chequered history, are surely doomed as are Burnley. They have an average of 0.48 points per game. If that continues they will get 5 extra points. 18 is dismal.  Luton probably need a collapse of a team above them to stay up.  They have an average of 0.76 points per game which over the next 12 games gives them 9 more points. Will 29 points be enough? You never can tell but I suspect their average needs to increase to stay up.

Sad, but probably not much longer

We could well be looking at the final top five and bottom three already. C’mon the Arse, we need to shake up these positions!