After Jaws73's review of the Villa fanzine, 'Heroes and Villains' in the last edition of the FollowFollow magazine, I was delighted to be offered the chance to review the Arsenal supporters' magazine 'Gooner'.
The issue I was handed is #195, 'The Only Way is Cup', from March 2009. The magazine is extremely high quality, full colour 'glossy' pages throughout and a high level of design and art including action photos and cartoons. Coming in at 47 pages and at only £2 the value for money looks to be very good. At the time of this edition going to print Arsenal were enjoying a good run of results, having beaten Newcastle 3-1 on Tyneside and Blackburn 4-0 at the Emirates.
'Gooner' opens with an editorial piece by Kevin Whitcher, half summary and half preview, he discusses Arsenal's tactics in the first half of the season, the disappointment felt at the level of performance and entertainment (sounds familiar) and the feeling of relief at seeing both the defence bolstered and the emergence of slightly more attractive football. Arshavin features as a plus point when discussing the squad, having recently arrived from Advocaat's Zenit, and the writer draws comparisons between George Graham's early days at the club at the current tactics of Wenger: Both seemingly showed a desire to remove older more experienced players from the side and replace them with younger more malleable individuals in order to remove any unsavoury or over-bearing temperaments (something that has mirrored, deliberately or otherwise, Smith's return to Rangers).
The tone of the Editor's piece is hopeful rather than expectant, discussing a Chelsea FA cup semi-final and a Villareal Champions league quarter final in optimistic terms (they lost to Chelsea and beat the Spaniards) and talking about Arsenal's chances of that all important 4th place finish in the league. The piece ends with the statement that at least one of the cups and a 4th place finish were the minimum expected from the season: only one of those desires came to fruition.
The next article was penned by another 'official' writer and set the running theme for the issue. It was titled 'Great expectorations' and was an in-depth analysis of the much publicized spat between Arsenal and Hull's manager Phil Brown (FF.com's pet hate manager). Fabregas had been accused of spitting at a Hull player in the tunnel after the clubs met in the quarter final of the FA cup by Brown, and the article was a defence of the player based on character. Brown's well publicised antics earlier in the season were mentioned - a team talk in the centre circle being one -and although the writer stopped short of calling the man a liar, he cast doubt on the credibility of an obviously passionate man. The article signed off by expressing the twin desire of seeing Hull remain in the EPL and Brown keeping his mouth a little more firmly closed.
The next three articles were all of the format familiar to readers of FF. Passionate and articulate fans, each with a message to share and the ability to write in a manner easy on the eye. The topics covered were one man's over-riding love for his club allowing him to see past poor performances, another fan lambasting his own 'notoriously fickle supporters' after a poor showing from the Emirates crowd against Roma and a piece that I am convinced was written by The_Gub, covering previous games, future ones, the board, the management and the supporters not to mention referees and officials.
Following these entertaining pieces came a 'Match review' section, with various writers penning short reviews of the latest games (WBA, Burnley and Newcastle). The reviews were partisan, as you would expect from a fanzine, but well written and enjoyable for all of that, giving a good impression of how a club's supporter can feel during the highs and lows of a footballing month.
We have recently seen the release of 'The Gallant Pioneers' and the 'Gooner' had an interview with the author of the latest Arsenal book 'The Last Game', a fans' perspective on the Graham years. From reading the author's interview it certainly looks like a book any football fan would enjoy, touching on the season that changed football, 1988-89, with Hillsborough and the Taylor report and referring to thoughts and feelings that the fans of any club would relate to.
The next article deserves special mention, an interview with an Arsenal supporters' trust board member discussing the club's finances. This piece made a strange read, to see a fan who is obviously 'in the know' discuss the finances of Arsenal on quite a deep level I couldn't help but wonder why fans of Rangers are not let in on a little more of the workings at the club. Everything is not perfect at the Emirates, they have large debt levels from the new stadium build, but by allowing information to be disseminated amongst the support, rumour mongering and fear are kept to a minimum, with individuals being able to assuage the fears of the support without having to gloss over any of the facts. A similar approach from our club would help to ease the worries of the support and prevent the kind of panic we have seen recently.
The magazine progresses well, flowing from one topic to another, inter-spaced with feature pieces. One such regular feature is the WELLPLAYED! And LOADOFBALLACKS! Section, a simple and humorous list of good and bad points from the previous month, from bad challenges on Arsenal players to a comment about a Virgin Trains' poster stating 'for people who also need to get back to where they come from, a Liverpool to London return faster than Robbie Keane'. Another regular feature, and one i would like to see in FF, is a letters page. Punters write or Email questions Arsenal related and that month's letters editor (they take turns) prints a reply. The letters covered questions regarding previous articles, supporter issues and historical questions. This section gave a good 'community' feel to the fanzine, giving the readers a voice, which they used well and often with comedic effect.
The fanzine closed with a Newcastle match review, more in depth than the previous reviews: presumably their last game before going to print is given more column space. A grumpier review of a 3-1 away win I have never read, the writer commenting more on the away end at St. James' park and travelling to Newcastle than scoring 3 goals away from home. Oh, and the back cover was an excellent photo-shop of Phil Brown's head on Britney Spears' body with the tag line 'Spit me baby one more time'.
All in all a thoroughly enjoyable read, partly because it is always good to read the thoughts, hopes and fears of fellow fans, but also because it is very obvious that fans of other clubs have the same problems as we do, to a lesser degree on occasion, but evident none the less. On my next visit to the capital of England I will be sure to look out another copy, just for interest's sake - perhaps it will include happy commentary on their recent Champions League victory!