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Monday Feb 26, 2007
Young Guns (Go for it)
At a time when young people are increasingly stigmatised, demonised and patronised by the media, let’s hear it for Arsenal’s Young Guns who, with an average age of just over 20, came within a whisker of beating Chelsea in yesterday’s Carling Cup final.
Admittedly their manager is French and few of the players are British, but we live in a multinational society. Better the sublime skills of the Spanish Cesc Fabregas (19) than some yeoman clogger with a British bulldog tattooed on his chest.
What the likes of Theo Walcott (17) and Armand Traore (17) should remind us is that young people can handle responsibility and pressure. Yes, they are only playing a game. But it is in front of 70,000 people and a TV audience of millions. And they have to live and work with self-discipline and supreme dedication.
Watching my own team, Charlton, thrash West Ham 4-0 at the weekend, it was impossible not to be struck by the composure and maturity of midfielder Alexandre Song (19) – loaned, inevitably, from Arsenal. A true role model.
Footballers tend to make the headlines for their occasional bad behaviour. But, when they perform like Arsenal’s youngsters, it’s a chance to celebrate youth rather than castigate it.
Posted by Tom Green ( 4:44 PM ) Link to this post Comments[3]