OSAMA BIN LADEN AND FOOTBALL!

The death of Osama bin Laden has thrown the spotlight on the long-held claim that the al-Qaeda leader was an Arsenal fan. As the Gunner chant goes: “Osama, woah-woah, Osama, woah-waoh, he’s hiding in Kabul, he loves the Arsenal”.

The terraces may have got his location wrong – it was in Abbottabad, Pakistan, not the Afghan capital where Bin Laden was taking refuge – but their claims that Bin Laden supported Arsenal certainly have some legitimacy

The world owe it to the war against terrorism to take seriously these allegations about Osama bin Laden being an Arsenal fan. The source is Adam Robinson, in a not otherwise overtly funny or satirical new biography of bin Laden, entitled Behind the Mask of Terror, and the story is as follows: that, during the early 1990s, when he was living in London, the man who was later to become the world’s most wanted terrorist attended matches at Highbury, in particular during the victorious European Cup-Winners’ Cup campaign of the 1993-94 season.

It is further alleged that bin Laden visited the Arsenal club shop and bought a replica shirt for one of his sons. Whether, that night in the club shop, bin Laden also bought a Nigel Winterburn duvet cover and some Arsenal shower gel is not recorded. The crucial assertion is this: that Osama was a Gunner.

Of course, the first half of the nineties was not a golden era for Arsenal, who were then grinding out their last days under George Graham, a period of strange, almost wilful stagnation for the club during which a significant number of fans came to feel deeply frustrated. It was the sort of situation which, obviously, got to supporters in different ways. Some didn’t renew their season tickets; others, such as bin Laden, disappeared off to caves and began plotting to destroy America.

Does the Gunners story stand up? Conspiracy theories flourish in a time of war. Some to darkly suspected the hand of aggrieved residents of Ashburton Grove, opposed to the development there of Arsenal’s new stadium.

THE THEORY

It’s a compelling theory, but not one that holds water. Resistance to the stadium is organised, but does not have the resources to infiltrate an important new biography.

Elsewhere, the news of bin Laden’s affiliation has been more openly accepted. The estimable, supporter-run Arsenal website, Arseweb, instantly installed the al-Qa’eda leader in its on-line list of “Celebrity Gunners”, where he joined Fidel Castro, Robert Maxwell, “Mad” Frankie Fraser and the Queen Mother.

Meanwhile, the site sought to reassure the home constituency as follows: “You may shudder at the thought of having rubbed shoulders with the man back then, but Arseweb would like to believe that this makes north London ever so slightly less likely to become a target.”

Good point - and worth conveying to the residents of Ashburton Grove. Conversely, the news of bin Laden’s allegiance is none too comforting a thought if you happen to be living in Tottenham. One thinks again of the inhabitants of the Welsh village of Tal-y-ban, who, when the American bombing campaign began, had more reasons than most to be nervous.

From Arsenal management then, the official response was predictable: the club moved swiftly to ban bin Laden. “Clearly he wouldn’t be welcome at Highbury in the future,” a club spokesman said. One understands the decision, on emotional grounds as well as in terms of public relations. At the same time, many wonder whether Arsenal aren’t guilty of a failure to think through the broader issue affecting  all.

ARSENAL CONNECTION

What’s disappointing is the way the significance of the extremist’s Arsenal connection was ignored completely by the military establishment. It didn’t figure in any of then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s media briefings, and nor did General Tommy Franks, in charge of the American ground operation to capture bin Laden, ever mention Arsenal once.

Unless, America was working with the information undercover. It was exclusively reveal that someone purporting to be a journalist from an Italian newspaper contacted the author and Arsenal loyalist Nick Hornby at that time, to ask him if he had been at the Cup-Winners’ Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Torino on March 15, 1994. Hornby was able to say that, indeed, he had been there - but that he couldn’t remember anything about a bloke with a long, black beard. The conversation ended.

Was that really a reporter from Italy? Or was it the CIA, covertly following up all available leads?.
Meanwhile, football could take many to bin Laden in a way that nobody seemed to be emphasising. All week, on the television news and in the papers, foreign correspondents have been picking through the pieces of paper found on the floors of al Qa’eda safe houses in Kabul and trying to work out whether they were discarded plans for a weapon of mass destruction or simply the manual for an Afghan washing machine. But was any of them keeping an eye out for programmes from the 93-94 season and back numbers of Four Four Two magazine? And yet people now know these items would provide unignorable indications that the trail was hot.

What was needed on the ground was someone who could infiltrate bin Laden’s stronghold and then talk to him in the universal language of football. It’s a role for British forces if ever there was one. The fact is that bin Laden spent one of the most extraordinary periods in Arsenal’s history sitting in a hole in some rocks, and it showed. Recently, he told his most recent interviewer: “I love death as you love life. This is what you will never understand.” That’s very much the George Graham-era Arsenal speaking there.

But extraordinary things have happened in the six years since the world’s most wanted man last saw his side. Graham has managed Tottenham. David Seaman grew a pony-tail. Ray Parlour played for England. And Tony Adams became a teetotal pianist.

Were all this communicated to bin Laden, he’d probably suspect a wind-up.

But then, properly briefed, an infiltrator could remind him what Emirate Stadium was like for a night game, with the lights and the noise and the smell of fried food and smoke on the cold air, and tempt him to get involved again. It’s possible that a football fan could have produced what a bunker buster did not; the emergence into the light of bin Laden, so that he could be shipped to America and put in prison for ever.  
   

  KHALED BATARFI’S  TESTIMONY

A number of other Bin Laden biographers and old acquaintances have claimed that the Islamic fundamentalist had a particular penchant for the beautiful game. Childhood friend, Khaled Batarfi told the Daily Mirror how he and Osama would often play football in Saudi Arabia.

“In summer, early in the morning, after mosque, we’d come together to play football,” Batarfi said. “We would argue amongst ourselves – ‘this was a foul, that was a goal’. He was the only one who wouldn’t argue, wouldn’t fight. He would play just for the pleasure, but he refused to get into any argument with any of us.’’

Former bodyguard, Nasser al-Bahri claimed that Bin Laden’s height made him a natural centre forward and a skilled volleyer of the ball, explaining: “He was so tall he didn’t have to jump to smash the ball”.

Twitter humourists have warmed to the theme of Bin Laden’s Arsenal support since his death was announced on Sunday. “It’s been rumoured that Bin Laden spent 6 of the last ten years hiding undisturbed in Arsenal’s trophy cabinet room” quipped one user.

Another tweeted on Monday: “After watching Arsenal yesterday it was perhaps unwise for Bin Laden to rush out into his yard shouting ‘Come on the Gunners’!!