The Allegory of Grimbo: A new life and the new Arsenal
It’s a scary thing, change. It can offer renewal, but just as easily it can offer destruction which makes many resistant to it, while others lust for it…personally I’ve learned to just go with the flow because change is inevitable and the harder you fight it, the more it hurts. I’ve changed a lot since I last wrote on the old version of this blog, as has the Arsenal…it’s been a long time since anyone burned an RVP10 jersey and that’s the last thing I remember writing about. In the interim I’ve evolved into what I am today; a rookie filmmaker with a bonkers idea of riding around America on a motorbike teaching veterans how to grow medical cannabis to treat PTSD and help slow the 20+ veterans that are taking their lives every day, oh, and who wants to recruit American Gooners around the country to help out. Now, I know Tim’s writing is eccentric (he’s even better in person) but I’ll bet you never thought you’d read that sentence on an Arsenal blog eh? But before we get to that, the likelihood is that your eyebrows are either tightly knitted over your forehead at the moment pondering the question of who the hell this Grimbo chap is…or if you remember me…well let’s face it, you’re still wondering the same thing just with a hint of ‘where have you been?’
The first age of Grimbo…the invention
My name’s actually Matt Grimshaw and for quite some time I was known for monstrous posts such as this on the old version of 7amkickoff as my pen name; “Grimbo” a nickname that’s followed me around for years and a simple disguise that allowed me to post without having to sweat about my work reputation getting dented by a chance discovery of a post full of ‘fucks’, however, that was a long time ago and Grimbo’s no longer strictly necessary. I’m actually a Brockley boy by birth (yeh, Saaaf Lahndan mate) and went to the same Primary School as Rocky & Wrighty: Turnham Juniors, something I only discovered by watching the documentary about them last year. Despite my close proximity to greatness, a complete lack of football fans in my family meant I was a slow starter in falling for the beautiful game. My AFC support started in secondary school but the real conversion to Goonerism was at the hands of my 6th Form buddy Jacques – himself a 3rd generation season ticket holder from a line of maniacally obsessive Mile End Gooners. But even then I wasn’t what you’d call ‘fanatical’ – that happened when I moved halfway around the planet in the summer of 2003.
The year before I’d married an American and in the summer that saw Cesc & Mad Jens join, I was transferring the publishing division I worked for from London to its new American parent company HQ in San Francisco. When I first got here I was ‘Billy no-mates’ for at least two years and so following the Arsenal was really a lifeline in those early months, the joys of 2003/4 kept me afloat even though I was forced to drive ridiculous distances to watch games not available on my cable provider. Arsenal became a lifeline to my identity as a Londoner and football became my sole passion and obsession for many years while I rebuilt a social base. I made the bulk of my friends playing on 2 weekend teams, indoor and outdoor, pick-up, league – I didn’t care I just played my socks off 2, 3 sometimes 4 times a week. I lived, breathed and ate football…and I enjoyed using this platform as a place to rant about the club I loved and for it time it was good.
The second age of Grimbo…the downfall
Then in 2008 as this new site got started it all started going wrong…three years after I’d co-founded a small publishing firm, the economy took a big shit on a publishing industry that was fast being made irrelevant by the internet and suddenly, from publishing looking like a solid career choice a decade earlier, I now faced becoming the 21st Century equivalent of a Detroit auto worker. Then a sudden death in my wife’s family began to pull apart my personal life. In the summer of 2009, it got worse: I discovered my missus had been having an affair with my best friend. Basically life turned into a cheesy soap opera for the next 9 months during which time I moved out of Silicon Valley 80 miles north to Marin and a much slower pace of life with far cooler temperatures (it’s the fog). At the same time, the thing I’d come to rely on for happiness was also coming off the rails: The dismantling of the Invincibles was followed by the move to the Emirates and the youth investment policy that produced some of the most mesmerizing applications of Wengerball I’d seen, but which consequently turned our first team into a shopping cart for bigger clubs…and then came Man City and the money. For the both of us, all bets were seemingly off.
Settling in the North Bay was how I came across the Bay Area Gooners at Maggie McGarry’s in San Francisco’s North Beach neighbourhood. I found a home there for many years and made many friends who’d meet up at daft hours of the morning to drink & sing along with the Arsenal…and for a couple of years things levelled out. I met a new love, I started playing again for the awesomely named “West Tam Utd” (named after the local mountain) and although work wasn’t great, it was stable and I had hope that it’d turn around. It didn’t. After five years of struggling it folded in the spring of 2013 taking pretty much any plans I had for retirement with it… Finding yourself at the more unfashionable end of your 30’s without a pot to piss in and nothing to show for 15 years of graft is possibly the most sobering experience of my life…not even my job title survived the death of print publishing, but the funny thing about adversity is that it can reshape your thinking and steel your resolve should the right opportunity show itself…and for me it was a phone call from an old contact who needed a kickstarter project managed.
The third age of Grimbo…the rebirth
I can’t remember when I abandoned the search for what I wanted to be when I “grew up” but I know I was young when I realised my parents couldn’t afford to take me kart/bike racing (F1 & MotoGP were first loves). Other than a love of racing I never felt uncomfortable choosing a career path; all of them looked about as interesting as a napkin folders convention and I jealously watched those that had the direction wondering what it would be like to just know what you wanted to do…not once did it occur to me that ‘all’ it would take was; a different country, the complete collapse of my planned future and the small matter of 38 years, to work out that I want to be a documentary filmmaker. The moment it hit me is clear as a bell – I was editing video for the campaign at 3am when I paused and asked myself; “what the fuck are you doing work for at THIS time of the morning?” and it hit me: It wasn’t work. I liked it, no…I loved it! Here was something it’s possible to get paid to do, that didn’t feel like a job. The knowledge was a revelation and despite the little setback of the kickstarter campaign tanking quite spectacularly, I’ve been doing it ever since as a freelancer which, although not lucrative, does just about pay the bills. However, now I knew what I wanted I also knew it’d never be enough to just make other people’s stuff – I wanted to make my own films and the chance viewing of a travel docu-series called “The Long Way Round” some 11 years after it aired had given me an idea.
It was now 2016 and Arsenal had thrown away the opportunity to land the first title of the Emirates era finishing 2nd to Leicester City and Gooners were seemingly at each other’s throats (again) after a brief respite for the FA Cup…if you read any of my old stuff you’ll know that many of my rage-posts were about just that subject – I hate it when Gooners go at each other and as 2017 dawned and Wenger in/out Gooners raged…my mind decided to focus on trying to make my own films. So I did something I never expected to do…I stepped back. I deleted all my Arsenal blog bookmarks barring a handful, killed NewsNow and slowly stopped following the clubs wake. I still watched every match but only big ones live…and often on mute so I couldn’t hear the irritating commentators (I’d SO pay for that option). I also stopped reading transfer stories, in fact I stopped reading any Arsenal stories at all and killed every football related app on my phone barring BBC Sport…all I did was watch Arsenal without all the noisy bullshit surrounding it, I didn’t go to Maggie’s or bars at all, I didn’t really talk about it much I just watched as Arsenal imploded while waiting for the inevitable exit of Wenger.
The dawning of a new age…Yankee Doodle Grimbo
The year that followed was the beginning of a insane journey that started with the obsession of wanting, no…needing to attempt to ride the “Long Way Round” route backwards from the USA to UK but which ended with me taking US Citizenship, pausing my trip plans and starting a docu-series teaching a Vietnam veteran to grow weed instead. It started with a fact: I’d ridden exactly 0 miles on the road and so before I rode around the world, I thought I’d try riding around my new homeland first via a 15,000 mile lap of America on an old 1990 BMW K75T a friend had given me. “Kate” blew up on the first shakedown test after a winter of fixing electrical gremlins so I saved for a new bike and filmed supercars instead. By the time I’d gotten my new steed; “Tippy” my ‘01 BMW R1150GS, I’d decided that after 15 years in America, I should accept that I was now just as American as I was English (my accent’s a mess) and take citizenship and so studied US history like a fiend for my civics test. I stumbled across a story while studying that changed my life forever: It discussed PTSD, veteran suicide, opiate abuse and how medical cannabis was being used as an alternative to addictive pharmaceuticals…and I’d been developing a show idea for a client that was based around teaching a rookie to grow. What happened next is actually a part of my first professional work called: VETSGROW, a 9 part series that followed a veteran learning to grow his own medicine at home which I just completed.
The distraction that it provided across 2018 along with its subject matter enabled me to survive the end of Wenger’s reign and all the fuss over Emery’s appointment etc. I even begin to enjoy just watching football again. My work with veterans and hearing what they’d gone through gave me a fresh perspective on Arsenal – it both cut through the bullshit of noise around the game and enabled me to just enjoy the games in the moment…I discovered that I’d gotten so wrapped up in the cult of the club that I’d forgotten what I loved about Arsenal – and that was nothing more then watching them play. Football was fun again, I got my best buddy (new one) into it and took him to Maggies for the City game and wasn’t destroyed that we lost…I still feel the troughs & highs, but muted by the importance of bigger things…and that dear Gooners is where I need your help.
If you’ve read this far then, fuck it you’ve already committed to a lot of waffle so maybe you’ll help me make more: I’m planning to merge my USA lap with VETSGROW and create a hybrid docu-series about the 4 month journey around the country on my bike chased a truck full of indoor gardens on a Bandit-esque 15,000 mile lap to deliver & build VETSGROW’s around the country (of course where it’s legal). It should go without saying that I’m going to need places to watch games wherever I go and so I asked Tim if he minded me posting on here before spending the last 2 months trying to get this post edited down to a reasonable 2300 words and it’s been hard cutting out half the crazy of the last decade…but if I get my funding and you still like this brand of writing then perhaps the boss will allow a semi-regular column again and Grimbo can report from the road…until then, might I ask for your assistance?
I’m looking for US based Gooners that might like to help with the new project – it’s called “Take the high road” and I need local contacts, veteran students and places to watch games as I go – so if you think you can help, and you’d like to know more hit me at vetsgrow@monstergardens.com with “I’m Gooner help” in the subject so I can pick you out from the crowd…
Thanks for reading Gooners…until next time.
Links:
Supercars link: https://youtu.be/0G07Qphi9Mc
VETSGROW link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU7kTTChjkYMINvDNGMJ2kFXQ9UdxVPa6
Delighted to see you back on here Grimbo, and best of luck with these endeavours.
Thanks for sharing that Grimbo and best of luck in your new calling. Glad you found your passion.
More often than not I disagree with Doc, but I thought that his comments on leadership were very well made. I’d take issue with one, tiny point in an otherwise excellent post… Xhaka is too easily absolved on the basis of having a fierce desire to win. There are other players with that desire who are not careless tacklers, or careless passers of the ball in dangerous areas. The good parts of his game are quite good, the bad parts are awful, and at his age I fear they are incurable. But we’ll see. Good discussion, though.
On the fellow gooners defending Guendouzi on account of age, please. The task allocated to you on a football field is not a function of age… theyre a function of responsibility. He’s an Arsenal first team player… he HAS to do his defensive duties period. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose his place to someone who does. A 19 year old footballer isn’t some callow youth on a work experience jaunt. From Pele, to Messi o Cesc… age was but a number. Im not comparing him to those players. Im saying that the “he’s only 19” argument doesnt wash. Guendouzi had a very important role to play, defensively and offensively, after being subbed in to an under-strength team. He has one goal to his name, in Europa. No assists. His tasks are mainly defensive. He’s not allowed to disdain them.
I like him a lot, though. A saw him play for France U-21, and he was head and shoulders above his peers. He will be a terrific player for us.
Lastly, can we quit criticising people who make critical comments about players? It is tiresome. Nobody is “slaughtering” anyone.
Grimbo, mate, you asked a lot of us, staying with you tell the end. But it was worth it. You had a lot of unburdening.
West Tam United is an ace name. I’m stealing it.
Holy cow, that’s some story. Always great to know someone rising from the ashes. Go Grimbo.
It was a good read, Matt. Glad to hear things have turned out well, it seems, and I wish you all the very best with your work.
Good luck Gooner…
Fascinating read Grimbo (or should we call you Matt now?). I felt a touch of Fever Pitch in your story and I hope you will see a similar ending – for all our sake. I am still waiting for NY to catch up with California (legalize it!) but there has been some encouraging signs as of late so we shall see. In the small chance that it gets done while your documentary is still in the making and you make a pit stop here, there are no shortage of Arsenal bars here. Would love to share a pint if that happens.
Ozil, Auba AND Lacazette. With Ramsey, and the speedy Maitland- Niles.
F*** me, we’re going for it.
This could be Globetrotters Ball…. a 6- 5 win.
what a first half. my man of the first half, aaron ramsey. wow! what a dynamite performance from the 8-spot, not as a cam. he played with balance and discipline. we always knew he could do that but he hasn’t, often abandoning his defensive duties. not today. he’s been lights out; and i’m not even a ramsey fan.
xhaka’s been fabulous as well. except for the power ranger kick on fred right at the end of the half, he’s been very good, not doing the grabbing and pulling he’s become notorious among gooners for.
despite a few good moments, still no fan of maitland-niles as a right back. i’m sorry, if he’s not smart enough to figure out right back, he’s got little chance as a cdm. we’ll see.
man united were a bit unlucky, hitting the woodwork twice in the first half. we’ll see if they’re bad luck continues.
would feel a bit safer to see iwobi or elneny come in for maitland-niles. He doesn’t look ready for this.
And won the ball at left back off Ashley Young, and only a finicky flag from the lino stopped Ozil threatening.
The “Ramsey doesn’t defend” narrative was always a stupid one. Promulgated presumably by people who didnt watch Arsenal games. He’s been one of Emery’s go-to players in the big games, and I have to say that his tactical interpretation of the coach’s plans have been spot on.
Xhaka, though man. That hit with the outside of the boot, the goal-saving tackle, and a really good shift in midfield.
AMN good going forward, but so defensively unaware. He’d leaving acres for Shaw to run into.
emery get’s a major plus from me for strategy, once again. let’s see if he manages the game with the same positive effect.
Torreira is suspended, but tactically, I’d go with that. At minute 50, Ozil’s getting bypassed in MF after dictating first 20, and I cant see him lasting long.
Auba, you know, is a fine striker but not a complete CF. He doesnt do back to goal that well, doesnt hold it up that well, doesnt play wide that well. And he wins precious few in one on ones with the CB from punts from the goalie. His give and go passes with Laca have been too heavy today. But, generally, he knows where the goal is, and has the numbers to prove it.
Kudos to Emery for getting his tactics exactly right and to Xhaka and Leno who had perfect games. Laca showed a lot of heart as he usually does and our defenders were all outstanding especially AMN and Papa.
Also a shout out to the ref who got almost every call wrong, gave every 50/50 decision to Utd but gave us a soft penalty. *Slow clap ensues
Great to get a win over the old enemy.
Can’t have asked for a more committed performance. Felt like we owed United one sweet revenge in which we allowed them to dominate a fair bit of possession and suckered punched them where it mattered the most. And suddenly 3rd place feels so achievable and in reach! Every player put in a great shift and to finally watch Suarez make some decent moves, nifty dribbles and passes was an icing on the cake! Gonna savour this victory for a while! One can only dream 🙂 #COYG
Both Suarez and Nketiah came on and seemed to be really enjoying themselves out there.
Emery has arrived. Watershed game for him.
Great 3 points. We’ve failed to beat teams we’ve outplayed. Today we beat a team that created better chances, but we deserved our win.
Auba again placed the penalty central right, as he had with his previous 3 this season. You need to vary that, bro. My heart can’t take it. Good to see Laca and the others insisting that he took it.
Maitland Niles, credit where due, was very good 2nd half.
Back to Emery… he’s now out-tacticed OGS, Mourinho, Sarri, Klopp at the Emirates, Pocchetino both games. His tactical switchups are ballsy and unexpected, and one of the key constants has been Ramsey, a player he will miss.
Today’s game was a very significant one for the coach.
ha! ramsey in the 8 spot? who saw that coming, lol? bloody brilliant by emery, strategically, and ramsey, tactically!
Well stated.
We’d seen glimpses (that 22-match unbeaten skein seems so long ago)– and close-calls that might-have-been (Pool, Sp^rs last week).
This was one where it all came together. Not a rabbit pulled from a hat. No one let him (or us!) down.
Leno! I am seriously loving this guy.
great performance from the lads today. ramsey in the 8 was lights-out; he and xhaka absolutely owned pogba. xhaka put in his most complete performance in an arsenal shirt to date. same with maitland-niles and leno. while i didn’t care for cech to be dropped, the decision to sign leno at the end of cech’s career was sound, indeed.
kudos to lacazette for winning that kick from the spot; i thought, for sure, that he was getting booked. likewise, big ups to aubameyang for the finish; i’m sure he’s been taking penalties all week after training. i wasn’t nervous about him stepping up to take this one today but i did laugh out loud. mesut was good but man united made a shift to minimize him. suarez did well when he came on. with all of that, it’s a mighty fine day to be a gooner.
… the point about mesut is that man united had to respect the fact that he was on the pitch or he would have ripped them to shreds.
The two key moments in the match besides the build up to our goals were Xhaka’s 6yard box interception/clearance; and more importantly the huge, huge save by our German custodian with Lukaku all alone in the 6yard box. The reflex with Leno instinctively sticking out his right foot to block the goal bound shot was well worth the preservation of our 3 glorious points! Sokratis and Koscielny too were imperious in defending our box. Nicking and clearing away all that came into our goal. Am so glad that we won this after throwing away 2points at Wembley.