HOW’S your week been? As the new Premier League season looms I’ve had a hectic spell, burning the midnight oil in putting together the latest 68-page Gooner Fanzine in time for Arsenal’s first home game of the season a week on Sunday, against Chelsea. 
 
Despite my team and I having plenty of late nights producing our labour of love, which we’re proud to say will hit the streets for its 34th consecutive season in print, I managed to get to Middlesex CCC vs Kent CCC in the one-day cup at wonderful Radlett again.
 
This was followed by a race through south Hertfordshire to get to Meadow Park for Arsenal U23s against a powerful Boreham Wood side last Friday evening. 
 
Despite having a raft of highly rated youngsters, including midfielder (and Gooner Fanzine subscriber) Charlie Patino, the young guns fell to a 4-0 defeat.
 
Last Saturday morning I visited grand old Top Field, one of the most evocative non-league grounds in the country, to cover Arsenal U18s against an experienced Hitchin Town side. 
 
Again the talented teens fell, including one-to-watch Henry Jeffcott (another Gooner Fanzine subscriber), this time 2-0 to Mark Burke’s Canaries. It was then a quick trip across north Hertfordshire to see Stevenage’s first game of their League Two season, against Mark Cooper’s burly Barrow. 
 
It was good to see Alex Revell’s side clinch an opening-day victory in front of more than 2,500 fans, who were happy to be back watching live football.
 
In saying all that, my point here is this. We all love the thrills, spills and bellyaches that the Premier League provides, and we’re all obsessed by one of the most fascinating top-level divisions on the planet. But there is so much more to football in England and across Britain.
 
Whether you’re watching your Premier League team in the flesh this weekend (and why not — for many it will be the first time back for 18 months) or cheering on your side in the pub or at home, don’t forget that there is genuine excitement generated from Championship, League One and League Two sides, not to mention hundreds of non-league sides lower down the pyramid.
 
And that’s without the wonder of charting the rise of talented young players at Premier League clubs when watching academy and youth football. 
 
Yes, the top flight offers tremendous narratives, not to mention top-quality sport, drama and theatre. But please don’t forget that the rich texture of our game and football heritage lies in its strength in depth — from top to bottom.
 
 

Doing women’s football justice

 
The less said about Mikel Arteta’s men losing last Sunday’s north London derby at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the better, from an Arsenal point of view. 
 
Thankfully for Gooners everywhere, Arsenal Women thrashed Spurs Women 4-0 afterwards.
 
The only disappointment was that there were so few there to watch the women showcase their talents. As someone who is a big advocate of women’s football, it’s a real shame that arranging a game before or after the men simply doesn’t work, meaning huge swaths of empty seats. It also happened earlier this month at Ashburton Grove, and at the pre-season tournament the ground hosted back in 2019 as well.
 
So what’s the answer? To be fair Arsenal as a club are big supporters of the women and do all they can to push the game. 
 
It used to be a running joke with me and former boss Joe Montemurro every time I was at one of his press conferences, where, without fail, I’d ask him when the Arsenal Women would next be playing at Ashburton Grove.
 
Joe, normally a gregarious Aussie, would always play a dead bat on such a politically loaded question, essentially saying he’d rather play in front of full houses of 4,000 at Meadow Park than at the men’s empty ground. Of course he relayed the point in far more diplomatic terms than the above, but that was the essence of it.
 
It used to frustrate me as I’d always be of the opinion: “Build it and they will come.” 
 
Well, after two women’s games in a week where they’ve played to practically empty stands — which quite frankly is massively disrespectful to top-quality women’s football and football in general — my attitude has shifted.
 
Players love playing in front of full houses. So why not go back to Boreham Wood, where they’re loved and understood, while the club work out new marketing strategies to draw more fans to watch women’s football.
 
While there are some utterly sexist dinosaurs out there who belittle the game with their repellent, misogynistic, distasteful, ignorant and downright offensive views, I do also believe that away from such pondlife there is a large, untapped pool of fans of men’s football who could be future supporters of women’s football if they were targeted correctly to come along to watch and learn more.
 
I’ll certainly be continuing to bang the drum for women’s football across all my platforms.