Generation Gap

Left: George Graham, Arsenal manager 1986-95;

right, Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager since 1996

Among the teams that I root for, there is a distinct generation gap.

Not with all of these teams. Some are currently in a condition such that they're roughly where they were when I began rooting for them.

The Rutgers football team is in rebuilding mode. Aside from the Greg Schiano years of 2005 to 2011, they've always been in either rebuilding mode or "The good times are soon to come" mode.

The New York Red Bulls are pretty much where they've always been: Good, but not quite good enough to win a league championship.

The New Jersey Devils are well into the rebuilding process, and looking good. People who became fans after the 2004-05 lockout, who don't remember the 1995, 2000 and 2003 Stanley Cups, are experiencing what those of us who became fans at the beginning, in 1982, felt in the period from 1988 to 1994, just before they got really good. So there's no problem of perception there. And those of us who do remember the good times, and the bad times before that, have no problem with welcoming the new fans... Although their fascination with Ric Flair and his "Woooooooo!" is very disturbing.

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The problems are with the New York Yankees and Arsenal Football Club. The fans whose Yankee experience has been 1996 to the present did not previously see the Yankees as ordinary as they were from 2013 to 2016.

Up until the acquisitions that brought in Neil Walker to play 2nd base and Brandon Drury to play 3rd base, we had big holes at those positions because of general manager Brian Cashman's moves. The younger fans were sure that Cashman's trades to bring in all those prospects in July 2016 would pay off.

But those of us who remember the 1980s know better. I'm still waiting for Damaso Garcia, Steve Balboni, Hensley Meulens and Clay Parker to pan out.

This isn't the same kind of myopia that lead people to believe that Michael Jordan, and now LeBron James, were better basketball players than Wilt Chamberlain; that Wayne Gretzky, and now Sidney Crosby, were better hockey players than Gordie Howe; and that a string of quarterbacks, leading up to Tom Brady, were better than Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana. It's a different kind of myopia.

I don't trust prospects. I trust proven major league players. Maybe, someday, some of those prospects will come good. But I want to win the World Series this year. And I refuse to count on Gleyber Torres, Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, and the rest. As the old saying goes, You go to war with the army you have.

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And then there's The Arsenal. They're not the only English "football" "club" that has fans who are "against modern football."

They want it like it was. Cheap tickets, to watch players who show passion for their club, which is a club with ambition.

Okay, let's break it down. First of all, it's not a club. It hasn't been since the team went professional in 1893. Besides, clubs were for gentlemen. Many of those objecting to what's going on have not been conducting themselves like gentlemen.

Now, as to the price: According to the original British film version of Fever Pitch, released in 1997 (not the Red Sox-themed American remake that came out in 2005), in the 1988-89 season, you could buy unreserved seats at the old Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, for "seven quid."

Given the British rate of inflation, £7.00 then is about £18 today -- at the current exchange rate, around $25, which would hardly be an unreasonable price for a major league sporting event. Indeed, in 1988, you could get a seat in Main Level Reserved (back rows of the lower level) at the old Yankee Stadium for $8.00, or about $16.63 now.

Today, the accompanying level seats would be $90 at Yankee Stadium, and at the Emirates Stadium to watch The Arsenal, £56.50, or about $79. That's nuts -- or daft, as they would say over there. You might even say it's garbage -- or rubbish.

But here's what that £56.50 gets you today: A stadium that is new, clean, comfortable and easy to get to. Now, by the standards of the aforementioned 1988-89 season, in which Arsenal dramatically won the title of the old Football League Division One, Highbury was very convenient in terms of public transit access. And it was an architectural marvel.

The East Stand entrance of Highbury, built 1936

But it was still a stadium whose East and West Stands were built in the 1930s (the sport was first played at the site in 1913), and whose ends were rebuilt in 1989 (South, the Clock End) and 1993 (the North Bank), respectively.

And before the 1989 season's Hillsborough Disaster, resulting in the inquiry known as the Taylor Report, which mandated all-seater stadiums, most ends at soccer stadiums in Britain had no seats. Just railings to lean on. You could be jammed in, with no way out to get to the bathroom or a concession stand. Hence the crushes at some stadiums in which people got hurt -- sometimes even, as in the case of Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield for the 1989 FA Cup Semifinal, killed.

Highbury's North Bank, before the 1993 redevelopment.

No seats. All standing.

And even if you didn't get hurt or killed, you were standing. What if your legs were hurting, as mine often are? And what if you're short, and the guy in front of you was tall? You'd have been outta luck, Jack. Arsenal midfielder Santi Cazorla, officially (perhaps generously) listed at 5-foot-6, would not have wanted to get stuck behind 6-foot-6 centreback Per Mertesacker on the North Bank. 

Okay, the concession thing isn't as much of an issue. Soccer matches last 90 minutes, plus halftime, and stoppage time at the end of each half. Count the time spent getting in and out, and we're talking about 2 1/2 hours. That is one thing that hasn't changed in 30 years. So you go to the pub for lunch and a couple of drinks before the match, and back for dinner and an unspecified number of drinks afterward. It's the British equivalent of a tailgate party.

But the bathroom thing... With as many as 5,000 fans standing there, many is the stadium whose end was turned into a river of piss, cascading down the stepped terrace. You didn't wear new sneakers to a soccer game. Sorry, forgot to speak English there: One does not simply wear new trainers to the football. It is folly. With 10,000 men, many with weak bladders, you could not do this.

As for ambition: The George Graham era began in the 1986-87 season with winning the League Cup, and was highlighted with League titles in 1989 and 1991, the unprecedented "Cup Double" (winning the FA Cup and the League Cup in the same season) in 1993, and the now-defunct European Cup Winners' Cup in 1994.

But it's also worth noting that Graham's '93 Cup Double team finished 10th in that 1st season of the revamped top flight, under the new name of the Premier League. In 1995, they finished 12th, in a season when Graham was fired, not for losing -- The Arsenal were 14th at the time of the firing -- but for financial shenanigans.

The 4th place that people now claim isn't good enough for current manager Arsène Wenger? Only twice did Graham top that, in his 2 title seasons. Making the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League isn't enough? Graham only made the tournament, then known as the European Cup, once.

Okay, it should have been twice, but UEFA's 1985-90 ban on European clubs kept Arsenal out of the 1989-90 competition. Not that they would have beaten the mighty AC Milan out anyway. But in 1991-92, after getting a draw in the away leg in Lisbon, Portugal, Arsenal hosted Benfica, who were far from their 1960s best, and got humiliated at Highbury. That was literally the biggest game Graham ever managed, and he blew it. Wenger has won many games that big, and bigger.

The fans who came of age in the Graham years -- now running from about age 35 to 50 -- don't like the new breed of Arsenal fans who came along with Wenger in the late 1990s, and especially after the opening of the Emirates in 2006, saying they don't have the "passion."

Really? Particularly if they came along after 2006, as I did -- I was old enough to have been an Arsenal fan even before the Graham era, had I grown up right outside London instead of right outside New York, but I didn't even know Arsenal existed before the move from Highbury to the Emirates -- then they haven't known the same level of success, yet they stick with the team. That shows passion. 

In contrast, those same fans, old enough to remember the mid-1990s, or the mid-1980s, who bemoan Wenger's recent record, have experienced actual "midtable mediocrity" by The Arsenal, including under Graham.

As one fan put it on Twitter (I'll leave her name out of it):

This continual criticism of how "new” fans support.

You were once a new football fan and you did things differently to the people wearing caps and rosettes and swinging rattles that came before you. It's evolution of the game. You not liking it doesn't make it wrong.

She has a point, but I think there's more to it than that. I think if the "new fans" agreed with them, wanting Wenger out, the Graham-era fans wouldn't care about the rest of it.

The even older ones, from the days of the management of Terry Neill -- 1976 to 1983, including the 1979 FA Cup, now in their late 40s and their 50s -- don't dismiss the new fans so much. Nor do the even older ones, whose introduction to Arsenal was under Bertie Mee, 1966 to 1976, including the 1970 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the 1971 League and FA Cup "Double."

These fans who came of age under Graham, and his players like Tony Adams, Paul Merson and Ian Wright, are like basketball fans who can't imagine that there were better players than Jordan and LeBron. Or hockey fans when discussing Gretzky and Crosby. Or football players with Brady. (Tom, not 1970s Arsenal great Liam Brady.) For these Arsenal fans, even earlier Aresnal stars like Cliff Bastin (1930s), Joe Mercer (late 1940s, early '50s) and Charlie George (early 1970s) are just names, with no meaning. (At least George and most of his '71 Double teammates are still alive.)

A big part of the argument of the Graham generation is that the game has changed so much from Wenger's glory days of 1998 to 2006 that his achievements are no longer relevant. There is some evidence for that, although it's hardly conclusive.

But if you accept this as true, then how can Graham's achievements of 1987 to 1994 possibly be relevant? Or more relevant than Wenger's achievements? Graham's are even further back in time. Hasn't the game changed more from 1994 to 2018 than it has from 2006 to 2018? And hasn't a big part of the change from 1994 to 2006 been brought about by Wenger himself?

If you believe that Wenger's Invincible season of 2004, and his Double seasons of 1998 and 2002, are no longer relevant, then what possible relevance could Graham's 1989 and 1991 League titles have? What possible relevance could Graham's 1994 Cup Winners' Cup have? Especially given that the Cup Winners' Cup, Europe's 3rd-tier trophy, essentially its "League Cup," no longer even exists! (It was folded into the UEFA Cup in 1999, before that tournament was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League in 2010.)

Here's Graham's 1990-91 starting XI, which lost only 1 League game all season (away to Chelsea), on the left; and Wenger's 2003-04 Invincibles on the right:

David Seaman - Goalkeeper - Jens Lehmann
Lee Dixon - Right Back - Lauren Etame Mayer (used only his 1st name)
Tony Adams - Centreback - Kolo Toure
Steve Bould - Centreback - Sol Campbell
Nigel Winterburn - Left Back - Ashley Cole
David Rocastle - Right Wing - Freddie Ljungberg
Michael Thomas - Central Midfield - Patrick Vieira
Paul Davis - Central Midfield - Gilberto Silva
Anders Limpar - Left Wing - Robert Pires
Paul Merson - Forward - Dennis Bergkamp
Alan Smith - Forward - Thierry Henry

All 22 of these guys were, at the least, quality players. Given a time machine and the choice of whether to take them at those specific points in time, I certainly wouldn't turn any of them down for the 2017-18 Arsenal team. So choosing one over another is by no means an insult to the one not chosen.

Goalkeeper is, for all intents and purposes, even. Centreback (I'm using the British spelling) is split, although I could have had Kolo over Bould and Sol over Adams, and given Wenger's team the edge at both positions. That would be a minor cheat, but a cheat nonetheless.

Graham's team has the edge at right back and right wing, but not by much in either case. Wenger's team has a slight edge at left back, a noticeable edge at left wing, a big edge in central midfield, and regardless of whether you put Henry or Bergkamp against them, it's an edge over Smith and a big one over Merson, even if he's not hungover.

So that's 7 advantages for Wenger, 3 for Graham, and 1 even. But let's take it deeper than that. Given what we now know, how would you judge Graham's best team ever against Wenger's current team, his worst in terms of where they are likely to be at the season's conclusion?

David Seaman - Goalkeeper - Petr Cech
Lee Dixon - Right Back - Hector Bellerin
Tony Adams - Centreback - Laurent Koscielny
Steve Bould - Centreback - Shkodran Mustafi
Nigel Winterburn - Left Back - Nacho Monreal
David Rocastle - Right Wing - Aaron Ramsey
Michael Thomas - Central Midfield - Granit Xhaka
Paul Davis - Central Midfield - Mesut Özil
Anders Limpar - Left Wing - Alex Iwobi
Paul Merson - Forward - Henrik Mkhitaryan
Alan Smith - Forward - Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Graham has a gigantic edge in goal, because Seaman was just coming into his own in 1991, while Cech is washed-up. But there's not as big an edge at right back as you might think, especially given Bellerin's speed. Adams has the edge on Koscielny now, because Koscielny has played hurt. A healthy Koscielny is at least as talented as a sober Adams (and Adams was hitting the sauce pretty hard at the time). Mustafi has gotten a lot of stick, but he's a World Cup winner. At his best, he's better than Bould. Wenger has a slight edge at left back.

As good as Rocky Rocastle was, Rambo is roughly his equal. The advantage that Thomas has over Xhaka is only due to Xhaka having struggled this season, and while Davis was good, Özil is one of the best players the game has ever seen. Iwobi looked like a great prospect last season, but has really struggled in 2017-18, so Limpar has the edge. Mkhi is much better than Merse. And Smudge and Auba are about even.

So that's 5 positional edges for 1991 Graham, 4 for 2018 Wenger, and 2 evens.

I would take my chances with the current bunch.

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To make matters worse, there are fans who claim to have supported Arsenal since long before Wenger became manager, and say they've never seen such a poor squad.

The ones who became fans in the Wenger years have never known an outside-the-CL season until now, and instead of being grateful for that, they are spitting blood at the man who made them Arsenal fans. For no good reason.

The ones who became fans before Wenger are saying they've never seen it so bad. And that is a very easily proven lie.

The first group is ungrateful and stupid. The second group does know better, yet they still spread this easily proven lie.


They didn't learn one of the lessons of watching Donald Trump, which is, If you're going to lie, don't make it an easy one to prove.

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Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 5, this Saturday night, at 7:00, home to Minnesota United. They have also advanced to the Semifinal of the CONCACAF Champions League, against Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente, a.k.a. "Xolos." They will play Club Deportivo Guadalajara, a.k.a. "Chivas," on April 3 at Red Bull Arena and April 10 at Estadio Chivas, in Jalisco, outside Guadalajara, Mexico.

Days until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: 7, next Tuesday, at Sahlen's Stadium in the Raleigh suburb of Cary, North Carolina. Then, on May 28, there will be a game at the Philadelphia Union's stadium in Chester, against Bolivia. And then there will be a trip to Europe, to play Ireland in Dublin on June 2, and France in Lyon on June 9. These 3 games should have been warmups for the World Cup. Alas...

Days until Opening Day of the 2018 Major League Baseball season: 9, a week from this Thursday night, March 29, as the Yankees open away to the Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees now have Brandon Drury, who can hit major league pitching and can play either 2nd base or 3rd base; and Neil Walker, who can hit and play 2nd base. So general manager Brian Cashman has filled the holes. We are ready to go for Title 28.

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: 11, a week from this Saturday night, against the New York Islanders at the Prudential Center. They won't play the New York Rangers again until the last week of the regular season, on Tuesday, April 3, at the Prudential Center. They won't play the Philadelphia Flyers again during the regular season, although a Playoff matchup is possible.

Days until The Arsenal play again, 12, on Easter Sunday, at 8:30 AM our time, a Premier League game, home to Staffordshire club Stoke City. Arsenal have advanced to the Quarterfinal of the UEFA Europa League, having beaten Italian giants AC Milan, and will play Russian club CSKA Moscow, the club whose sports teams were once sponsored by the Soviet Red Army. 

Days until the Yankees' 2018 home opener: 13, on Monday afternoon, April 2, against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series begins: 21, on Tuesday, April 10, at Fenway Park.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": 46, on Saturday afternoon, May 5, home to New York City FC. Their 1st game against the Philadelphia Union will be on Saturday night, May 26, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison. Their 1st game against the New England Revolution will be on Saturday night, June 2, at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Their 1st game against D.C. United, and their 1st game ever at the new Audi Field, will be on Wednesday night, July 25.

Days until the next World Cup kicks off in Russia: 86, on June 14. Under 3 months. But the U.S. team won't be playing. At least now, Donald Trump doesn't have to choose, and can root for his favorite country, the host nation, Russia.

Days until the 2018 trading deadline, after which we won't have to fear Yankee general manager Brian Cashman trading any proven good players for "prospects": 133, on Tuesday, July 31. A little over 4 5 months.

Days until the next North London Derby (after this one): Unknown, but not until next season. The Premier League season opener will be on Saturday, August 11, but you never see a derby on the opening weekend. So, more than 144 days.

Days until September 2018 roster call-ups, when we can finally start to expect seeing most of these wonderful "prospects" that Yankee general manager Brian Cashman wanted: 165. A little over 5 months.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 165, on Saturday, September 1, home to Texas State University. 

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: Unknown. The 2018 schedule hasn't been released yet. But the season opener is usually on the 1st Friday in September. that would be September 7, which is 171 days from now.

Days until the next Congressional election, when we can elect a Democratic Congress that can impeach and remove Donald Trump from the Presidency: 231, on November 6. Under 8 months.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State game: 242, on Saturday, November 17, at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving high school football game: 247, on Thursday, November 22. A little over 8 months.

Days until a Democratic Congress can convene, and the impeachment process can begin: 290, on Thursday, January 3, 2019. A little under 10 months.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Mariano Rivera: 310, on January 23, 2019. A little over 10 months.

Days until the next Women's World Cup kicks off: 445, on June 7, 2019, in France. A little over a year, or a little under 15 months. The U.S. team, as 3-time and defending Champions, has, as usual, a better chance than the men's team would have had in 2018 anyway.

Days until my 50th Birthday, at which point I can join AARP and get discounts for travel and game tickets: 640, on December 18, 2019. Under 2 years, or a little under 21 months.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Derek Jeter: 675, on January 22, 2020. A little under 2 years, or a little over 22 months.

Days until the next Summer Olympics begins in Tokyo, Japan: 859, on July 24, 2020. Under 2 1/2 years, or a little over 28 months.

Days until the next Presidential election, when we can dump the Trump-Pence regime and elect a real Administration: 962, on November 3, 2020. Under 3 years, or under 32 months.

Days until Liberation Day: 1,040, at noon on January 20, 2021. Under 3 years, or exactly 34 months. Note that this is liberation from the Republican Party, not just from Donald Trump. Having Mike Pence as President wouldn't be better, just differently bad, mixing theocracy with plutocracy, rather than mixing kleptocracy with plutocracy.

Days until the next Winter Olympics (after the current one in Pyeongchang, Korea) begins in Beijing, China: 1,417, on February 4, 2022. Under 4 years, or a little under 47 months.

Days until the next World Cup for which the American team will be eligible is scheduled to kick off: 1,712, on November 21, 2022, in Qatar. Under 5 years, or about 56 months. The charges of corruption against Qatar may yet mean that they will lose the tournament, in which case it will be moved to a nation where it would not be too hot to play it in June and July.