The Gent In The Cream Suit And Arsenal Tie

BY HUGO GREENHALGH / @hugogreenhalgh

Every Gooner remembers their first Arsenal match. However, my first visit was made extra special by the sight of a true Arsenal legend.

The match itself was a 3-0 win against Sunderland, on a lovely Easter afternoon in March 2002. As we know, the team were on their way to completing a second ‘Double’ under Wenger. How I took such success for granted as a 10-year old!

Yet I’d started the day not thinking I’d end up inside the ground. My mum had promised a trip to the Arsenal museum and the club shop to spend a voucher (a £2 birthday present from the Junior Gunners). I used it to get a figurine of Robert Pires. However, it was another Bobby that made my day.

I don’t know if it was the fine weather or the allure of Highbury’s famous marble halls, but my mum said we could try and see if there were any spare tickets at the box office for the day’s game. As it happens, there were, and right bang in the middle of the North Bank. I was about to lose my Arsenal virginity.

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Anfield’s Sweaty Compost Corner

BY SIMON RICH / @Cornholio73

On the morning of May 26^th 1989, I should have been making my way to school. Having turned 16-years-old just three months before, I’d unofficially finished in full-time education but frustratingly still had the pain of a geography GCSE re-take hanging over me.

I had no intention though of taking this exam. I’d already secured a job and was well prepared for the wrath of my parents once they inevitably found out I hadn't turned up. You see this Friday wasn’t any old Friday; it was the climax of the 1988-89 First Division football championship. After a painfully emotional season following Arsenal there was nothing that was going to stop me attending the final game at Anfield.

The Gunners had enjoyed a fantastic season under George Graham. We’d played wonderful football at times and deservedly maintained a title challenge for much of the season. Liverpool of course were considered to be almost invincible and apart from the occasional Everton title, they seem to have won almost every title in the eighties.

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In The Moment Of It All

BY MATTHEW HARVEY / @colexus

After the rollercoaster season we've just had, it's nice to sometimes reminisce about the good times we've had as Arsenal fans. I’ll always remember for example, the first game I attended with my Dad, will forever cherish the ‘Invincibles’ season and won’t ever forget the day I sat down to watch the North London derby with my new stepbrother, only to find out he was a Spurs fan.

It was December 2^nd 2006, the day before my 18th birthday, and my stepbrother, Dad and I went to our local, The Bluebell in Bedford, to watch Arsenal take on Spurs. We weren’t doing well in the league at the time and having lost to Bolton, Fulham and West Ham in the preceding weeks I was very nervous about the derby.

My stepbrother on the other hand was confident. Not only was confidence low after two consecutive defeats, we were also without the injured Thierry Henry and had a nasty habit of conceding the first goal in seemingly every game at our new home.  

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A Birthday That Felt Like Christmas

BY RYAN CAMERON / @rycmrn

A while back, I submitted an entry to the Memory Bank (read it here) detailing the first and only time I'd ever watched Arsenal in the flesh, a debut which saw me witness Arsene Wenger's side win the title at Old Trafford on that famous spring evening in 2002. In that piece, I alluded to an upcoming visit to The Emirates Stadium to see them in action for a second time - almost 10 years later. 

The trip was a 21st birthday present from my fiancée, Joanna, and I don't think she'll ever fully appreciated just how much it meant to me. It was a lifelong dream come true. Walking to the stadium from Finsbury Park that evening can only be described as an emotional experience. Seeing people walking from every direction draped in red and white, all for one purpose, all together, kindred spirits, united in the love of our football club. 

It's the sort of feeling that is hard for non-football fans to comprehend. I felt like I belonged, I felt like I had arrived home after twenty-one years. All those years of pretending to be Marc Overmars in the back garden, of checking teletext for Arsenal goal updates, searching the length and width of Northern Ireland to find a JVC Arsenal replica shirt...they had all led me to this one magical moment. I beamed a smile which lasted for days.

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You're Not Singing Anymore

BY MICKEY DENNIS / @mickeyhorton

I’ve been an Arsenal fan for seven years now, finally taking an interest in international soccer following the 2006 World Cup in Germany. For one reason or another it took 15 years to start properly following the sport which I’d played since I was just 5-years-old, but despite being slow on the uptake I was eager to make up for lost time.

I wanted to pick an English club to follow and knowing that my grandfather had been born in London I wanted it to be a team from the capital. At the time I was certain he’d grown up in Hampstead so I started doing some research and found that Arsenal and Tottenham were the two closest clubs to the area. I vaguely recalled that Arsenal had recently gone unbeaten for an entire season, so I figured they’d be a decent side to follow and began watching videos of games and reading about the history of the club. I was instantly a fan and there was no turning back when I found out I’d got my grandfather’s birthplace wrong and he was actually from Hanwell!

Over the coming years me devotion to Arsenal steadily grew. I watched almost every game and celebrated as much as fan in the United States could, but I knew I needed to visit the Emirates and experience a matchday in the flesh. Having committed to studying in London, my first thought on arrival was to buy a ticket to the first game I could.

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Meeting Bobby

BY REUBEN LEWIS / @rlewisafc

On Saturday the 12th of May, I met my hero Robert Pires, and I hope my story of how and what happened leading up to this miraculous event will fill your hearts with warmth and joy!

With my exams around the corner, this weekend was not expected to consist of anything other than worrying about Arsenal revision. However, on Saturday afternoon, my French mate Nathan texted me saying Robert Pires would be playing in a charity match at Craven Cottage that night, knowing he is my hero. I wondered how could this be? After all Robert was supposed to be in India. I instantly asked Nathan of his source; apparently his football coach is good friends with Pires and was also playing. That's good enough I thought.

I rampaged through the house, destroying all that came before me, in search of a permanent marker pen. Success! I carefully removed my Pires poster from my wall, got my Arsenal scarf, and set off to Craven Cottage, dribbling at the thought of meeting Bobby - the man the word dreamy was invented for. But more importantly, he is a legend, who throughout my life I've tried to emulate on the pitch, and also with facial hair. I have tried in vain on numerous occasions to grow a goatee. All God has given me is bloody bumfluff! I may or may not have once cut a bit of hair off and stuck it on my chin; however I do not wish to comment on speculation.

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One Goal, Three Points And A Chisel

BY SIMON RICH / @Cornholio73

Back in the day I used to travel with my brother Greg up and down the country to home and away games no matter how important they were. Whether it was a League Cup 2^nd round game away from home, or a crunch game at Highbury, we were there. One particularly memorable trip began on a Saturday morning in October 1990…

Things were looking good for The Arsenal, unbeaten in the league and playing attractive football we were in with a shout of the title. It all added to the usual excitement of travelling to an away game at Old Trafford, even though I’d never seen us win there. I was 17 at the time and had seen us lose the previous year 4-1 and watched us draw 1-1 in the 88/89 championship season.

Instead of making the journey with the official travel club as usual we opted to travel in style in my brothers not so luxurious maroon Ford Orion. As you might expect, I don't remember much of the journey, but I do know we got caught in traffic near Manchester and were pretty worried we might not make it to the stadium in time for kick off. Eventually we parked up as close as we could and started jogging to the away end mindfully hiding our Arsenal shirts from view.

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Shock, Anxiety, Disbelief, Panic, Despair And Anger

BY STEVEN PYE / @1980sSportsBlog

As an Arsenal fan of nearly 30 years, it is quite hard to put into words just how inept the early to mid-80s team could be. On their day they were a match for anyone, as this 3-1 destruction of Liverpool in September ‘84 emphasises. But when the mood took them, they were often capable of displaying levels of mediocrity that simply drove Arsenal fans insane.

As Nick Hornby concluded in Fever Pitch: "That Arsenal team – full of cliques and overpaid, over-the-hill stars – would never be bad enough to go down, but never good enough to win anything, and the stasis made you want to scream with frustration." Precisely.

So when I agreed to follow in my Dad's footsteps and support the mighty Gunners in 1983 you would have thought I needed my head examined. Rather cleverly, the old man failed to show me a league table, or any recent (post-Brady) results, so I was blissfully unaware of any potential issues with following his lead.

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One Dennis, Two Tributes

BY SAM DREW / @chroniclesofal

I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but on Saturday 15^th April 2006 I ended up dishing out orange t-shirts at Highbury before Arsenal’s Premier League match against West Brom. The game is still known for being Dennis Bergkamp day, and the shirts were commemorating exactly that.

Bergkamp’s contract was up at the end of the season, and in our final season at Highbury it was a chance to dedicate a day to the Iceman, although he was eligible for a testimonial once he left; more on that later.

I was only 10 in 2006, so I don’t have a brilliant recognition of the game. In the race for Champions League football, we went 1-0 up, but the Baggies hauled themselves level as the clock ticked towards the 90-minute mark. By this time Dennis Bergkamp had entered the fray, and surely he wasn’t about to let his day be spoiled?

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In My Dad's Footsteps

BY TASHA EVERALL / @TashaEverall

I’ve grown up with my father’s stories of The Arsenal. He’s told me countless times how he wouldn’t leave the house if they lost and how he used to go to matches sporting makeshift jeans with a red and white scarf sewn down the seams on each leg and how he never failed to wear either the home or away shirt and his Levi jacket with two badges proudly proclaiming his Gunners affiliation.

I seemed to follow in his footsteps as a child. A fully-fledged tomboy, I would go to school discos in jeans and my Arsenal shirt, even though I wasn't particularly interested in the team. I would watch all the matches with Dad at my uncle’s house, but I’d often fall asleep or lose interest. I wanted Arsenal to win because Dad wanted Arsenal to win.

Something changed when Dad moved out. It wasn’t one significant moment; it was something that gradually developed in my heart. I found myself glancing at the Arsenal website for the scores to check if they had won. Then I found myself keeping an eye on the matches whilst they were happening. It was something of my Dad that I could hold onto. Now I never miss a game.

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