Jim Allan

Come for unoriginal musings on faith, AFC & current affairs; stay to correct me on faith & current affairs (not AFC)

[Jim Allan @Much2Learn]

'What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us'

Tozer

[YankeeGunner 🏆 @YankeeGunner]

This is the literal reason why sportswashing works. This is exactly the aim.

[chief 🏆 @aliladiere]

One day we will hear of one of the greatest espionage missions in the history of football. Arsene Wenger trained Mikel Arteta to infiltrate the City ranks and uncover the truth behind their domination. He then returned to Arsenal and the mission to bring down the state owned clubs began. Arteta the equivalent of Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies. He has saved football.

[Josh Daws @JoshDaws]

Episode 3: Mary Sue Doesn't Want Kids

[Nick Harris @sportingintel]

Events such as this current France v Morocco WC QF match are perfect for highllighting some of Man City's very many breaches of football rules. Never mind their huge financial breaches, this is a thread is about child trafficking. 1/n

[Haunts Fiene 🦬 @HansFiene]

You can be a night-showerer. You can identify as that. That’s fine. But if you don’t shower in the morning, you are gross.

[Haunts Fiene 🦬 @HansFiene]

Every time a Trinitarian punches a Mormon, the Mormon responds by punching a Modalist.

[Derek Rishmawy @DZRishmawy]

The thing is, this behavior should not be applauded and ought to shrouded in shame because it is wrong. It is wrong to kill a baby for any reason and doing it because it has Down Syndrome should not be publicly normalized any more than it already has been.

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

We all deserve this ❤️

[Bimboh Adekoya @Bimboh5]

I have been waiting for the Afrobeat version of 🎶North London Forever 🎶

@officialLoudd nailed it🙌🏿 I could not help smiling seeing our star striker @mc_lively_ making a special appearance never mind that he cannot sing with that voice 🤣😂

@Arsenal this is rocking 🔥 #AFC

[Thierry Ennui @TitiEnnui]

For Those Who Waited 22 Years.

[Kai Havertz @kaihavertz29]

Run it back.

[John Dickson @johnpauldickson]

@RaminNasibov The “secular” French Revolution executed three times as many people in 9 months (17,000+) as the “religious” Spanish Inquisition did in 350 years (5–6,000).

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

This is legitimately insane.

Banning cell phones in schools might turn out to be the best thing we’ve done for our kids in a generation.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

This is the most detailed MRI scan of an unborn baby.

At just 20 weeks, she is moving, turning her head, kicking—even standing. Her beating heart is also visible.

Human life is a miracle.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Christ cried to a Father who was silent as he let him die, so that you could cry to a Father who will hear you and give you what you need to live.

—@PaulTripp

[∞ @TheFalseNein]

I still believe we’re winning it

[The Sporting Resource @TheS_Resource]

Per Mertesacker stands in front of the parents of every under-eight at Arsenal and tells them the same thing.

"Your son has got less than 1% to be the next Saka. We've got to make sure that we develop well-rounded individuals who still can find a bus station and are not waiting for the taxis when we leave them. 99% need to find a different job, period. We cannot just prepare them to fail. No chance, I am not in it for this."

That's not pessimism, that's the most honest thing anyone in elite youth football has said out loud in years.

1️⃣ Mertesacker spent nearly eight years as Arsenal's academy manager, overseeing one of the most productive periods in Hale End's history Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, Max Dowman and the foundation of all of it wasn't a scouting methodology or a training model.

It was a decision to tell the truth to every parent, right from the very beginning. Less than one per cent will make it as a professional. The programme exists for the other 99% as well, and the two things are not in conflict. The bus station isn't a place, it's a metaphor for what independent, capable, grounded young people are able to do when the football eventually stops. Finding their own way, without needing someone to carry them there.

2️⃣ What he's describing is something grassroots football has always understood at some level but rarely said with this kind of clarity. Most of the children we work with will not become professional footballers. That isn't a failure of the coach, or the child, or the programme it is just the shape of the numbers, and it has always been the shape of the numbers.

The question worth sitting with is whether the experience we're giving them is one that sets them up well for a life that will mostly happen away from football, or one that only makes sense if the 1% outcome arrives.

3️⃣ The line that lands hardest is this: "We cannot just prepare them to fail." Preparing children to fail is exactly what happens when the entire environment is built around an outcome that almost none of them will reach. When self-worth gets tied to selection. When being released at sixteen feels like the end of something rather than a redirect.

When the adults around a young player have quietly, without meaning to, communicated that the football is the point and the person is secondary. Mertesacker spent eight years at one of the biggest clubs in the world arguing the opposite, and the players coming out of Hale End reflect it.

4️⃣ For those of us working at grassroots level, there's something both sobering and freeing about hearing this from someone at the very top of the game. If Arsenal's academy manager is standing in front of under-eight parents and reframing what success looks like, then the rest of us have permission and perhaps a responsibility, to do the same. Not to lower expectations, but to broaden what we're actually developing:

• Confidence that doesn't depend on being picked
• Resilience that outlasts a bad season
• The ability to work in a group, handle setbacks, and keep showing up
• An identity that exists outside of football

These things serve the 1% and the 99% equally, and they're built in exactly the same sessions, on exactly the same pitches.

5️⃣ Mertesacker has now stepped down from his role at Arsenal, and what he leaves behind isn't just a list of players who made the first team, it's a way of thinking about what a programme is actually for. That conversation doesn't stay at Hale End. It belongs everywhere a child is learning the game, including your Sunday morning pitch.

Do the clubs and programmes you're involved with talk honestly with parents about where this road leads and what it's building along the way?

We'd love to hear your experience below 👇

[The Goddamned Penguin @who_shot_jgr]

writing an e-mail and getting a prompt from AI "this sentence could be more concise"

no. i am verbose. i am loquacious. i am long-winded and often redundant even. you machine, do not tell me how to form my words

[Isaiah Robin @isaiahrobinlive]

🚨Rabbi Jason Sobel explains why Jesus was crucified on a cross (tree)😳