Supporting Arsenal 101 (Row 25)

There's a book in everyone

I'd been going over the Arsenal for forty nine years before I finally became the proud owner of a season ticket.

From September 1972, through the boring football of the seventies, the Charlie Nicholas haircut of the early eighties, the George Graham years of success then mediocrity, the Arsene revolution, the Invincibles, a Champions League final, the move to the new stadium, the lean years while we paid for it, the resurgent FA Cup wins, the farewell to Arsene, the Emery debacle to the rebirth under Arteta. The club changed dramatically  and I grew from a seven year old, watching with his Dad and Brother, to a fifty something Dad sitting with his grown up son.

It was my son, Michael, who pushed for us to get the season tickets, though I didn't need much encouragement. We were only actually on the waiting list proper for eight years before we were elevated to the coveted Gold Membership, I gather the wait now is over fifteen years! In the three seasons since we have seen performances that range from the incredibly frustrating to the amazingly brilliant. Games that left us feeling every emotion from misery to elation, anger to ecstasy. Football does that to you and Arsenal has, over the years, been the master of delivering the most extreme of emotions.

I've always loved going to the Arsenal but these last few seasons have given me the opportunity to spend more time with Michael, doing something we both love. It's not all sweetness and light, we certainly have our moments where we argue and annoy each other. What father and son don't? But the joy of celebrating a late winner against a fierce football rival is intensified when we are able to share it together. In those moments of unbridled joy, I realise how lucky I am, not just to be there at the game, but to be there with my son. I really do love the big lump!

The last game of the 2022/23 season was a 5-0 thumping of Wolves. As I left the stadium that day, I realised the following season could be my last full one. We have no plans to give up the season tickets but a likely house move will make travelling to home games more difficult.

So, I had the idea of capturing the 2023/24 season in a book and dedicating it to Michael. I've always enjoyed writing and have wanted to write a book for years but never seemed able to find the time, motivation or subject to write about. Write about what you know they say. Well Arsenal fits that bill. There was a contestant on Mastermind once who chose Arsenal as his specialist subject. I got every question correct, with no passes, so I reckon that qualifies me.

My writing process consisted of making mental and written notes during, and shortly after, games and then expanding them as soon as I could. I make no apology for omitting opposition team players' names or referring to them, or their teams, by a different name/term. These are my accounts of the games, intended for fellow Arsenal supporters. Other fans are very welcome to read this book, and I hope they enjoy it, but I naturally have, and bring, an Arsenal perspective. If some of the specific details about matches, goals, stats, etc are incorrect I can only say they are what I genuinely believed to be true at the time. When you are in a stadium and get just one look at an incident, you often get the wrong impression or mix up players. If that doesn't make the case for VAR I don't know what does. We just need VAR to be run by competent individuals with proper training in the technology. More on that later.

My original plan was to just include accounts of the matches we actually attended but, on reflection, felt that would leave too many holes in the story of the season. So, I have included all the away games and the small number of home games I wasn't able to get to (my bad, full explanations follow). Generally, the account of the games I watched on tv are shorter, though there are a few exceptions where something happened that riled me enough to want to vent some frustration, e.g. Newcastle away!

After the first game, the Community Shield victory, I realised that my views and memories of the day, changed after watching highlights, reading reports and listening to podcasts. As I want the book to capture what we experienced in the moment, I separated the account of each game in to the immediate raw, emotional and often slightly drunk view and then a Next Day View (NDV). The NDV is usually much more considered and rational. Usually.

Once I had the collection of match reports written I felt the book needed a bit more depth about me and Michael; how we got in to football, what does supporting the club mean and what does a trip to the stadium involve? All that has been added and, hopefully, you will find it enhances the story.

We pay a lot of money for our season tickets but we love going to the Arsenal and are immensely proud of what the club represents. There is a class about the way things are done, there always has been. To see some of the money we spend donated by the club to so many worthwhile causes, through the Arsenal Foundation, is heart warming. I'm all too aware that we, as season ticket holders, are in a privileged position that most are not, and that many would love to be.

My primary reason for writing this book was to be able to present it to Michael as a memory and keepsake, that's why it's dedicated to him. Of course, I hope it achieves some level of commercial success but that genuinely is not my main motivation. And as my way of giving something back for all the enjoyment the club gives us, I am donating a percentage of my author royalties to the Arsenal Foundation. I hope the knowledge that some of the money you paid for this book will go to help those who really need it will add to your enjoyment.

Come On You Gunners!

Becoming an Arsenal Supporter

A Father's tale

Most people can tell you all about the first football match they attended but I'm not entirely sure about mine. I have always believed it was a 2-1 win against Chelsea at Highbury but, having researched it, the game played in September 1972 ended in a 1-1 draw. I'm sure it must have been that one though.

I'm guessing now, but I suspect the reason I was finally allowed to go to a match was partly because of a major disappointment a few months earlier. In May 1972 Arsenal made it to the FA Cup Final to play Leeds. Some of my Dad's family were from Yorkshire and his Uncle Jack worked on the ground staff at Elland Road. The night before the Final about twenty rough and ready Yorkshire blokes turned up on our doorstep asking to crash for the night. My Mum was less than pleased but reluctantly agreed. Uncle Jack had two spare tickets so my Dad and older brother, Simon, went to Wembley. I wanted to go but was told I was too young, probably code for there wasn't a ticket for me. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the tickets were in the middle of the Leeds fans. Arsenal lost 1-0 and my poor brother, decked out in red and white standing out like a sore thumb, cried his eyes out.

If the Chelsea game wasn't my first (which the more I think about it the more convinced I am that it was) I do know I was definitely at the game against Liverpool, also in September 1972. That is quite a famous match as it's the one where the linesman was injured and Jimmy Hill, the famous ex player and pundit, came down from the tv gantry to run the line in his place. I remember his light blue tracksuit as he charged up and down in front of us. We were sat in the West Stand for this, and the Chelsea, game. Now, of course, that stand is an apartment block. Enjoying the luxury of a seat was not normal in my early years, I suspect my Dad decided that taking two small boys to a game warranted paying the extra to avoid the crush of the Clock End terrace.

To be honest, I was more interested in watching the marching Metropolitan Police Band at half time than the actual football, but the experiences fired up something in me and I've loved watching and playing football ever since.  Full disclosure: I did dabble with supporting other teams in those, early, formative years. Superstar players drew my interest, Osgood at Chelsea, Stan Bowles at QPR, Keegan at Liverpool, but I always liked the Arsenal and was always destined to be an Arsenal fan.

We played football on the council estate where we lived every chance we got. As the youngest I was always shoved in goal but actually became half decent from all the practice I got. The wisdom of diving around on the clay tiled pitch is debateable, my jeans would be caked in dust and smell peculiar after several hours of playing. First team to score 20, change ends at 10. We had to play to get our football fix because we couldn't afford to go to matches very often and there were only three games live on the tv every year - the FA Cup Final, the European Cup Final and the England v Scotland Home International.

After those first couple of games we migrated to the Clock End for our occasional visits to Highbury, standing at the very back so us boys could perch on the safety railing while holding on to Dad. Then my Mum and Nan pulled off a masterstroke. They would sell Useless Eustace tickets, a kind of lottery come scratch card thing where you won prizes based on a cartoon caption in the Daily Mirror. Not particularly mind blowing in their own right but the seller got a free ticket to the Clock End for the home games. So for a season or two in the mid seventies we could go to every game. Well, almost every game. Man Utd, Tottenham, Leeds, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool were all off limits due to the extra large crowds and likely fighting that would take place. Even so, we went to loads of games and I gradually got more interested in the actual football, though would be distracted by the cheap peanuts on sale by the bloke wandering the terraces. It's hard to shell peanuts and watch Alan Ball's white boots at the same time. I remember one match v Burnley which I think ended 0-0. It absolutely poured with rain the whole game so we stood at the front under