THE CANNON
BY LUKE DAVIES
The summer after 'that' Michael Thomas goal had won Arsenal the league at Anfield my parents sent me and my brother to a football summer camp. Just six-years-old I begged them for a football kit to help me fit in.
Now we weren't the richest of families, but my parents got me the now infamous yellow Gunners shirt (with dark blue sleeves, the cannon and 3 balls with AFC in each) but also a pair of red Liverpool shorts. I had no idea how testing a time someone so young could have!
Not knowing much about either team, I eventually decided that a cannon on the chest was much, much cooler than the dodgy looking bird on the Scousers crest...and so the love affair began.
It started with a shirt, but it grew into something much more than that. Soon it was about Paul Davis, Michael Thomas, Kevin Campbell, Tony Adams, Alan Smith...then the oh so regal David Seaman, quite possibly the biggest Arsenal love of my childhood. THAT penalty save against Sampdoria, THAT diving save against Sheffield Utd in the semi's of the cup - what a man.
Then he came into my life. Like a shouting, screeching hound from heaven. Ian. Wright. The man that every other team loved to hate, but who every Arsenal fan simply adored. John Jensen got his goal; a memory which always rouses a fleeting smile.
It wasn’t always glamorous, Kiwomya, Helder, Houston, Rioch all came before that day I was on holiday in Spain reading The Sun. ‘Arsene who?’ I asked my Dad, but he was none the wiser. To Bergkamp we added Vieira, Petit, Pires, Ljungberg, Campbell and Thierry Henry. We had Highbury the Home of Football, now we have the Emirates.
The blood, sweat and tears of past players will never be forgotten. The faces may be ever-changing, but the cannon on the chest stands for the same thing. We are the Arsenal.
