Premier League 2022-23: This is our Arsenal
Do you remember what you were doing on May 7, 2006?
My sister and I were locked in the TV room with our uncle's friend, watching Thierry Henry kneel and kiss the lawn at Highbury; beaming wider and pumping our fists a minute later as news reached via our show (in the days before smartphones) that West Ham had won at Upton Park against Spurs, whose result we needed to improve on that day to seal this fourth place.
On May 17, 2006, we were due to face FC Barcelona in Paris in the Champions League final after an astonishing run of unbeaten streaks (not to mention clean sheets throughout our knockout ties against Juventus, Real Madrid and Villareal). A few years into my first full season as Gooner, I was certainly more aware of my emotional investment, more deliberate in my support than I had been in 2003-04. Yet looking back now, knowing and having been through everything I've been through with Arsenal since, I didn't have the perspective to understand how crucial a game was for the club. What it would have meant to move to the Emirates with a Champions League trophy with us, given Arsenal's European record, given the never far regret that the Invincibles crew didn't go further in the competition .
At the time, I just wanted to see us win. The universe gave me my first football heartbreak experience, instead. To this day, I can't watch any videos of it; even mere mentions of anything related to it are deeply painful. As I write this, I feel the heartbreak again.
So it was fortunate that we secured the Champions League on our new ground in August 2006, after a few (unnecessary) twists, of course. That last game at Highbury against Wigan Athletic was as joyful a sendoff to our spiritual home as it could have been in the current and future context.
How many of us realized this was as good as it was going to be for a long time?
I remember the joy, but it wasn't until three years later, watching my first game live on a beautiful spring day in 2009, Arsenal 2-0 Manchester City, that I felt that what it was like to be part of something bigger than myself, even though I didn't quite have all the words yet.
Here I am, over a decade later, with few words, more joy and an inevitable surge of pain on the back of a season worth trying to scream into the void of football fans.
*
Artwork by Shivani KhotOn 9th April 2023 my cousin and I met at a friend's house (by the way the one who got me into PL football - a Man Utd fan who tried everything to get me to likewise, and, well… we all know how it happened) The three of us, and a nicest, golden lad, watched the drama unfold at Anfield, ranging from joy to a peculiar kind of frustration that only sports fans will understand But it was Anfield, a pla...
Do you remember what you were doing on May 7, 2006?
My sister and I were locked in the TV room with our uncle's friend, watching Thierry Henry kneel and kiss the lawn at Highbury; beaming wider and pumping our fists a minute later as news reached via our show (in the days before smartphones) that West Ham had won at Upton Park against Spurs, whose result we needed to improve on that day to seal this fourth place.
On May 17, 2006, we were due to face FC Barcelona in Paris in the Champions League final after an astonishing run of unbeaten streaks (not to mention clean sheets throughout our knockout ties against Juventus, Real Madrid and Villareal). A few years into my first full season as Gooner, I was certainly more aware of my emotional investment, more deliberate in my support than I had been in 2003-04. Yet looking back now, knowing and having been through everything I've been through with Arsenal since, I didn't have the perspective to understand how crucial a game was for the club. What it would have meant to move to the Emirates with a Champions League trophy with us, given Arsenal's European record, given the never far regret that the Invincibles crew didn't go further in the competition .
At the time, I just wanted to see us win. The universe gave me my first football heartbreak experience, instead. To this day, I can't watch any videos of it; even mere mentions of anything related to it are deeply painful. As I write this, I feel the heartbreak again.
So it was fortunate that we secured the Champions League on our new ground in August 2006, after a few (unnecessary) twists, of course. That last game at Highbury against Wigan Athletic was as joyful a sendoff to our spiritual home as it could have been in the current and future context.
How many of us realized this was as good as it was going to be for a long time?
I remember the joy, but it wasn't until three years later, watching my first game live on a beautiful spring day in 2009, Arsenal 2-0 Manchester City, that I felt that what it was like to be part of something bigger than myself, even though I didn't quite have all the words yet.
Here I am, over a decade later, with few words, more joy and an inevitable surge of pain on the back of a season worth trying to scream into the void of football fans.
*
Artwork by Shivani KhotOn 9th April 2023 my cousin and I met at a friend's house (by the way the one who got me into PL football - a Man Utd fan who tried everything to get me to likewise, and, well… we all know how it happened) The three of us, and a nicest, golden lad, watched the drama unfold at Anfield, ranging from joy to a peculiar kind of frustration that only sports fans will understand But it was Anfield, a pla...
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