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Foreign Gooners Honour Local Fans

Soooo, about the foreign fan thing...

I know. I know. You're thinking "oh FFS why, oh why, do we need someone else to weigh in on this tired debate?" and I get that. Truth be told, I hate myself a little for writing about it. Blogging about this feels kind of like jumping into a kiddie pool after the children have been in it all day without getting out for any pee pee breaks. The yellowish water of the foreign supporter debate is warm, smelly and pretty much everyone has pissed in it. So why would I want to jump in? Is it because I like the smell? No. Is it because the warmth feels strangely comfortable? NO! Maybe it's because feeling my just expelled warm pee surround my groin in a cold pool soothes me. We'll see.

First off, I am the dreaded foreign supporter. I'm American. And before you say it, yes, I: caused Gaza, support all cops who shoot innocent people, would love for all lunatics to have an assault rifle, am racist and bigoted. I'm a homophobic, woman hating, gun loving, cowboy boot wearing, pickup truck driving, stars and stripes draped caricature. I'm not - but being American that seems to be what people think of all of us here lately so why fight it? Anyways I do love football. I call it football because you do. If you called it shin bag I'd call it that, although that would be a bit weird. No offense to shin baggers everywhere BTW. I enjoy many sports but something about shin ba... sorry, FOOTBALL, brings you in and gets to your very soul like no other sport. It becomes a part of you and then you become a part of it. If you feel that way too then you are my people...unless you support Chelsea in which case you can piss off... or Tottenham, Liverpool... come to think of it, if you support anyone NOT Arsenal in English football, you too can piss off.

I do sympathize with the ones who don't want foreign supporters/muppets/plastics/tourists or whatever else you call us. You're just being protective of YOUR game. You invented it. It's ingrained in your culture. It is something you can be proud of and call your own. I do get that. Really I do.

I have been exclusively using Apple products since the early days of Apple and when the products started gaining popularity I was at first reluctant to want these late coming newbies into the tight knit community that Apple users were. No bandwagoning grandmas who only wanted a Macbook because the ads said it was easy to use and it will magically load their iPhone with lots of pics of the aforementioned pool peeing grandkids. Apple was my thing not theirs so go away. So I understand you, I think.

BUT, let me just tell you from what I hear and my own experience, we admire you for football. We go out of our way to honour the game you invented and in so doing, we want to honour you. So much so that I used your spelling of that word instead of our u-less version. We envy you and all the American Gooners I know would give body parts and children (not the pool pissers) to be able to have an opportunity to see our club play football every week.

We honour YOU by getting up at crazy hours to see our club play. We honour YOU by spending loads of cash on kits and other merchandise. We honour YOU by becoming red members even though most of us will never get the chance to use it to get tickets. And in so doing, we hopefully honour the beautiful game. YOUR beautiful game. So maybe the next time you're feeling protective of YOUR game take some time to realize that we are 100% in love with something of yours. Be a proud parent and enjoy THAT.

Entrust us to have as much reverence for YOUR game as you do. We promise you we'll make you proud to call us just fellow supporters some day.

Tell us what you think! If you agree, or have a different view, please leave a comment in the comments section or why not write a response or your own article on YouWrite?

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