"All I Know Is We Are On Our Way"

I yanked my radio headphones out of my ear and craned my neck forwards, convinced I was hearing things at the Arsenal on Saturday. I couldn’t believe the sound of the “Super Nicky Bendtner” chant emanating out from the North-West corner of the ground (from our somewhat ineffective “singing section”).

With this ditty coming on the back of the Dane’s umpteenth glaring miss, at first I wondered if it might be a mickey-taking version (eg. the “Super Pr**k” adaption of the bloke behind me), or perhaps they were extolling another Gunner, since an earlier hapless effort to hit Blackburn’s bovine backside, with Bendtner’s badly tuned banjo had resulted in a chorus of “Robin Van Persie”, to try and encourage Arsène to put our Danish striker out of his misery and bring the Dutchman off the bench.

My incredulity stemmed from the fact that the Arsenal faithful have acquired a reputation for fickle behaviour at home games in recent times. Obviously it helped that we were 2-0 up at this stage and still high on Shava’s glorious first goal, but it made for a pleasant change to hear our crowd doing their bit, trying to prop up Bendtner’s battered confidence, despite tearing our hair out, watching him blow chance, after chance.

I might well be one of Bertie “Big Bollix” Bendtner’s biggest critics, but along with the majority of those present, I recognised that he’d put in an earnest shift. Although he was infuriatingly profligate with so many goal-scoring opportunities, considering the dearth of entertainment on offer at our place of late, the more knowledgeable amongst us were appreciative of the fact that Nicky was getting himself into these positions so frequently. Moreover, I know it was only Rovers, but his woeful finishing aside, I’ve rarely seen our Danish striker looking so sharp.

I’ve a tendency to zone out on the bonehead Gooner begrudgers in our vicinity. Otherwise the “white noise” of all their whingeing would ruin games. But I opened my gob on Saturday, when the Bendtner knocker behind me suggested it was barmy that we were singing his praises, loudly commenting “slagging him off is hardly likely to encourage him to play any better”.

Earlier in the game, when Dowd booked one of the Rovers midfield, this same bigot barked out “you black…..naughty man, you” as if his brain had caught up with his mouth, mid-comment. Evidently the racists haven’t entirely evaporated from our terraces, they’ve merely succumbed to peer pressure.

Perhaps if a few more of us made it be known that it is also not big, nor clever to get on our own players’ backs, it might just have a similar effect and we wouldn’t have so many old-school Gooners questioning whether they’re going to bother spending their hard earned wedge, renewing their season tickets, only to be surrounded by so many people who don’t seem to have a clue what being a “supporter” entails.

Although the overall mood is definitely on the up, after our 4-0 romp against Rovers was reinforced by the result at Villa Park. Knowing how many of my Spurs mates seem to gain more pleasure from the Gunners’ demise, than they do from their own team’s exploits, they will have been squirming between the rock and the hard place of Sunday’s encounter with Villa. The 3 points that raised Spurs up out of the relegation mire must’ve left a bitter after-taste, by fortifying our 4th place.

There can be few finer margins between success and failure than our progress to the last 8 of the Champions League via a penalty shoot-out and it would’ve been a completely different story if we’d skied one of our spot-kicks instead of Roma. Surely the Totti of old would’ve taken advantage of all the time and space afforded to the home side in the Olympic Stadium. Yet our failure to suppress a second-rate Roma was soon forgotten about in the rampant euphoria of the all-important result.

There was plenty of time for reflection, as having ruined Roman dreams of playing in a final on their own pitch, the local Carabinieri expressed their resentment by refusing to let the Gooners go until gone 1.30am. I don’t want to tempt fate before Friday’s draw for the penultimate two rounds of the tournament, but after taking our place along with the best teams in Europe, on the back of such an unimpressive performance, this might lead one to conclude that perhaps, just perhaps our name is on the big-eared prize?

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