At the very end of last month, I was hit by a particularly nasty bout of glandular fever. For at least a week, I was barely able to sleep, eat, drink, move around, or do much more than languish in bed feeling sorry for myself. In short, I had quite a bit of spare time during the day and an avenue of possibilities to explore in the art of killing time.

Whilst we at arsenalfootball.co endorse always being as productive as possible and, if you end up suffering from such an illness, would advise reading books, writing letters to lost friends, debating with oneself as to which of the 2002-03 and 2004-05 Arsenal seasons produced the most attractive football etc., even the most disciplined of characters become bored after more than 18 hours of this kind of thing.

One of my own solutions to this problem was trawling through hours of old Arsenal footage on YouTube; specifically, matches and compilations from the “golden era” of Arsène Wenger’s reign as manager, i.e. from his arrival at the club until the 76th minute of the 2006 Champions League final. The various sides across these ten years produced some incredible football which—although it should have yielded a couple of extra league titles, a few cups and, of course, at least one or two European triumphs—has largely been preserved online as an excellent means of passing the time*.

Arsenal Fans’ Fondness for Media

Seemingly more than any other group of supporters in the world, Arsenal fans have an exceptional penchant for uploading videos and highlights, creating compilations, and generally being active on social media. Other teams have their share of fans who do this kind of thing—any club with a large, worldwide fanbase will have enough of a presence online to keep themselves entertained—but, for better or worse, nobody does social media quite like Gunners fans (just ask anyone who’s tried to make a balanced online poll).

This can be problematic. Sometimes, particularly after a defeat, one simply wants to switch off from it all, pretend Arsenal don’t exist, and do something, anything, else. This is made a little bit difficult by the fact that one’s entire social media feed is taken up by calls for Arsène Wenger to be sacked (or worse), videos of supporters yelling soon-to-be immortalised insults either at each other or figures within the club (“you should be ashamed of yourself, Gazidis“), or even, God forbid, Piers Morgan trying to speak coherently about football.

Even when these wounds have started to heal, the less enjoyable moments are still preserved online forever. I sometimes find myself unable to resist re-watching the 2006 Champions League final out of sheer masochism, hoping that Thierry Henry will take one of those chances to make it 2-0 or that Samuel Eto’o will be ruled offside. Perhaps if I watch it again, Gael Clichy won’t give away that stupid penalty at St Andrew’s. And, of course, even the most agonising of defeats spawn brilliant individual performances which are preserved in the shape of compilation videos. Like it or not, the most painful of moments are here to stay.

Killing Time

Regardless, there is still plenty of good content to enjoy from extended highlights and even uploads of entire matches, to player compilations dating back decades (if you’re a fan of Thierry Henry, for example, channels like this will keep you entertained for days), to refined, artistic videos of players past and present (and even more ironic “tributes”). There is a seemingly boundless amount of footage. At one point, at a real loose end, I even found myself going through Wikipedia pages of past Arsenal seasons, looking for—positive—results I did not remember, and searching for whatever highlights and goals I could find. Rarely was I disappointed, if a little despondent at how sad my life was becoming.

Even the official YouTube channel serves up time-wasting opportunities. With its daily interviews, live streams, compilation videos and the like, there is usually something watchable which can be use to pass the time. One of the better features is the “Rapid Fire” segment, where players ask each other questions which are not usually particularly amusing in their own right, but provide moments such as David Ospina trying to pronounce ‘eggs’ and Carl Jenkinson giving an insight into the life of Mitch the tortoise. The absolute highlight, however, has to be any occasion in which Santi Cazorla has been involved with “UnClassic Commentary”. This has to be seen to be believed.

Certainly, there are few better teams to support than Arsenal if one has too much time on one’s hands. The YouTube binge of those couple of days spent languishing at least served as a reminder that this team has provided plenty of memories over the years, the vast majority of which can be enjoyed forever thanks to fans’ creativity and superhuman dedication to making content.

*NB: Do not try to watch any of the present-day Arsenal, as this is not an enjoyable means of passing the time unless you support another team, and is likely to cause unnecessary stress.

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