This is a 93-year-old Reading fan making fun of Arsene Wenger
April 16, 2015
Reading will face Arsenal in the FA Cup semifinals on Saturday and 93-year-old Royals fan Ciss Platten will be in attendance at Wembley. Platten was alive when Reading last reached the FA Cup semifinals in 1927, when they lost 3–0 to Cardiff City. So this match could bring (very) long awaited satisfaction for her — satisfaction made all the sweeter since she doesn’t care much for Arsenal or their manager.
From the Guardian:
For her, that the opponents are Arsenal has added extra spice to the tie. She is not the greatest admirer of the north London team nor of their manager, Arsène Wenger, a notoriously poor loser. “We call him ‘Arsène Whinger’,” Platten says. “Funny thing, it was in the paper the other day — ‘Whinger’. He’s always whinging, he’s always having a moan.” Platten laughs mischievously. As she does a lot.
Yet her distaste for all things Arsenal runs a bit deeper, right back to the late 1920s. Blame her father, Arthur. “I didn’t really know about football then but dad used to stand by the window on a Sunday morning checking his Pools coupon,” Platten says. “And he’d say: ‘Bloody hell, Arsenal have let me down again.’
“He was always grumbling about them. ‘That blasted team’ he called them. I think that’s maybe why I’ve always disliked Arsenal.”
Yes, Arsene — you just got burned by a great-great grandmother. That’s a mind game even Jose Mourinho can’t match.