A very subjective look into AWFC

Ah yes… the ever clickbatey, unnecessarily long, ambiguous and nowhere near as clever of a blog title as I thought, but you’re here so you might as well just hear me out. This one is especially for all the music fans out there of a certain age… for those that remember Napster and the whole legal battle they had with Metallica. And if you don’t remember, then this might be an interesting yet boring read.

To make a very long story short, back in the early part of the century, a college student created a program with which he could share music with his friends via the internet. Music would be loaded in the computer via CD, made into MP3 and then via Peer to Peer software, files could be compressed and transferred etc… It was revolutionary… and illegal. None of the artists gave their consent and this was all literally copyrighted material which they weren’t allowed to share in the first place. This was a HUGE deal.

Metallica sued them. They felt that they were doing something very illegal, putting up their entire catalog available for free on this new way of sharing music and it was too late… it was everywhere and everyone could download their music without paying a dime. Instead of being hailed as heroes and protectors of copyright and musician’s rights, people saw them and labeled them as greedy, as selfish and of being ungrateful to their fans who got them there in the first place.

But Metallica never ever took legal action for Metallica. We’re talking about a band who is so big that they have an HQ with staff and people working for them around the clock… and they’re a Thrash Metal band… that’s how massive they are. Anyway, the point is that they didn’t need the money. They knew what was at stake. They knew things nobody knew. They saw it and they decided to take all their power, their money, their reputation and put it all on the line, not to go after the several hundred thousand people that were banned from Napster, etc.. they did it for the bands and artists that don’t have money and they knew it would be horrible for them.

Someone had to speak up.

What the hell does this have to do with Arsenal? Well, in a very nuanced way, Metallica once had Dave Mustaine as their guitar player, whom upon leaving Metallica started Megadeth. Megadeth had a song called Set The World Afire and the first line of said song says: “The Arsenal Of Megadeth Can’t Be Rid”

But even though this is one of the reasons why I’m an arsenal fan, this is actually not my point. The connection I will make is via Mikel Arteta’s comments this weekend after the absolute debacle that were the VAR decisions.

When Arteta spoke up, he wasn’t just speaking up for the guys. He was speaking up for the club, for AWFC, for all the clubs in all the leagues that use VAR. He is, in a way, the Metallica of this situation. He saw something unfair and was tired of just taking it and having to put up with it, and he knew what the backslash would be. People don’t need any excuse to talk about Arsenal, pundits just love to hate Arsenal or love Arsenal, It doesn’t really matter. The point is that he was seen as a villain when he’s trying to protect every club. I’m aware that’s just my opinion and I’m drawing these parallels.

By the way, if you’re still reading this and want to get into Metallica let me know. You can’t go wrong listening to Kill Em All, Ride The Lighting or Master Of Puppets, just to get you started. I’m a Ride The Lighting guy myself, and I even have the cover tattooed on me but instead of the electric chair I did an airplane the day after we almost died when a lighting hit our plane. Anyway…….

VAR isn’t a massive part of the women’s game at the moment. It’s a matter of time and money until it does, but let’s just hope that they sort this out real soon in the men’s game and they continue to iron out mistakes and things of that nature so that when it does become part and parcel of the women’s game, it will be at it’s best and most efficient.

The Bristol match was a very good one. Absolutely LOVED Khul and KCC. Lovely to see Beth get a start as I predicted (finally get a prediction right) and overall it was a solid performance. Very pleased for the girls and of course for Viv to get more minutes.

Excited to see Laura and Leah on the team sheets soon, though I’m assuming we’ll have to wait until the new year.

Leicester next for the WSL and here’s to hoping that rivals drop points, miracles happen and we win by 6 goals.

d ❤

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