Category Archives: Arsenal and Me

The Arsenal and Me – Paul’s Story

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Tuesday 11th May 1999.. a day that changed my footballing life forever..

For 17 and a half years i had been a massive Nottingham Forest fan, enjoying many a day out at Wembely, FA Cup finals, Rumbelows Cup finals, still basking in the glory of being the only team in Europe to have won the European Cup more times than their domestic league.
Then, that fateful Tuesday, a friend of mine at school, a season ticket holder with his dad at Highbury, came into the common room & announced that his dad couldn’t make it to the Arsenal away game up at Elland Road that night and was there any takers? Well, being a die hard football fan i thrust my hand into the air & the ticket was mine.
We made our way up to leeds & I was really excited about the game, it was the first time I´d been to a game that Forest weren´t playing in so I remember thinking that I just wanted to see a bloody good game & I didn´t honestly care about the result. It wasn´t great, Arsenal lost 1-0 to a late Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink goal after Leeds had missed a penalty in the first half & as I left the ground with all the dejected fans, I kind of felt like someone leaving the house of their lover after having cheated on their wife… almost ashamed. The game had been pretty poor but after having seen the likes of Dennis Bergkamp & Patrick Vieira playing, did i really want to go back to my wife at home after having just been with a supermodel?
Of course it wasn´t an instant thing, I still renewed my season ticket at the City Ground & I still was a big Forest fan, but I always found myself checking the Arsenal scores when I got in, being delighted if they´d won & down if they´d lost. Little by little I found myself taking less interest in Forest during the week and more & more interest in how Arsenal had gone on, who they were playing the next weekend, any signings they were making etc..
Within a year or so I´d made the permanent move. I´ll always have a place in my heart for Forest, they´re like a first girlfriend, you never stop thinking about them or wishing them the best but ultimately, you don´t want to spend your whole life with them. Since then I haven’t been to as many Arsenal games as I would have liked. Living in Nottingham, studying in Sheffield & emigrating to Spain hasn’t helped but nowadays whenever I´m in England I try to catch a game. Villa away a couple of Christmases ago, Wigan last Christmas and this summer I’ve been lucky enough to see them play in Japan.
It´s weird because I got/still get loads of abuse from my friends and family, no one could believe what was happening but whenever people ask me about it, to this day (over 14 years since the first seed was planted in my mind) I give the same response.. football is like love, you can’t choose where and with who it takes you..

The Arsenal and Me – Ade’s Story

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I grew up in Archway, the son of a Yorkshire man, whose love of cricket was almost as strong as his love of his family, so we weren’t a football family.

And to be honest, unlike most on here, I can’t really remember my first Arsenal game! But that’s why my Arsenal is a little different to others…………

So how did I end up a massive (arf) Gooner??? Well as luck would have it, one of my best friends at primary school happened to be Fred Streets daughter! So I was fortunate enough to start my addiction from amongst the player’s wives and the comfort of the players’ lounge, all comfy and cosseted from the real football world 

As I entered my teens I started to go to games, home and away, with my mates and this is where I found “my Arsenal”….

I could now  list all the games, finals, Highs and lows  etc etc etc  but I’m not going to, why?

Because my arsenal is more than the team, more than the trophies…….it’s the amazing, crazy, bizarre, unique people I have met in the past 35 years following AFC home and away…. The Bear, Maria and her cry, Baz with his kit, Mr Red Rolls Royce, the Mum and Daughter who I met at almost every way game I go to, Mr Beret, Bully, Big Martin, Micky B, The North Bank screamer, The internet freaks (my wife’s words not mine) the list could go on…..but you know what they all have in common???  Their love of ARSENAL FOOTBALL CLUB….Yes they may show it in very different ways, ways we don’t all like and approve of but they still support….they support THEIR CLUB…. THEIR WAY and that’s not wrong.

They are “MY ARSENAL”

Ade

 

The Arsenal and Me – Mo’s Story

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I have lots of memories: the good ,the bad ,the ugly and the downright scary from my 40 years of following Arsenal! There is just too much to cram into one blog, so I will recall the 70s and the start of the 80s, my formative years at Arsenal!

For those of today’s generation,eight years and all that without a trophy, well that was “de rigour” in the 70s. I was a junior schoolboy in 71 and older brothers plonked me down at the front of the north bank in the double winning run. I remember the 1-0 wins at home to the Geordie’s and the last home game 1-0 against Stoke! I watched the FA Cup Final around an affluent family friends house who had colour TV.We were still radio rentalliing a black and white when we won our next trophy in 79! Yes an eight year gap!

I was free of older brothers guardianship and could head down on my own in the mid 70s. The team had gone downhill,a double team broken up far too soon! But,I had the misfortune of going to games,a bare teen, a quiet one in a maelstrom of an era of football violence.

Excited to see Arsenal in a FA Cup QF at home against West Ham in 1975 I entered the North Bank on a day of horrendous rain to hear “Bubbles” from the back of the North Bank,as West Ham took over that day!I was at angry at what happened off the pitch as the losing 2-0 on the pitch.

Next season, we beat West Ham 6-1, but that day was equally naughty! And as for Tottenham Hotspur…things weren’t much better. I still have a mental picture of a typical y** as being much older ,wearing a donkey jacket and a peak cap! We were bad on the pitch, but they were worse and we saw them relegated in 76!!

By 77/78,things were stirring at Highbury. The team were improving ,the mercurial Liam Brady was emerging as a world class player,O’Leary at the back and the signing of Pat Jennings, the Tottenham keeper, proved a cute bit of business!

We had a team to have a go in the Cups. Off the pitch things were also stirring. A young generation, ages 14-16 emerged in the Clockend, a kind of football intifada was emerging. The lads had enough of getting bullied by older Chas and Daves and Garnets! The young ones would cut their in the mayhem of 70s away games. I went to Ipswich, Norwich and Bristol City that season. I was a quiet bystander in mayhem at every turn,

In 78,we reached a league cup semi over two legs against Liverpool.Liverpool were in their pomp. Dalglish at his peak as a player. My oldest brother took me to the first leg at Anfield.

To be continued…

Mo

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