No.3 in in my Thinking Blogger series (see I hadn’t forgot) is the eponymous writer of Arseblog.com. Before anyone starts to wonder, it isn’t some strange fetish site (although…) but one fan’s blog about Arsenal Football Club.

Now you may have no interest in English Football whatsoever, but the achievements of Arseblog deserve respect as an example of great content building a huge audience – a glance at the comments (named ‘Arses’) illustrates this, as every post receives hundreds, and in some cases thousands. I have actually seen several posts  receive over 1500 comments in around 24 hours after posting, which is frankly mind boggling.

Posting under the pseudonym ‘Arseblogger’ there’s not much personal information available about him, although we do know he’s an Irishman living in Dublin, recently returned from life in Spain, but really all you need to know as a reader is that he is passionate about his subject: Arsenal FC.

Arseblog is posted almost daily, and has been for over 5 years now, and whilst unashamedly partisan, and full of what some may call ‘colourful’ language, it is very intelligently put together, and often contains some superb writing. Too often sports blogs can just be rabidly blinkered and defensive, but Arseblog is always very insightful and very fair. After a major victory for the team it’s a great read, but perversely after a big setback or defeat, it’s even better. Sport can trigger many emotions, but the measured, thoughtful but always brutally honest posts in this blog always leave me with  positive thoughts for the future.

The blog is not simply a great read, there are forums  available,  regular columnists, wallpapers and a recent addition to the site has been a weekly Podcast which is gaining strength every week, and has already featured interviews with the chairman of the club, several ex-players and other bloggers.

Harking back to his first post:

Feb 27th 2002 - The A R S E B L O G is born amidst a fanfare of pure silence and a rippling of no applause. Not sure what way this thing is going to go, it has no plan, no direction, no aim, no purpose – simply a tool for me to ramble on about all things Arsenal and maybe some other stuff instead. Anyway, I shall crack on.

I think all of our first posts are similar to this one – Arseblog is an example of how far you can go with dedication, perseverance and of course well-written content.