After the first post on my new blog ‘Victoria Concordia Bergkamp’ ( which you can view here: https://victoriaconcordiabergkamp.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/ive-got-news-for-you-so-lets-get-the-ball-rolling/)  I am pleased to inform you of another post, this time a nostalgic piece of work courtesy of an excellent writer from http://1nildown2oneup.net/ , Dave Seager (@goonerdave66) on Arsenal cult hero, Perry Groves. I asked him if he could write a piece to help launch my blogsite and he was more than happy to contribute. Dave is a writer I have admired for some time and has previously given me the pleasure of writing a guest post for him. His work is of a consistently high standard and this piece is no different.  Over to Dave:

Football and footballers have moved on from the era in which Perry Groves played for ‘The Arsenal’ as George Graham, who signed Perry from Colchester, always called our great club. In many ways things, have improved and this is mostly down to Sky Sports and the money that has been injected by television, but you do sometimes wonder if we the fans can possibly connect with our heroes the way we once did? I never had the talent to be a footballer but had I, I would have wanted to play for the team I loved and supported. Not many players get the opportunity, but Perry Groves did. Perry was a Gooner through and through who got to live the dream. He was playing for Colchester in the lower reaches of the football league when Graham, newly appointed to his own dream role, made Perry, a complete unknown, his first signing for a grand total of £75,000.

 I am writing this for several reasons. Primarily because I have just once again read Perry’s biography and if any self-respecting Gooner has not read ‘We all Live in a Perry Groves World’ I strongly suggest you do so. However this is an update of a piece I originally wrote in the January transfer window when Thierry Henry had returned and all the gossip as it is again now ready for June 1st, was about potential transfer window signings, as well as the fees and wages the modern player expects or demands. Football has just gone crazy! (more…)