Back in the day, this team held sway and Highbury Stadium saw them play

And we'd watch the magic on display on each "at home" Saturday.

Hard playing, supreme in grace and pace, that Praetorian Guard of players

Were legends of their time and place, confounding all naysayers.

Today, pale shadows of that past, contemporary players fade far too fast;

The English core has since been cast - a pity those times couldn't last.

Each plays today in an inflated bubble, and maybe that's the modern trouble -

While fans with memories watch and dream

Of when their club was a proper team!

...................................................................

My brother-in-law and I have been around long enough to recall the glory days at the Arsenal Football

Club and in his case (a die-hard fan and that much older than yours truly), I really sympathise with

what he and so many others are enduring these days with failure after failure by the current maxi-paid

players that occupy the team's ranks with such ineffectual insolence.  Having sustained a record-

breaking 10-2 aggregate defeat by Bayern Munich and once again exited the Champions League

without reaching the quarter finals, I read of one fan trashing his TV is angry disgust.  I wonder if

he too remembers the days when the likes of Tony Adams, Ray Parlour, Martin Keown and Lee

Dixon put the fear of the Almighty into presumptious attacking forwards.  Now all we see is a

retreating confusion that allows goal after goal from opponents, helped, it must be said, by some

odd decisions from match officials.