Woodgate, Israel and Arsenal

Funny story in the sun today about old Woodgate. Seems he wants to get back together with his ex, BB3 winner Kate Lawler. The couple had originally split up a year after Woody had moved out to Spain due to the strain of a long-distance relationship. It seems Kate may have told him that if he were to move back to England things could be back on....read the amusing last paragraph. Personally, I'd be in favour of him coming here. He's a world class centre back. It would all depend on whether Mr Lewin & co. reckon they could fix him up, or whether he'll be a permanent 'sick note'.

Elsewhere in the Sun, a group of Barca fans gave Chelsea, and especially Mourinhio, a warm welcome. I'm not a fan of Mourinhio, but spitting is a bit much.

As usual Gilberto is talking a better game than playing; Kahn, erroneously, believes he should still be Germany's no.1; and we're on the verge of signing a 15 year old. Ah, good to see we're bringing some more experience to the squad.

Highbury1913.blogspot also seems to have opened up a can of worms with a link to a pro-Palestinian website. It was pretty strong stuff, which seemed to suggest that Arsenal were, essentially aiding and abbeting terrorism through our new links to the Israeli tourist board.

Still, I felt that some of the people who left comments on Highbury1913's page were unnecessarily harsh. He took the link down very quickly: I very much doubt he is a racist merely because he publishes a link in which he, validly, informs his readers of the ridiculous insults and insinuations being thrown at our club by certain organisations.

I'm not someone who thinks that sport and politics can be divided, but I would like to keep football boards about football. I don't think an Arsenal blog is really a place to discuss the nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, I am considering writing a piece about racism and football after the disgraceful incident involving Samuel Eto'o at Zaragoza at the weekend, as I feel this is a political issue that, still, nothing is being done about by Uefa and Fifa, and which is an issue that directly influences football. It is shaming our sport and producing playing conditions in which players can't and should never have to play in. We have to somehow bring more pressure on the F.A.s of countries in which these incidents continue to occur to make them stamp out racism. While I support Eto'o's decision to want to walk off, it did give an awful view of the future: one in which players, not racists are driven out of football. We cannot let this happen.