The Fiver | Trying not to pull too hard on the threads of an historic parallel

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You have to feel desperately sorry for Arsenal fans. Their beloved club has been slowly drifting into their greatest period of thundering irrelevance since the 1960s, when the team became such a mid-table non-event that at one point they got rid of their famous white sleeves and nobody noticed they were playing in plain red shirts for two years. Eventually they snapped out of their collective trance, got their gamefaces on (as well as the old classic kit) and by 1971 were champions of England again. Point being, the light at the end of the tunnel is always closer than you think, although as Arsenal won only one more trophy in the subsequent 16 years, and that an FA Cup against a Manchester United team who only turned up for the final at 4.41pm, it’s probably best not to pull too hard on the threads of this particular historical parallel.

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