When I was a kid I never really cared too much about football. I did the mandatory season at the local club simply because all my friends did. It didn’t really turn out the way my uncles and grandfather had initially hoped it would. Was I terrible you ask? No; I was worse. There is joke in the family about my first real football game; I played in midfield, but was more focused on the people watching around the perimeter of the pitch than what was actually going on ON the pitch. “Hey, what you doing?” I’d ask my mother while my uncle screamed at me, encouraging me to concentrate on the match.
Needless to say, I was moved to play as a centre-back and a couple of weeks later I elected to give the game up. Not for one second did I feel bad about being terrible at football, I recall shrugging my shoulders with the knowledge that this would just give me more time to play on my Nintendo and walked away from it without anything to lament. However, in spite of how I fared on the pitch myself, I did manage to find a favourite player. I was totally clueless on who Diego Maradona was, instead I idolised the Swedish midfielder Anders Limpar. There was no logic or reasoning involved in me choosing Anders as my favourite player, I suppose it just happened naturally. Anders moved to Arsenal in 1990 and it was there and then that I decided that I was to be an Arsenal fan. It’s worth mentioning that I had never heard the term ‘Gooner’ at this point.
We had a program called ‘Tipsextra’ in Sweden that would only air from November through to March; this was when the Swedish football season was in hiatus. This program would show the Saturday game on at the time and also give updates on the other fixtures. One of the main reasons behind the show only airing from November to March was out of fear of that the program would steal supporters when the domestic campaign started. Of course I knew nothing about this because I was busy with other things. Funnily enough, Sweden actually aired English football before England did. I can’t tell you why that information is important, but there you go.
Years passes from that time and I went down a patch of skateboarding, drinking and womanising, though not as much as I would like to admit on the latter. Occasionally the question would pop up at parties and various escapades “So, what team do you support?” and as my interest in Swedish football was about as big as my interest in the English game my answer would automatically be – without hesitation – Arsenal. Some nodded in agreement, while some looked at me in disgust. I presume they were dejected Liverpool fans.
Then, one day, one of my best friends growing up told me about a player called Dennis Bergkamp. Apparently, he had just come to Arsenal from some Italian team called Inter and according to my friend he was amazing, among other superlatives. At this point the Premier League had developed into a big scene here in Sweden and you could catch any game you wanted.
After some persuading I agreed to watch a game in far greater detail than had been the case before, even though this took precious time away from my game console. I don’t remember which teams participated in this game, all I can remember was thinking to myself “to hell with Limpar, look at this guy”. Everything about him just oozed class, so calm and composed with the ball at his feet. Even I, with my very limited knowledge about football, knew that this was something else, something uniquely special. It wasn’t love though, that came much later.
The very same friend called me a couple of years later. He and another friend of mine had finished their education and gotten jobs, so their financial situation was superior to mine. “Hey mate, we’re going to London and we’re going to Highbury to see the mighty Arsenal take on West Ham. Do you want to come?” Of course it goes without saying that I did, but not having the required financial power made it nigh on impossible for me to join them. Without me, the guys went to Highbury, bought some tickets from a random guy, probably for a ransom way over face value, and unsurprisingly ended up in the away section. I still laugh out loud when I think about how they told me that when Arsenal scored every Hammers fan lowered their heads, while they stood up to take some pictures before quickly placing their cameras back into their pockets. I only wish that I could have taken part in such shenanigans alongside them.
So, when did the love appear? It actually spawned just ten years ago; in 2004 I started to truly fall in love with the Gunners, a team that I had claimed as my team over fifteen years prior to this epiphany of sorts. Weird, that. Bergkamp was still there and there was also a Swede in Freddie Ljungberg. Thierry Henry was obviously performing to an exceptional standard week in week out, Patrick Vieira dominated every midfield he went up against, some guy called Cesc captivated everyone’s hopes for the future, though the less time spent reminiscing about him the better, and the list of iconic names goes on.
I had matured enough to actually make it through the full ninety minutes on a regular basis and even enjoyed it! From that point on, all of my engagements were preoccupied by the Arsenal. “Sure, I would love to attend your 70th birthday party Grandma. What time? Yeah, I’m afraid I’m going to be late”. I am now the proud father of two and only four more drunken nights away from marriage, and even now everything is still planned around Arsenal.
