Book Review – Clickbait by Darren Berry
Jul 22nd, 2019 by 'holic
If, like me, you missed Darren Berry’s irreverent Season Diary columns in Gunners Town last season it turns out there was a very good reason for that. Darren didn’t stop writing them altogether, but instead has combined them in his soon to be released book, Clickbait – Life as a Modern Football Fan. Well worth the wait it has been too.
Darren captures the early season optimism, despite opening defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea, well. “That’s us right now. We’ve had the hardest start we could have had, we’ve lost our opening two games, but still we remain positive. New Arsenal. New Arsenal fans.”
What followed must have been the last thing Darren wanted. A 22 match unbeaten run when you are looking to milk the absurdity of social media isn’t great news. Thank goodness for people like Piers Moron, Stewart Robson, and Adam Crafton for providing the necessary ammunition in an otherwise peaceful spell. Particularly memorable was the North London derby.
“Today, North London is red. It’s not just North London that’s red. Twitter is red, Eric Dyer’s stupid face is red. Everything is red, as we bask in the warm red glow of yesterday’s result, which ended 4-2 to the team in red.”
All good things come to an end, but for it to happen at Southampton nine days before Christmas is a proper kick in the plums. Christmas isn’t much better. A draw at Brighton on Boxing Day followed by a proper thumping by Liverpool at Anfield. The arguing is back on Twitter and making for a fine book. This is what Darren needed, and records better than anybody.
“Spent most of my lunch break arguing with someone called The Transferinator on Twitter…”
You get the gist of the book, I’m sure. It comes to an inevitable conclusion as we spectacularly grab a Europa League berth from the near certain return to the Champions League. We just had to beat Palace at home. We didn’t. Wolves away? Nope. Leicester away? Afraid not. Brighton at home? Really? You’re taking the piss now. All the while Europa League progress is providing one more route to the promised land.
Our own progress in Europe is mirrored by the nomadic enemy in the little cup. I won’t spoil Darren’s take on that. Buy the book! Read it to the end. That is my advice to you.
“NO NO NONO NO NO NOOOOOOOO!!! Giroud.
Clickbait is available to pre-order from www.legendspublishing.net/clickbait so get on it while you remember. You won’t be sorry.
47 Responses to “Book Review – Clickbait by Darren Berry”
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Sounds interesting Guvna. It’ll take me a while to wade through my Eiffel Tower of unread books to get to it though! ?
[…] Original article: https://goonerholic.com/2019/07/book-review-clickbait-by-darren-berry/ […]
I have always found Holic’s book recommendations very useful and worthwhile and will get round to this …unless we start so badly my enthusiasm wanes!
This close season is interminable. Our transfer business grinds on and on with virtually no progress and tge outlets repeat @nd jumble the new# we already know. Yes we have a £45 m ….ing budget until we then supposedly bid more than that for one player.
Last season ended awfully and belief in the current management is low. A good start is essential . If we start badly the short-tempered prats who inhabit Twitter will create merry Hell .
Let’s hope there is some movement in a positive direction asap
Just playing catch up.
First of all, the very best wishes to cba and Mary. I hope you are rapidly on the mend big man. Just when I had finally converted you into a Mod and proper Weller man. Stay strong and get your arse back in here pronto. Big love and hugs to you both.
Cheers for the review H but I’m very much with Bath and his mountain of unread literature.
Recent results have been welcome but essentially these are games for fitness for the players and exploiting every single potential business interest if you are a self serving Kroenke.
Recent rumours? They are exactly that until it’s official. All apprentice chip wrappers.
Some Interesting times ahead.
Just looked up to SSN on the telly and thought Gordon Strachan was looking a bit more lived in than usual.
It was Shane Lowry’s granny.
For those reaching for the Wincarnis and hemlock cocktails over our transfer non-business, the Ceballos deal is done.
Goonerholic he’s doing better God’s help he’ll be better in the morning
Well Ceballos is coming and
cba is returning to fitness –
two bits of good news!
Ham fighter.
Good news tends to come in bunches, a lot like cba’s come to think of it.
What is a ham fighter by the way?
there’s a baseball team in
Japan called the Nippon
Ham Fighters
Never have understood why someone would fight a ham. Or why a ham would be fighting, for that matter.
Morning Mary. That’s excellent news. Please tell him that I have a parka sat here waiting for him for just as soon as he is well enough. He will love it.
Keep fighting cba, you old bugger you.
Do they fight with hams or against hams?
If it’s against, when are they coming over from the east for a grudge bundle against West Ham? Or do they only fight Japanese ham?
We need to know these things, so we can plan accordingly..
How are we supposed to make sense of it all if we only get half the fackin’ story?
Ain’t life hard enough?
Nippon Ham are the fearsome
overlords of the Japanese
ham industry. Don’t mock
them too rasherly gooners.
They’ll slice, dice and chop
without a second thought.
And if that processing doesn’t
cure your squealing, it’ll be
the mincer for you.
Anyway, it’s a baseball team and
they all have silly names from
my Brit perspective:)
One of the finest undiscovered comedies of the 90s was about baseball in Japan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jywTtvKbTO0
“No, say it’s not Cleveland!”
Mary herself etc,
Told you he’d be back !
Great news – please pass on my best ?
Ha! Three ham puns in one sentence. Didn’t think you could do it, OM. New respect. 😀
An obsession with ad hock pubs, bt8 .. ?
Who will be first to find a cure ? It’s gam’on !
You’re going to have to shoulder the blame for this nonsense ..
pubs. ??? =. puns. ?
It would be loin to say a good pun or two didn’t give me an ache in the ribs.
y’all are making silk purses out of most of those…s’nowt a good look, though, you really ought to curltail it…
Cheers H!
Darren’s a good lad and well funny to boot.
@ Steve T
Only one set of mods mate …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjCHNEtudR0
and good news about CBA. Obviously.
Red card for Nacho, penalty and we’re 1 up. Nice start to the first 15 mins
I’d forgotten the game
completely but woke up
to find we’re 2-0 up on Real
now. And they’re down to
10 men
And so are we down to 10! Good old Sokratis
two sending offs in a
“friendly”
🙂
Up 2-0 (brilliant pass from Laca to Auba for second goal). And Real down to 10 men. So Sokratis manages to get himself sent off; after second yellow, snatches ball from ref and boots it into row Z. Do that in premier league and add a few matches to your suspension.
I wonder how close the
starting XI is to the XI
has in mind for Newcastle.
Or just having a look at
Calum as CB and a Willock/
Xhaka CM partnership
The youngsters blitzed Bayern late. Can they do likewise to Real?
We conceded 0 goals in the first half with Willock in the team, and 2 goals in the second half, at least, with Monreal in the team. Coincidence?
A good 1st half I suppose.
Anyway, 3 more games to
go before the season starts.
How shite is Sokratis?
About as shite as Kolasinac but not quite on the level of Mustafi.
🙂
Not a bad player Sokratis.
Certainly a better defender
than Kola and less error
prone than Mus.
Who cares if he gets sent off
in meaningless friendlies,
Quite an impressive pre season so far, Been some stand out performances in both good and bad areas ? Another season of Transition in the offing and maybe it’s just me but whether we finish 5th or 10th makes no real difference and for that reason I’d give the Youth there chance.
Some are not quite ready but I’d rather spend a season watching them make mistakes they may learn from than the normal suspects making the same ones they haven’t – We are nowhere near the top two and buying/loaning players that are only a slight upgrade on what currently have at massive money just seems like pissing in the dark. Where as focussing on the undoubted ability of the young ones whilst buying strategically in the same sort of age bracket may pay far bigger rewards. It’s certainly a gamble but one that I’d be far happier with and would show some kind of planning to at least return to the top.
Not just you, Chippy, I’d agree with that.
We do prediction time closer to the season start and this time i have said we will finish 6th and no trophies again, pretty football at home and pretty awful away, dont say anything to change that unless we buy ready to play CB’s and proper ones i mean.
Trev, Its the only route I can see where we would have a chance of challenging in the next 3/4 years,
Vinay, That’s kind of my point two top class centre backs in today’s market will cost you the best part of 150 million – Slightly above average are going for north of 60 million see Maguire – De Light would have been a sensational signing for the reported 62million but the wages may well have been a major issue and would have wiped out our entire budget, Meaning other areas would have been neglected. So do we spunk out the best part of 100 million on two slightly better than average center halves that will not take us to the next level or buy players like Saliba early that can hopefully grow into top class.
It’s a tricky one for sure.
I’m in sympathy with the call to give the youth a chance. I’d be even more so if some of the youth were good defenders . Not sure Medley is ready for the PL .
I presume there is a plan to compensate for the fact that the CB we have bought won’t be around for a year. I also presume Mustafi is both unsellable and unloanable. Maybe we could wrap him up in a bin bag and I will drop him off at a charity shop in the Holloway Road.
The key is not to operate at the silly end of the market but to scout better than the opposition and get in top players before their prices rise.
Not sure if this is what Mislintat had in mind or if Saliba is so good we’ve taken a pragmatic path and bagged him a year early.
With a season stretching before us and given the politics at the Bernabeu I think the Ceballos deal makes perfect sense although Bernd Leno might be concerned that he revealed on Twitter that Casillas had a small willy. Hopefully Bernd doesn’t ave tgat problem.
It looks a dog’s breakfast because we aren’t focusing on the defence. We knew we had good attacking players before it was the back door we failed to bolt. In both of our last two games the defence was poor and Mustafi gave Lewandowski the freedom of wherever it was we played against Bayern to score.
With Kos rightly being released we have only Sokratis and Holding ( not yet fit) who are proper defenders . Mavropanos does not enjoy Emery’s confidence and is always injured. Lots of work to be done Raul – on your bike son
To add to the above id probably go with Chambers (Who has improved no end on his two loan spells) + Holding when fit (Who could become a mainstay of this side).
If after a full season Chambers Is still considered below the required level at least we have protected if not added to his transfer value,
Id also seriously consider shipping Xhaka out this window, For me will never have the attributes for the premier league and he would still command a fair transfer fee as hes a decent option in other European leagues, You can then use the extra funds where we really need them.
TTG
“some of the youth were good defenders” Now that would be something 😉
Emery says the Ceballos deal could be off as Ascensio ruptured his ACL against us last night.
Chippy for manager, I’d say.
Can’t disagree with any of it. Perfect sense.
Thanks Trev, But alas spending more than two days with Mustafi would send me over the Edge 🙂
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