Roger Moore scores: Playing to win

My mum phoned me immediately after the Newcastle game. “Well,” she said, “that was pretty good wasn’t it?” And that was her football take - a partially interested mother’s glorious summation of a gallant failure.

She might have said the same after I finished third in the under-14s penalty competition; I was nine from nine when an illustriously timed piece of advice from the old man provoked a rash blast and the tenth kick failed to trouble the big Oak behind the goal, let alone a young reserve keeper from the Portsmouth squad.

Then today, I find a fellow Saint lurking at my bank and we reminisce about May 17th 2003, what it meant to be there, how proud we were and how unimpressed we both felt with the Arsenal fans. No flags, no balloons, no passion and showing all the enthusiasm you might normally associate with a trip to the dentist. Most of them, we agreed, weren’t even there for the trophy presentation. We gave our boys a bigger cheer for their losers’ medals.

Funny thing expectations, aren’t they? Arsenal fans looked upon that FA Cup final as a consolation prize, nothing more; something to fill the space in the cabinet where the Premiership trophy should have stood.

Last night I watched Arsenal again. Since Southampton stopped playing decent football some months back I’ve started to consider my support a penance – not unlike the Opus Dei cilice – and try to enjoy the game vicariously through other exponents of the beautiful passing game.

The thing about Arsenal and for that matter Manchester United, Liverpool and now Chelsea is not that their fans believe they have some God-given right to success, but that they expect to win. Anything but victory is just not good enough.

We, by contrast, from our lofty perch, look down upon these ‘glory hunters’ as missing the point. Football, we say, is not about the winning and losing, but the taking part – the esprit de corps, the camaraderie, the journey not the destination, the following not the followed. It’s total bollox of course.

Imagine yourself outside of football, if you can. Do you seek out the worst films at the cinema, the most unreliable car, or deliberately search for restaurants Gordon Ramsay couldn’t save? Of course you don’t. Yet, somehow, we convince ourselves that supporting poor football is an inevitable conclusion to following a team in red and white.

Once, when we crowded into a bicycle shed and pretended it was a twentieth century football stadium, it was acceptable to be the small-guy. Siege mentality delivered safety. Nothing more, but never less.

I put it to you my fellow fan that the small-minded approach which worked so well for us once, simply will not do any more. We now have a big stage. It’s time for some big ambition. It’s time we looked at the Arsenal’s of this world and said to ourselves, there but for the attitude goes us. We can be that good. We can be that team.

When a real fan tells me that going to Newcastle and losing is a pretty good performance, we know the sum of our expectation – to lose well. I’m reminded of a friend who, when congratulated on second place, remarked “I was just the first loser”.

You see winning is a state of mind. It doesn’t start in the boardroom, it starts in the stands. Winning starts at the heart of the club and pervades everything. Do you think Manchester United would have invested so heavily if their fans did not demand success?

I used to hear Arsenal fans complaining about their lot to Alan Shankly-Green and laugh. What could you know of failure? I would think. And therein lies the real truth of what makes for great teams and better football.

To beat Real Madrid demands above all the beautiful passing football a mindset. It requires a refusal to accept second best. A knowledge that only winning is good enough and all else is commentary.

A good performance to lose at Newcastle? Only if you were wearing black and white stripes. Shake this attitude or we’ll never shake of the spectre of constant defeat.

I don’t want to be the Eddie the Eagle of football any more!