Why are we the gooners?

[Libertine]

I've noticed no one has mention where the chant EIE comes from? Well a few lads on there way back from some offs went in to a pub up north for a drink the landlord saw them come in and said 'ere they are' apparently in his thick accent it sounded like EIE and the boys thought it was a laugh and just kept shouting it out on the way home, now the chant EIE is a war cry

Nearly.......

Arsenal waiting on the platform at Bolton, a very well known Gooner (who was landord of a pub in Wembley that is sadly no longer there.) spots Bolton appearing and attempts to shout "ere they are". Unfortunately he's halfway through a meat and potato pie at the time, and so he shouts a garbled version that sounds like eie.
He gets a load of stick on the train home and by the time the next home game came around it had become the stuff of legend.
Previous to that the war cry used to be "she wore".

[Libertine]

Just to clarify, our firm was never known by the term "The Gooners" (not by anyone involved with the firm anyway).

Individually we were Gooners, collectively we were the Herd.

[Libertine]

Just checked on that colin ward book. Mentions a bit about following The Arse but also mentions Chelski. and he wrote another book called armed for the Match and its described as as chelski headhunter book. So was he a Gooner or a headhunter?

Colin Ward is Arsenal.
Although he fell out with a few well connected people over the publication of his book.
More specifically, over a couple of photos that appeared in the original run of books.
The photos were removed from all subsequent copiess but still he's not a well liked chap over at Arsenal (and he's a ginge!).

[SE13]

[IMF]

If there is to be any discussion about Firms, please don't add names.

Good man.

As for the origin of Gooner....
I've heard two stories that make sense.

1) the yids called us Goons and we adopted it (as they did with yids) as our name.

2) a little firm of ours who used to drink in the Holloway, next to Holloway Rd Tube (called something else now) used to call themselves the Goon Squad after a lyric in a David Bowie record.

Now i know one of the lads from that Holloway firm very well, and he says #2 is gospel.

But equally, i'm good mates with the 'bloke who used to run the coaches' and he got up on stage at a 4b2's gig (John Lydon's brothers band) and said "the yids call us goons, so we'll call ourselves Gooners"

Neither of them would bother telling porkies. so i guess it's a case of take your pick.

I heard a long time that it was option 1.

We used to call ourselves Gunners and spuds fans thought it'd be insulting to call us Goons or Gooners. We liked it so much that we adopted the name for ourselves... sort of back fired on the spuds that one.

[Libertine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nVbfOOF ... re=related

[SE13]

I'm in that compilation!

Not that I was doing anything wrong you understand.......

[Fabby]

What time in the clip you in SE?

[ChVint22]

What time in the clip you in SE?

Think he was the one laid out on the street with blood.

[gooneritis]

riders of the night have a song called 'the original gooner' (or something like that) which outlines how gooner came about. something to do with yid fans calling a certain arsenal firm member a "gooner" as opposed to 'gunner' as a mockery, the name stuck and as libertine said, invidually certain arsenal fans became 'gooners'.

it's a joke that the club are copyrighting gooner, the clubs official version is it came about as swedish arsenal fans couldn't pronounce gunners properly and were saying "gooners" in their accent.
i don't think there'd have been too many swedish arsenal fans back in the 60's or whenever the term gooner was first used. it's a made up version by the club to try and steal the name.

the cannon is obviously from the munitions factory.

[gooneritis]

When my manc buddy called me a gooner, I thought he was insulting me. Took me a while to realise it really was the official name for an Arsenal fan. :roll:

it's not official, and never should be imo.

[Libertine]