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ASCB - The Best? Of course they are And so, finally, we headed off to Arsenal vs Chelsea, our big day spoiled by Chelsea pretending they could win a trophy without Abramovich by cancelling our match to play in the FA cup. There was never a chance a bunch of Pensioners could win without the magic Roman. And so April 23rd, 2024 was our big day instead, new plane tickets and maybe new hotels for people, but we are ASCB, we don’t give in for anything. Our own programme Some 33 of us were given the chance for a VIP experience to greet the players and even a lucky two got to turn up on the pitch for an interview to blaze a trail for Arsenal Bulgaria. Everyone now knows who we are and what we represent. And we never forget that as we showed and which I will talk about later. The biggest surprise for me though was after we were given our armbands to allow us into the media centre. We got our own programme welcoming us to the Arsenal with our own name on it. That, and the armband will be passed down the generations. We love you Arsenal, we do! One for display We were there, we saw the players, we saw the staff, and we saw Super Mik Arteta and sang and cheered as they all filed past, some stopping for a low five with Gunnersaurus. Was I the only one worried as he entered the glass doors to the inner sanctum? Luckily the giant remembered to duck his head. A Gunnersaurus without a head would not be the same. Of course he mingled and low fived many of us including some young, excited kids from Romania. We show our class Mertesacker and Edu were prominent figures who came in by themselves prompting great excitement . But we were asked to wait for Chelsea as we also greeted the Pensioners as they struggled to make it off their bus. We were asked not to boo them but we have too much class for that anyway so we cheered for the Arsenal again. Honestly they didn’t look very happy filing past. Maybe they knew what was awaiting them? Without their talisman Cole Palmer maybe they felt that they had no chance. They were right. A nice shot from Alex sets me up For me, a trip to the Arsenal is not complete without a visit to my old friend, Alexander Sztranyovszky from Hungary who is Mr Arsenal. He turns up for every game and is a permanent fixture at Peggy’s refreshment stand at the side of the Arsenal Supporters club near the old Highbury. And Alex never fails to disappoint with his own refreshments always on hand, some nice strong shots to warm our hearts. Declan, you are my darling The real excitement came when I took my seat in the Clock End. We were all together, bundled into a top spot just high enough to see everything yet not too high that you need binoculars. It meant there was a big booming section of Bulgarians (and me) ready to give their all for the Arsenal. It was a magical time for me, being part of such a large group. Often I am by myself, this time we all celebrated together. We probably shouldn't have forced Chelsea to play on a sloping pitch And it didn’t take long for us to celebrate. Chelsea looked poor from the off, or was it that we were so good? Trossard was causing mayhem down the left hand side and we had a few chances straightaway but then Declan Rice boomed forward, flicked the ball over to Trossard who tucked it into the corner of the net. We were delirious and only 4 minutes had passed! The pattern continued but somehow we didn’t score. Havertz had a few chances but didn’t put any away. Maybe he didn’t want to score against his old club? We dominated our section of the Clock End as much as Arsenal dominated Chelsea Who was this new striker? Wright or White? I was hoping Chelsea wouldn’t transform in the second half but it was whoop de whoo many times as all sorts of improbabilities happened. We had a new striker called Ian Wright Wright White who whacked in two goals and Kai Havertz, freed of having to score against the away Chelsea fans at our end, suddenly became super striker, firing in two great goals to make it five and it could have been ten. Chelsea were hopeless. They were afraid all game to keep the ball and kept giving it back to us. Fifteen minutes of fame for ASCB The only time I watched Arsenal live slam in more goals, to my memory, was when Alan Ball brought Portsmouth up from the old second division back when I was living in London in the late ‘80’s. We were 5-0 up up half time and Alan Smith kept banging in the goals. We got only one in the second half to make it 6-0. Portsmouth fans left en masse at halftime and the Chelsea fans did the same as the goals flew in second half. We were delirious. Go home you bums And did I say the Bulgarian Arsenal fans had too much class to boo the Chelsea players? It didn’t stop them screaming “Your team are shit” (they sang slightly different words, but this is a family blog) at the departing away fans. No need, people, they know their team are shit. The strange thing is, they could still get 6th place as Manchester United and Newcastle are also shit this year. It is a weird season, for sure. They looked to me to be already on the beach, though. Still, that is Arsenal’s best win ever against Chelsea and yes, we owed it to them for humiliations in the past. Waiting patiently for the team to arrive 4 games to go and if we get the win against a white and black team on Sunday, then we have to believe we can do it. Ì had an English guy sitting beside me on the train back insisting we will win 2-0 against the Spuds and go on to win it. Man City and Liverpool will be shitting themselves. And that leads me into the table of doom. Update to the Table of Doom Table of Doom Fixtures Current Max Arsenal Spurs (a) 77 89 Liverpool Spurs (h) 74 86 Man City Spurs (a) 73 91 Ah, Jurgen Klopp, I am still waiting for you to apologise for your teams unsporting behaviour against Forest. Everton gave you a tanking and you are now on the cusp of leaving the Table of Doom. Another draw, even, and your maximum is 84. Our goal difference will not be bettered now, I feel, so if it matters at the end, we will win. If we draw against the Spuds we can still get 87 but will it be enough? I say yes. City have a lot of matches to cram in and they are not that simple, the Premier League rarely is. If we win 4 they have to win 6. We are putting them under pressure. We can’t ask any more from our boys. Be proud. Gunnersaurus with Tszetomir Tsekov Commiserations to poor old Sheffield United. The door is just about to close on Chris Wilder. He was talking about preparing them for next season but will he really get the chance? It is surely such a difficult job managing a team trying to make it in the Premier League. He seems a good manager and a very decent human being but I suspect they will want a change. I would be happy if he gets his chance and one day bring them back to stay.

The best always win? Ah, cheating. Winning is all that matters. The ideal of sport that is whoever is better at the skill would win does not apply to football. And yet it is hard to say which sports that applies to, nowadays. Golf, darts and snooker spring to mind. What else? Let’s take athletics. At least you have to be over the line by yourself to win. It is clear who has won. But drugs are a serious problem in so many sports where at least the winner is clear. Cristiano Ronaldo - always cheating Soccer is no longer a sport where the winner is clear nor probably has it ever been. There have been many apologies since VAR has appeared where teams have lost or drawn matches they should have won. And prior to VAR a referee could cost you the game. But you never get it back. Last season Arsenal had a few VAR decisions go against them, Man Utd, Brighton and Brentford spring to mind. We were a short few points off Man City and getting the correct decisions could have won us the league. What is cheating? That is the starting point of this discussion. Football is not about sportspeople playing better than the other team but rather those who use every trick in the book and are writing new ones up to gain an advantage that wins the match. What are those advantages? I probably can’t list them all, but let’s give it a go, in the order they come into my head: Calling for everything Surrounding the ref Verbals – abusing players to try and put them off their game Diving and tricking refs by screaming Going down with little contact A new one, since the introduction of almost universal handball, is hammering the ball into a crowded box in the hope that it hits an arm when there is no sight of goal. Is the use of excess money cheating? Most of these things did not happen in English football when I started watching. Dirty Leeds in the Sixties, with a truly top squad of players, started a lot of gamesmanship and fouls. The most notorious being Jack Charlton standing on top of the keeper at corners. But all the other things mentioned above were starting to appear. Of course, football was never clean Now, it has to be said that football was never really clean. There have been many instances of the dark arts since soccer appeared in its present form around 150 years ago. The problem is, if it is not clean, is it truly a sport? I say no. The definition of a sport has to be that the best at the discipline wins. And only golf, darts and snooker comes to mind where that applies. This is the sign that football is clean In this modern era, you would have to be a genius to figure out the blurry lines between what is acceptable and what is not. Money? The big teams spend egregious amounts to gain advantage so that they have at least two top players for every position. They have also campaigned strongly to allow more and more subs giving them another big advantage over poorer clubs. In the old days you had one sub which was normally only used late in the game, if at all. And yet I rarely remember teams being down to ten because of injury. But subs were originally supposed to be only for injury, not for tactics. I say 5 subs are cheating as the advantage is to the big clubs. Will anything be done? Yes, when you see a member of the porcine species use its wings to fly past your window. Just give me one million of that and I will delete this piece, Sheik Money allows you to buy players that other teams want just to stop them having them. Chelsea and Man City are possibly the worst at this but all big teams are guilty. Is it cheating? I can’t see any reason to say it is not. Analysing ways to cheat What about analysts? Is that cheating? There are teams of guys with laptops spread around the grounds relaying information to the bench and the manager is stood on the pitch bellowing instructions. Why are they allowed do that? We would laugh if at an athletics event if there was 20 managers screaming at the runners. In the past, the manager sat on the bench and I see no reason for anyone on the bench to be allowed give instructions. It should be the best sportsmen win. They should be talented enough to use their own ability, brain and reason to be able to play. A guy is free on the edge of the box at the corner? Get out and cover him, how do you need to be told to do that? Educating young people to cheat is good, is it? Will we see the days of hidden earpieces on the captains or all players? Is it already happening? I suspect the technology is already there so it could well be. Is it cheating? I say yes. I covered drugs already here and you will see that my belief is that drugs are endemic in football. We do, most of us, see drugs as clearly cheating but the world of pharmacy is very clever. They are like Hydra, you cut off one head and 2 more grow in its place. A putrid sport ready to collapse? The problem is, that if one big team cheats, then they all will, to try to stop them having an advantage. We have gone so far down this rabbithole that we can’t see any possibility of anything getting better, we keep accepting the new ways to cheat and the new charlatans, the Chelseas, the Man Citys, the PSG’s, etc., will continue to use their money to whitewash the cheating and the old big clubs will scramble to catch up on their cheating and surpass them if they can. And so here we are. A rotten sport without much semblance of fairness. Where anything at all, no matter how outrageous, is acceptable. Cristiano Ronaldo is perhaps the biggest single example, always diving, harassing the ref, waving for cards and so on, yet he was still one of the most popular players of his time and not castigated and banned for being a lowly cheat. In golf, also a huge money sport, he would have been cast into the darkness long ago. Tiger Woods would have been with a tiny amount of cheating. For all golfers, being a true sport is what matters, especially Tiger Woods You must call foul on yourself and a sport has to be about the better person or team winning. Soccer has left that ideal far behind. Is it the right road that it has taken or will there be a sudden, dramatic, realization that cheating and sport are incompatible? The most dramatic event of my lifetime, the collapse of the Soviet Union, was inconceivable to me until it happened. But people then realized how rotten it was and didn’t want to go back. Could it happen in football? I will say a definite maybe.