h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Arsenal fans like to tell you that they've 'Never been relegated from the top division'. What they don't tell you is that they never won promotion to it, either.

Back in the dim and distant, the Football League decided to increase the number of teams in Division 1 by 2 teams. This meant that 4 teams would need to be promoted from Division 2. However, rather than just promote the teams that finished 3rd and 4th in Div 2, they arbitrarily picked two teams, one of whom was Arsenal, who had finished 6th in Div. 2 that year.

Friends in high places, eh?

BTW, many Tottenham fans, far from suddenly claiming to like the defensive brand of football that George Graham's teams play, are DEEPLY unhappy that a Gooner is in charge of their beloved team.

My sister made me put that last paragraph in.

Let me see, Arsenal get invited to play in the top division and have stayed there ever since? .....seems to me that whoever made that choice got it spot on. Every other team who have entered the top flight by being promoted have been relegated again....

I take your sister would've preferred to get relegated instead of hiring him? Or should Spurs just have sacked George after he won them their first trophy since 1991? Either way Stewart Houston or 'Coneman' as he was irrevently nicknamed at Arsenal is definitely the guy you need. Personally I hope George recovers from his illness and goes off to ruin...err I mean manage Chelsea. After that he can have a bash at West Ham. You read it here first.....

Oh dear Dinsdale, I'm afraid your jealousy-tainted mind has clouded the fact that Arsenal did in fact gain promotion to the top division at the turn of the 20th century before their relegation to division two.

Need I remind you that the 2000/01 season marks the 40th anniversary of the last time Spurs last won something worthwhile ? I'm sure there's some footage of it on the newsreels.

*another Spurs fan drifts through*

Arsenal. Hmph.

'Boring Arsenal'? Why is the author being so modest - surely it was 'Boring, Boring, Arsenal'.
Here's a couple more terrace chants for you lot:
Remember watching other teams playing in the same negative way as the Arse, and singing along to 'Are you Arsenal in disguise?'?
And (thto My Old Man Said, Follow The Van)
My Old Man said, 'Be an Arsenal Fan'/
I said, 'F**k Off, B*****s, You're a C**t'

Funny that I learnt that one as: My old man said be a Tottenham fan...

Still from boring to scoring. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Oh dear Zico, I'm afraid your maths is letting you down. Spurs won the UEFA cup in 1984 - considerably less than 40 years ago. They won it on penalties in the final. Sound familiar?

"...Arsenal did in fact gain promotion to the top division at the turn of the 20th century before their relegation to division two."

Which means that Aresnal fans are talking b******s when they say they've never been relegated from the top division - no change there.

I'm not sure what or who you are referring to but if you actually look at the entry to which you are replying what I have actually said is: 'Arsenal Football Club from North London, England, are the team which has been in the top division of Britain's Football League for the longest uninterrupted period of time.' Nothing about promotion or relegation, just a simple statement of fact. Obviously I can only draw the conclusion that you consider facts to be 'talking b*******'....no surprise there then ...

When I say "Arsenal fans like to tell you that they've 'Never been relegated from the top division'." I am basing this statement on actual conversations with Arsenal fans (Hey, I'm not proud )

Whilst staying in the top division for such a long time is indeed an achievment, what rankles is the complete lack of acknowledgement that they owe the start of it to having friends in high places.

This is the problem with following football. You find that some teams really get your goat - see http://www.h2g2.com/A189272 for further deatils.

I'm a bit lost living where I do (West Sussex), because there are no football teams in the county (unless you count Brighton - snigger). I prefer: Spurs over Arsenal, almost any team over Liverpool (which means I was slightly disappointed when Wimbledon got relegated), I'm not an ABU.

Going back to the article referred to above, I find that I really enjoy Rugby League because I carry no baggage about any team.

Rooting for a particular team is not a problem with football -it is the whole point. Look at the history of the game with roots in one village basically fighting another village with a ball as an excuse. The era of public school fair play certainly developed the game to a semblance of what we know today but taking sides as always been a crucial part of the game. If I watch a park match I will start supporting one side or the other. It is the nature of the beast. By the way had Arsenal been relegated the season after being appointed to the top flight would anyone care? No they wouldn't, so why is it relevent to mention it when saying they have been in the top flight for the longest uninterrupted period of time? The whole point is that they are still there - and still competing for the championship
You could hardly be an ABU living in Sussex, it's a well-known hotbed of support for Manchester United

It's relevant because they never acknowledge that the start of it was incredibly lucky; another epithet that gets applied to them a lot.

It's always mentioned that the Danes only got into the final stages of Euro 92 because the problems in Yugoslavia caused UEFA to throw the Yugoslavians out. I personally forgive them this bit of luck because they acknowledge it and because they beat the Germans in the final (Ha!).

Rooting for a particular team is never a problem. The problem arises when another team that you hate wins anything.

Must be a problem supporting Tottenham then Not something we have to worry about too much at Arsenal....apart from Man U of course
We're more ABUT. Anyone but united or tottenham.

Hey my point is that it doesn't matter how 'lucky' the start was, it's what you do with the break that counts. Would it matter if Arsenal had been relegated the next season ? No it would not. If Denmark had gone on to win the '94 and '98 World Cups and Euro '96 no-one WOULD be mentioning that they only qualified to Euro '92 by default....except maybe disgruntled German supporters . Why? Because their subsequent achievement would have overshadowed the original event. Everyone would be saying Denmark are the best team in world football - and had they achieved that they would be right. The reason their qualification is such a big deal is that they've actually done nothing much since. Something that happened over seventy years ago is hardly relevant to the achievement of staying in the top flight so long....oh but this is just typical Tottenham fan talk...they know their record does not begin to compare with ours so they just nit-pick. You want to claim that winning the UEFA cup was not a minor event but all the Tottenham fans were queuing up to tell us a) The UEFA cup is an insignificant trophy, b) We only qualified by default. They shut up about that when we lost

Just to set the record straight, it's my sister who's the Spurs fan.

It would be stretching a point to call myself a fan of any team, since I've only ever been to one Football League match (Arsenal, as it goes - 1971 v Stoke, 1-0 Eddie Kelly). The team I've seen most of all is England, starting with a 2-2 draw with Argentina in 1974. The last time I saw them was about 3 years ago when they beat Mexico 2-0 in a friendly. It's unbelievably difficult and expensive to get tickets for meaningful England games these days.

My dislike of Arsenal stems from losing a bet on the 1971 Cup Final (I didn't hate Liverpool in those days), and because Charlie George with his stupid, w*nky haircut and his stupid, w*nky goal celebration scored the winner.

My main source of enjoyment these days is watching all the ABUs getting grumpy because Man U win virtually everything. Why I should hate Liverpool because they went through a phase of winning everything but not Man U remains a mystery.

It's obviously something in the air in Sussex, since it is a hotbed of Manu support.

Nothing to do with Arsenal, but a colleague at work was going to the gym last night and was worried about when the football started.

"7.45?" She said, "Oh, I'll only miss the first 15 minutes or so. That's alright."

Only if you're Portuguese.

DAMN!! *knew she missed something*

*races off to Football news to read about it* http://www.footballnews.co.uk./

If you link there they have a flash program that takes you through the stats and analyzes yesterday's game. (It has sound, so be careful if you are at work).

The final whistle's just gone and Steffen Iverson has left me feeling better. The Spanish under-achieve even worse than we do.

Granted, they won the European Championship in 1964, but that was even longer ago than us winning the World Cup.

AND they've even lost to us in a penalty shoot-out!

Incidentally, I prefer http://www.football365.co.uk for my work-time football browsing.

*does the Stefen Iversen dance of joy* Hooray! *is a Spurs fan so struts around a bit*

Personally I thought Thierry Henry's goal more worth a celebration, but I'm biased.

Business as usual last night. Guess who drew Slovenia in the office sweepstake?