Resistance: n: A force that tends to oppose or retard motion

It’s not easy dealing with resistance in any part of life whether it’s with the family, work or our better halves. It’s certainly no easier or less important when that resistance comes from the football club you love and have followed all your life. Or, even worse, when it comes from your fellow fans!

You go to Italy, Spain and other countries and you have the official websites helping out fan sites, you have flares, 200ft flags, standing, no seating allocation, players participating in fan functions.....a real interaction between the club and its followers.

Premier League football clubs have never been more out of touch with their fans than in recent years and it's mainly because we're expendable as it's a business and if we don't like it, there's always more "customers" to take our place. What they don't appreciate is following a football team isn't a consumer choice. It's not like buying a TV or a pair of shoes. So if we're not satisfied, we'll just take it on the chin and still give them our money.

Our relationship with the club is now very good to the point where if Arsenal fans make a suggestion to us, we can pass it on to the club and either get a response or actually see something really happen from the suggestion! Back in the day, though, it wasn’t that good though. We had knocks and knock backs from both sides of the fence while making a difference in the Arsenal community. Below are some examples of the problems we used to encounter.…..


Giant Flags

A little known fact about giant flags is that F.A. Premier League rules state no club in the country can allow giant flags into their grounds for FA-sanctioned games. As good as they look in Liverpool - and let's face it, they look excellent - they and all other clubs who do the same are breaking the rules. We know how straight-laced Arsenal are and so they do their best to stick to the rules. In our early days, we tried hard to push for fans to have giant flags inside Highbury but to no avail. In spite of this, we are occasionally allowed some of our giant flags for important games. We will look at the F.A. ruling and see if there's any flexibility for the future.


Giveaway Shirts

on Bergkamp day, we had 15,000 Orange t-shirts to give away to the Highbury faithful. At first, we were told we couldn't put them on the stadium's seats in case people started to fight each other in the clamber to get a free t-shirt! But in the end, we reached a compromise and we handed the t-shirts out in the concourses. It went really well and the visual impact was there for all to see which was the goal we were reaching for!
The club liked our idea and the visual impact so much that they used it for three more games - the last game at Highbury, the Champions League final and the first game at The Emirates (suitably, Dennis's testimonial).


North Bank Banners

For those of you with particularly shrewd memories, you may remember there was a period at the turn of the millennium where the North Bank Upper advertising hoardings were empty. Not missing a beat, we researched the matter and discovered that Nike had paid for the space but hadn't actually used it!
We approached the club with a proposal - a set of themed banners. Here's the results of the proposal:
1) "WHL 71" - approved
2) "ANFIELD 89" - approved
3) "OLD TRAFFORD 02" - approved
4) "WHL 04" - approved
5) "VICTORY THROUGH HARMONY" - initially considered too cheesy but eventually approved
6) "ROCKY" - the club wrongfully thought we hadn't asked the Rocastle family first but eventually approved
7) "KINGS OF LONDON 13-4" - the club felt the "4" would upset Chelsea and Spurs and could create a problem, so it was dropped and the rest of the wording was approved. So we just went for "KINGS OF LONDON", not as good as our 1st suggestion, but better than some blank space not being used!

So not a bad result! The club got a lot of positive feedback from fans and liked our idea so much they carried the theme forward to the new stadium; where the club's various honours over the years adorn the upper tier skirting.


Fans' Day

Fans' Day: To their credit, the club made a big push to give something back to the fans by making "Fans Day" one of their final season at Highbury themes. The effort was there but…maybe not the direction! They asked us for input and, for the sake of the success of Fans' Day, we were happy to oblige. Initial ideas from the club included a pub-style karaoke and a full colour song sheet. We knew that the karaoke wouldn't go down well with the old school fans and the colour song sheets containing all established songs (oh ah, Ray Parlour!!) would be sneered at by near enough everyone!

From a fan's point of view, who were the club to dictate what should be sung and how? Especially as the songs come from the fans in the first place. So we did what we could to improve things. We asked if the karaoke songs could be swapped. Maybe "Bejesus" in place of "YMCA" or "Wanky Tottenham Hotspur" for "I Will Survive". Seeing as it's a football match and everything the club agreed and we hosted what became known as "The North Bank Knees Up"! So as you can see, we have had our runs-ins with the club over the years, but in most cases, after the initial "NO", once we have had time to explain our idea's and reasoning around them, the club are much more helpful to them. So much so, that as you can see, our simple ideas are time after time being taken on-board by the club, they then go and take our suggestion, improve on it and then take it onto the next level.


Various resistance from fans

It’s in every football fan’s soul to moan at every given opportunity! Moan about the team not winning and when they do win, moan about one of the players not being quite good enough. Or moan about the atmosphere but at the same time not actually being that bothered about trying to change things. Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan. Why not stand up and make a difference?!
That’s one of the reasons REDaction was set up. If they were giving out prizes for moaning, Gooners would be setting the world stage alight with medals. Here are typical comments made by some fans that haven’t quite warmed to us or haven’t got what we’re all about yet……

“Fair play with what you’re doing but it’s not my kind of thing. (later) Hate all these day-outers though! And why don’t the club lower the price of beer? And why don’t we have a song for the players to run out to?”

“You lot didn’t do them banners in the North Bank! They’ve been there for years! Since at least 2000ish”

“Why do we need you anyway? Arsenal were alright before you lot came along! (later) Tell you what though! That f*cking bloke on the tannoys every match don’t half talk a lot! Why don’t he shut up and let us sing?”

“There ain’t nothing wrong with the atmosphere! You go to Craven Cottage or somewhere and you see how bad it can be. That Pompey lot are loud though!”