Morning, all.
Andrew is on the golf course this morning – somewhere out of town that required an early start – so you’ve got me covering today.
I actually used to play a bit of golf when I was a kid. And I was pretty good. Using a set of women’s clubs – Wilson Patty Bergs – I won a couple of school tournaments when I was about 12. This is going to sound ridiculously bourgeois, but the school I was at had a golf course – a sort of pet project of one of the English teachers, who took it upon himself to maintain nine greens around the perimeter of the school grounds.
It was rudimentary stuff – the long jump pit was a bunker, fairways existed in name only, and classroom buildings served as backstops for overhit balls. In summer, you could scuff a shot and watch it bobble 100 yards across the cricket square and count it as decent; in winter, it would get swallowed by the long grass of the football pitch immediately. It was part crazy golf, part pitch-and-putt. Ambition wasn’t rewarded; know-how was. On the final hole, barely 80 yards long, you could use a wood – just not for distance. The trick was to keep the ball low and ping it off a four-foot wall to bounce it onto the green. Very satisfying when it came off.
Anyway, in my final year, with a fair few of the school watching, I was leading the ‘Summer Open’ by two shots with only a couple of holes to go when my paired opponent – the only one who could catch me – burst into tears. His name was Henry, a really nice guy, and he really, really wanted to win. I suddenly felt spectacularly sorry for him; seeing him sad completely took the shine off my impending victory. So I shanked a couple of balls, made a mess of the last hole on purpose, and let him win.
This was, it’s fair to say, quite out of character. I was usually a pretty bad loser, the type to smash tennis racquets in disgust at a fluffed point – but Henry was delighted, and watching him collect the trophy while I received a pack of Titleist balls as consolation felt like a relief. I was genuinely happy for him.
I maybe didn’t realise it at the time, but my relationship with golf, and playing sport in general, never really recovered from that.
I clearly lacked a killer instinct. And without it, you don’t win. Once you realise you can live without winning – that personal glory doesn’t actually matter that much to you – your motivations for playing start to shift. And once that creeps in, it’s hard to get it back. You can’t flick a switch and suddenly care about winning again. And yes, in acknowledging this, I recognise I’ll never get a call from Jake Humphrey (I shall live).
I think that’s part of why I care so much about Arsenal doing well. Supporting them scratches the competitive itch I never really had the nerve to indulge myself. I can live without winning, but I don’t want them to. I want Arsenal to have the killer instinct I lack – to be the version of me that never shanked those shots, never eased off, never flinched.
I chuckled listening to Leandro Trossard explain on Monday that his unrelenting will to win is why he so often comes across as grumpy:
“When I lose a game, I can get quite upset. I just have the mentality I want to win everything, if it’s football or not, if it’s games at home where I play with my family, my kids, whatever… that’s just my personality, and I think nothing is wrong with that.”
On one level, that behaviour doesn’t resonate with me at all (I’m quite capable of being grumpy for no reason). On the other hand, when Arsenal lose, I’m miserable – and to those around me who don’t care, my reaction is completely alien. All of which is to say, I wholeheartedly support Leo’s kids taking a pounding at Monopoly if it keeps our man in the zone on matchdays.
Thankfully, losing games appears to be anathema to this current crop of players. After three years of finishing second, they could be forgiven for losing motivation, but instead, they’re using past pain to drive them forward. Every tackle by Big Gabi feels personal. Every charge forward by Declan, likewise. The momentum they’ve built in recent weeks has been years in the making, and it leaves me, as a fan, torn between enjoying the moment and dreading it all falling apart.
Maybe it’s just self-preservation, that little voice that says, “Don’t get carried away”. But it’s hard not to when every week brings another record, another reminder that this team are doing something special. I might not have the killer instinct myself, but I know it when I see it – and right now, Arsenal have it in abundance. Long may it continue.
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Blimey, that was all a bit self-indulgent, wasn’t it?
As you’ve probably guessed, there’s not a great deal going on news-wise. The more routine the wins, the less there is to chew over between games. If anything does crop up, we’ll cover it on Arseblog News.
In the meantime, Arseblog has once again been nominated for Best Fan Media (aka Best Fran Merida) at this year’s FSA Awards. Awkwardly, after spending half this post claiming that winning means nothing to me, I’m now going to invite you to vote for us.
It’s our 13th nomination in 14 years, and we’re genuinely chuffed every time. From the whole team, a big thanks in advance for your support.
Right, that’s enough from me. We now wait, with bated breath, to hear how Andrew fared on the golf course…
