AFC Season ticket holder and member of AFC mailing list. Generally a positive gooner. DB10 = #legend
North London
Joined February 2011
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Gooner Stoll retweeted
It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Life President Ken Friar OBE.
Since our formation in 1886, there have been many inspirational individuals who have driven our club forward, but no one has had an influence on Arsenal Football Club quite like ‘Mr Friar’ and he leaves an extraordinary life of service to the club as his legacy. One that will surely never be matched.
Rest in peace ❤️
ALT Image of Ken Friar OBE to commemorate his life with the following text: It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Life President Ken Friar OBE. Since our formation in 1886, there have been many inspirational individuals who have driven our club forward, but no one has had an influence on Arsenal Football Club quite like ‘Mr Friar’ and he leaves an extraordinary life of service to the club as his legacy. One that will surely never be matched. Rest in peace.
The lengths people will go to in an attempt to justify $ity’s cheating is unbelievable. It’s almost like they are being paid to publicly defend these crooked cheats….
I watched the F1 film with Brad Pitt the other day, and there’s a moment where his character asks to add something to the car that isn’t really in the rules. The FIA punishes it, but the team can still race with the earlier car. It made me think.
In F1, the best teams live at the edge of the regulations. Sometimes the FIA allows what they’ve found, and sometimes it says that goes too far. Occasionally the rules are rewritten afterwards.
Now, City. I’m not defending them. A commission found they entered into sham agreements and broke the spending limits. A sham is an arrangement that isn’t what it claims to be, so that’s a different thing from using a gap nobody had spotted.
City deny it and will appeal. But I find it useful to ask/reflect on how people inside the club see it.
From their point of view, PERHAPS they believe they were doing what elite competitors do: looking at the rules, finding the limits, challenging interpretations and moving faster than the regulatory system.
From the outside, you might look at that and say, “That’s cheating.” From inside the organisation, they might say, “We found something nobody had thought of.”
If you believe you’ve found a way to bring money in, more or less within the rules (and the commission said it was not in the rules and it was cheating), you might tell yourself you’re just being a sharp competitor.
We are all asking “did City cheat?”. But I find this question interesting too: “how did City come to believe they weren’t?”
And understanding a mindset, or trying to, isn’t excusing it.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Manchester City were found guilty of 114 out of 115 charges by an independent commission. The comparison made is not in the same ball park to the level of rule breaking Man City have committed.
premierleague.com/en/news/472777…
Gooner Stoll retweeted
🗣️ “If you asked Mikel Arteta if he’d swap Arsenal’s forward line for Chelsea’s, he’d swap them. He’s our Rogers, Palmer, and Joao Pedro up there in front of Saka, Havertz, and Eze, he would.”
Gary Neville on Arsenal’s attackers before the match. 🤔
🎥 @SkySportsPL
Gooner Stoll retweeted
"That is something SPECIAL!"
Ainsley Maitland-Niles earns a draw for Everton on his debut with an unbelievable 96th minute strike! 🤯
Gooner Stoll retweeted
Savinho: “Whenever I came to play against Spurs, I always talked to my representatives about the club. When he said the club was interested in me, I was very happy”.
Always start with a joke. Get the crowd on side.
Gooner Stoll retweeted
People arguing against financial regulation in football are out of touch with the reality.
Villa and Newcastle fans want the spending power Arsenal have today without acknowledging what Arsenal had to endure to build it.
For years, Arsenal serviced enormous stadium debt while watching some of our best players leave for wealthier rivals. We were mocked as a “selling club”. Wenger was ridiculed for treating CL qualification as a trophy while competing against clubs with unlimited funds.
Arsenal's response wasn't to demand rules that allowed our owners to bankroll unlimited spending.
We lobbied FFP. We built:
Better recruitment, player development, wage discipline, infrastructure, matchday revenue, consistent CL income, sponsorships, commercial growth, global brand...
Eventually, the stadium burden eased and revenues caught up. Then Arteta arrived and led an elite sporting project
Today Arsenal can spend sustainably while retaining their best players. That's the part people conveniently skip.
And here's another uncomfortable truth: PL clubs fundamentally accept the need for financial regulation. The argument is largely over what those regulations should look like, not whether financial controls should exist at all.
Because if clubs can simply be bought by states or extraordinarily rich individuals and spend whatever they want, you eventually undermine one of the basic principles of competitive sport.
Why spend decades building scouting networks, academies, infrastructure, commercial revenues and sustainable player-trading models if another club can erase that entire competitive disadvantage overnight through unlimited owner funding?
Clubs can be left carrying a cost base their underlying revenues cannot sustain if their owners decides to jumpship. Portsmouth remains an extreme English warning of what can happen when spending and the underlying strength of the club become disconnected.
SCR isn't here to prevent ambition. It's to ensure ambition is built on the strength of the football club, not simply the depth of its owner's pockets.
Gooner Stoll retweeted
Arsenal is one of 2026's biggest stories, climbing to third with brand value up 28% (€1.5bn), on the back of a first Premier League title in 22 years and UCL final run. In the ranking of the world’s most valuable football brands, the Gunners trail only Real Madrid and Barcelona.
🏆 League Cup (2018)
🏆 Premier League (2018)
🏆 Community Shield (2018)
🏆 League Cup (2019)
🏆 Premier League (2019)
🏆 FA Cup (2019)
🏆 Community Shield (2019)
🏆 League Cup (2020)
🏆 League Cup (2021)
🏆 Premier League (2021)
🏆 Premier League (2022)
🏆 Premier League (2023)
🏆 FA Cup (2023)
🏆 Champions League (2023)
🏆 Super Cup (2023)
🏆 Club World Cup (2023)
🏆 Premier League (2024)
🏆 Community Shield (2024)
🏆 League Cup (2026)
🏆 FA Cup (2026)
Ten years. 20 trophies. One Pep Guardiola 🩵
All about a successful relegation battle apparently. We have been wasting our time trying to win trophies. 17th place is where it’s at.
#RobertoDeSpursy
🚨🎙️ #THFC boss Roberto De Zerbi says staying up is a BETTER MOMENT than winning a trophy or a League title: 😳
“When you win a trophy, or when you win a league, yes it’s a very nice moment but when you stay up, it’s BETTER!”
❤️
I’ve never spoken about this publicly, so bear with me.
But I want to articulate why this Premier League win for Arsenal isn’t ’just football’.
In July 2025, my son was born with a rare condition called CDH. It’s a hernia that forms in the diaphragm, which means that the major organs develop in the chest cavity.
This puts extreme pressure on the development of the lungs.
We were told throughout the pregnancy that he had a 30-40% chance of survival.
We had to wait until my partner gave birth to see whether he would make it or not.
He had life saving surgery on day 5 of his life - and we endured a 2 month stay in a hospital in London.
At times we were told that he might not make it through the night - but by the grace of god, and throughout a rollercoaster of ups and downs he survived the intensive care process.
During that time was the start of the Premier League season - and the one escape that I had was Arsenal football club.
We had been at hospital for a month, and hadn’t left the hospital grounds. We were there 24/7.
I felt so guilty leaving him, but made the choice to find a local pub and watch Arsenal’s season opening game against Man United. And for that 90 minutes, I was able to escape the pain and sadness.
Watching Arsenal become the one thing that helped me escape, even for just 90 minutes over the course of those few months.
We needed a name for my boy. Something to signify strength, courage and being brave hearted. We chose Leo.
He was born on the 19th July.
Leandro (Leo - number 19) Trossard’s goal against West Ham. That historic goal. Will forever live in a lot of people’s memories forever. For me, it felt like destiny.
Leo is now thriving. And in his first season as an Arsenal fan, he’s been spoilt.
Football means so much to all of us. This football club means so much to us. It’s more than just a game.
It shapes people’s lives, their character. It’s hope, it’s escape, it’s proof that hard work pays off.
Whatever your reason is for loving this club and loving football - enjoy every single second of this joy.
This one is for you, son.
🦁
