A shock to the system as fans hail the Dane

I YANKED my radio headphones out of my ear and craned my neck forwards, convinced I was hearing things at the Arsenal on Saturday. I couldn’t believe the chant “Super Nicky Bendtner” emanating out from the North-West corner of the ground (from our somewhat ineffective “singing section”).

With this ditty coming on the back of the Dane’s umpteenth glaring miss, at first I wondered if it might be a mickey-taking version (like the “Super Pr**k” adaptation of the bloke behind me), or perhaps they were extolling another Gunner, since an earlier effort to hit Blackburn’s bovine backside, with Bendtner’s badly tuned banjo had resulted in a chorus of “Robin Van Persie”, to encourage Arsene to put our Danish striker out of his misery and bring the Dutchman on.

My incredulity stemmed from the fact that the Arsenal faithful have acquired a reputation for fickle behaviour at home games in recent times. Obviously it helped that we were 2-0 up at this stage and still high on Shava’s glorious goal, but it made for a pleasant change to hear our crowd doing their bit, trying to prop up Bendtner’s battered confidence, despite tearing our hair out, watching him blow chance, after chance.