carlyluvsunited
03-11-2007, 06:57 AM
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k211/small_carly/handshake.jpg
~~~ Gunners and Red Devils: ~~~
~~~ Two Giants Who Glorify Our Noblest Traditions ~~~
There are no impostors, no passengers, no scuttling "dogs" and no hatchet men
whose brief it is to kick the artists until they weep.
Nor will you find a soul who thinks the best place for the ball is in the sky, unless
you mean smart-weapon curlers into the penalty area, or men who like to shirk
or hide when things get messy.
Sure you might see the odd thespian and hot-head when the top teams in
England square up today at sushi-time in the Far East, but the privilege we share
is to watch two clubs who enshrine the game's noblest traditions.
Sometimes the Premier League repels and appals. Institutionalised disrespect for
match officials is high on a list of stains that also covers diving, rip-off prices and
a value system that would make Klondike look like Trumpton.
But here's the good bit. Arsenal versus Manchester United is a storehouse of all
that's life-enhancing about money-town.
An attacking spirit and an urge to master the ball, instead of treating it like a
cartoon timebomb, will suffuse all 20 outfield players.
This London-Manchester duel may lack the socio-political dynamite of Barcelona
against Real Madrid, but I nominate it as the greatest rivalry in the history of the
English game.
Certainly the post-war years. Jose Mourinho has evaporated like a phantom but
Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson are still strapped into their switchback ride
of 34 managerial confrontations.
Take any stellar moment in the highest division since 1945 and the great teams
have broadly ruled alone. Two free spirits have never collided so entertainingly
over an 11- year spell.
That is the length of Wenger's reign, while Ferguson reaches 21 years in charge
on Monday.
This is the vast back-story to the pair meeting today in first and second place in
the League and chained together on 26 points.
Those imperious Busby Babes and Wolves ruled the Fifties but did either face a
challenger of Arsenal's multinational elegance?
The hallowed Spurs double-winning side of 1961 beat Sheffield Wednesday to the
title.
In the late Sixties and early Seventies, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and
Leeds traded heavy blows while Brian Clough jumped through the ropes with
Derby County.
Later, Liverpool grappled with Clough's Nottingham Forest, with interventions
from Bobby Robson's Ipswich and from Aston Villa.
But three of Liverpool's closest title pursuers turned out to be QPR, Watford and
Southampton.
At no time in that more democratic era were there two sides playing football of
the dazzling quality lavished on us by the lords of the Emirates and Old Trafford.
Wenger and Ferguson are missionaries in a sometimes primitive land where
weaker evangelists would have been boiled in the pot of harum-scarum football.
In an age of defensive rigidity and scurrying energy, neither has compromised his
belief that the object of Association Football is to go out to win games, not to
avoid losing.
Better yet, both have imposed those artistic principles on the whole league:
reshaped the English game in their images.
So if you wanted a single vision to place before a Chinese cabbie or a Kiwi farmer
to justify the extravagant claims made on behalf of England's lopsided league, it
would be the spirit of adventure that seeps out of Arsenal and United when the
gun goes off.
It's baffling that we venerate self-expression at this highest level but go on
encouraging ugliness and physicality across the grass-roots game.
This split-personality expresses itself most damagingly in the England team, in
which there are gifted individuals who, collectively, can never quite escape their
national culture.
Arsenal and United have danced right over this wilderness of quarterfinal exits
and shattered dreams.
They occupy separate rooms in the same school of beauty. United are
ruthlessness married to creativity.
Arsenal's inventiveness is prettier but more fragile. But even that gap is closing.
The paintbrush and the knuckle-duster have acquired equal weight in many of
their performances this autumn.
So when the kettle steams for today's encounter, so too will the neutral's senses
as a side unbeaten in 24 league and cup games host a team who have conceded
only twice in a maximum 24-point haul since they lost 1-0 at Manchester City on
August 19.
Meanwhile, we get to watch world-class talent mature on our grass, in our
arenas, under the gaze of managers who let them know that it's my way or the
highway.
United's Nani, still only 20, is learning quickly how to be the servant of a
philosophy, an ideal, as is Arsenal's Emanuel Adebayor, who has blossomed
outside Thierry Henry's long shadow.
The smart ones know an Old Vic has been built around them: Rooney, Tevez and
the young maestro Fabregas see this truth.
Out of money's chaos comes all this grace, this 11-year extravaganza. Apologies
in advance if we get a brawl and a 0-0 draw.
Click here to join manutdtalk.com and read all breaking news on all things
United !!!
http://manutdtalk.com/forums/register.php
~~~ Gunners and Red Devils: ~~~
~~~ Two Giants Who Glorify Our Noblest Traditions ~~~
There are no impostors, no passengers, no scuttling "dogs" and no hatchet men
whose brief it is to kick the artists until they weep.
Nor will you find a soul who thinks the best place for the ball is in the sky, unless
you mean smart-weapon curlers into the penalty area, or men who like to shirk
or hide when things get messy.
Sure you might see the odd thespian and hot-head when the top teams in
England square up today at sushi-time in the Far East, but the privilege we share
is to watch two clubs who enshrine the game's noblest traditions.
Sometimes the Premier League repels and appals. Institutionalised disrespect for
match officials is high on a list of stains that also covers diving, rip-off prices and
a value system that would make Klondike look like Trumpton.
But here's the good bit. Arsenal versus Manchester United is a storehouse of all
that's life-enhancing about money-town.
An attacking spirit and an urge to master the ball, instead of treating it like a
cartoon timebomb, will suffuse all 20 outfield players.
This London-Manchester duel may lack the socio-political dynamite of Barcelona
against Real Madrid, but I nominate it as the greatest rivalry in the history of the
English game.
Certainly the post-war years. Jose Mourinho has evaporated like a phantom but
Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson are still strapped into their switchback ride
of 34 managerial confrontations.
Take any stellar moment in the highest division since 1945 and the great teams
have broadly ruled alone. Two free spirits have never collided so entertainingly
over an 11- year spell.
That is the length of Wenger's reign, while Ferguson reaches 21 years in charge
on Monday.
This is the vast back-story to the pair meeting today in first and second place in
the League and chained together on 26 points.
Those imperious Busby Babes and Wolves ruled the Fifties but did either face a
challenger of Arsenal's multinational elegance?
The hallowed Spurs double-winning side of 1961 beat Sheffield Wednesday to the
title.
In the late Sixties and early Seventies, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and
Leeds traded heavy blows while Brian Clough jumped through the ropes with
Derby County.
Later, Liverpool grappled with Clough's Nottingham Forest, with interventions
from Bobby Robson's Ipswich and from Aston Villa.
But three of Liverpool's closest title pursuers turned out to be QPR, Watford and
Southampton.
At no time in that more democratic era were there two sides playing football of
the dazzling quality lavished on us by the lords of the Emirates and Old Trafford.
Wenger and Ferguson are missionaries in a sometimes primitive land where
weaker evangelists would have been boiled in the pot of harum-scarum football.
In an age of defensive rigidity and scurrying energy, neither has compromised his
belief that the object of Association Football is to go out to win games, not to
avoid losing.
Better yet, both have imposed those artistic principles on the whole league:
reshaped the English game in their images.
So if you wanted a single vision to place before a Chinese cabbie or a Kiwi farmer
to justify the extravagant claims made on behalf of England's lopsided league, it
would be the spirit of adventure that seeps out of Arsenal and United when the
gun goes off.
It's baffling that we venerate self-expression at this highest level but go on
encouraging ugliness and physicality across the grass-roots game.
This split-personality expresses itself most damagingly in the England team, in
which there are gifted individuals who, collectively, can never quite escape their
national culture.
Arsenal and United have danced right over this wilderness of quarterfinal exits
and shattered dreams.
They occupy separate rooms in the same school of beauty. United are
ruthlessness married to creativity.
Arsenal's inventiveness is prettier but more fragile. But even that gap is closing.
The paintbrush and the knuckle-duster have acquired equal weight in many of
their performances this autumn.
So when the kettle steams for today's encounter, so too will the neutral's senses
as a side unbeaten in 24 league and cup games host a team who have conceded
only twice in a maximum 24-point haul since they lost 1-0 at Manchester City on
August 19.
Meanwhile, we get to watch world-class talent mature on our grass, in our
arenas, under the gaze of managers who let them know that it's my way or the
highway.
United's Nani, still only 20, is learning quickly how to be the servant of a
philosophy, an ideal, as is Arsenal's Emanuel Adebayor, who has blossomed
outside Thierry Henry's long shadow.
The smart ones know an Old Vic has been built around them: Rooney, Tevez and
the young maestro Fabregas see this truth.
Out of money's chaos comes all this grace, this 11-year extravaganza. Apologies
in advance if we get a brawl and a 0-0 draw.
Click here to join manutdtalk.com and read all breaking news on all things
United !!!
http://manutdtalk.com/forums/register.php