Every football fan has a moment they picked their team. Mine was in the school playground when I was six. Somebody asked who I supported, I said Arsenal, and that was that. No family tradition, no big reason. It just stuck, and more than thirty years later it still hasn’t let go.
Highbury, 1995
My first proper game was a Wednesday night at Highbury: Arsenal v Liverpool, 12 April 1995, kick-off 7.45pm. 38,036 of us packed in under the lights, and I can still remember the noise. Seaman, Adams, Bould, Keown and Winterburn at the back, Ian Wright up top, and Michael Thomas, the hero of Anfield ’89, lining up for the other lot.
It was 0–0 at half-time, still 0–0 with a minute to go, and then Robbie Fowler scored in the 90th minute. We lost 1–0. I went home gutted, and completely hooked. That’s football.
Off to the Emirates
When Highbury closed in 2006 and we moved down the road, I wasn’t sure the new place would ever feel the same. It does now. The legends wrapped around the outside help, and so do all the days out since: sunny pre-season games up in the top tier, a legends match close enough to the pitch to see the grey hairs, and the walk up to the ground that never gets old.
At some point I got my own name on the back. GOLDS, 30, stood under the mural with Adams and Brady. The closest I’ll ever get to a squad number.
The next generation
When the boys came along, there was only ever going to be one first kit. Our eldest was barely sitting up when he got his. A few years later the same shirt got a second outing on his little brother, hands on hips like he owned the place.
A house divided
There is a slight problem. My wife is a Spurs fan. Urgh. Derby days in our house are tense, polite and very quiet, and we both know which one of us is sulking depending on the result.
So we’ve settled on a compromise for the boys: Brighton. Local, lovely to watch, and crucially not Spurs. I even took a photo of the teams lining up at an Arsenal v Brighton game, without realising I was looking at the boys’ future team. They’re Brighton fans for now. I’m playing the long game.
Still all in
Thirty-odd years since the playground, I still get the same feeling walking up to the ground. It started with one word to a mate at school, and it’s turned into days out, a name on the back, and two little shirts in a drawer. Whatever the boys end up supporting, they’ll always know where their dad’s heart is.