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The First Time

It feels like the first time
Feels like the very first time
It feels like the first time
It feels like the very first time

– Mick Jones/Foreigner

I have been following Arsenal since 1998 and my origin story is one based in predictably reductive ways that sports connects people to each other. I had been in New York just a few years and was still meeting people. A close friend of mine started dating a guy from England – and because my emotional connection skills with other human beings were still based mostly in either beer or sports (or both), his support for a club from London seemed as good an in with him as any. I figured, why not? I liked football, had no team affiliation, and didn’t speak Italian (for those old enough Serie A was one of the few leagues you could see in NYC, they played a single game of in NYC on Sunday morning TV). So, an English club it would be. His club? Well, that should be obvious (God help me if he had supported a different North London team).

We struck up a friendship which lasts to this day (as does their marriage), and out of that friendship I also gained a growing, slow-burning obsession with Arsenal. While I started supporting them in 1998 it was, for many years, an arm’s length support. It wasn’t easy to watch the team 28 years ago. I recall a couple of games at Nevada Smith’s and other places, but it wasn’t something that I dove into. I still focused energy on hunting down NFL games at bars on Sundays when I wanted to find a crowd, and there was enough baseball on cable for me to get my sports fill without having to trek to a bar to watch football at what were then, in my single days, mostly hangover-laced Saturday mornings. It was easier to sleep in. And then, when the sport started getting more accessible and more popular I met someone, had a child (then a second) and thus the early aughts meant other priorities. I still tracked the team. I knew all the players, followed the transfers, checked the scores, but my connection to them was very much at a distance.

Thus, my experience of Arsenal as a title-winning side was more of an historical one. I followed the team when we won the league, when we went an entire, incredible season without losing. And then won it again! But these feats were when I had really just started following them. I hadn’t developed a level of emotional connection yet. And while I was quickly hooked on the team (an unforgettable trek to Highbury to see a rather forgettable match in 2000 did it ) it still took almost fourteen years (timed with the arrival of Santi Cazorla and, vitally, more presence on US television) for me to become obsessed, emotionally entwined with the club. And so the last fourteen years have been like a strengthening storm of intensifying dedication. Occasional cloudbursts (FA Cup wins, primarily) would desaturate the atmosphere but there was no getting around a more desperate yearning for success. Eight years of meeting new, great friends via social media who also love the team, of being taught team history by devoted Arsenal fans, of making a couple of trips to the Emirates and to see US matches and this transformed a love for Arsenal into something essential, defining, pervasive. The last three seasons amplified emotions to pretty extreme levels and as I am getting older this created an…outlook. I had become desperate for us to win something – because in my own mind it had never really happened while I was a committed, unwavering Arsenal supporter with access to the team.

All this is to say that Arsenal winning a Premier League title is something I had never truly experienced until today. I am proud that I have been a supporter since 1998, but I have also had a sense that those early league titles weren’t anything I could stake a claim to. It was dumb luck that the team was good when I first started following – but I didn’t watch those wins, I didn’t understand those wins, and I certainly didn’t know enough about the team to feel the magnitude of what those wins meant. While it’s been 22 years between titles for the club, for me it’s been all 28 of my support. That’s a very long wait.

It’s over.

This week, and today, really felt like the first time.

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Arsenal Mad Libs 4.0

It’s not quite an annual rite, but the transfer window provides no shortage of material. So, forthwith, another (short, there’s only so many ways you can write this kind of hollow filler) installment of football transfer Mad Libs for everyone’s use on social media. Cut and paste to your heart’s delight.

[Insert Player Name] has told his agent that he only wants [Insert Team Name]. Team and agent have yet to have conversations, but a deal could be struck before the deadline.

Siren Emoji Siren Emoji Meetings have taken place in [Insert City Name] between [Insert Player Name]’s team and [Insert Team Name]. Personal terms are close. No team-to-team discussions have taken place as of yet. Siren Emoji Siren Emoji 

[Insert Team Name] have gathered all relevant information on [Insert Player Name]. It is possible, though not yet certain, that [Insert Team Name] might consider making an initial offer, but that scenario is still one of many under discussion.

[Insert Player Name] has a deal in principle with Arsenal but Madrid have decided that they deserve the player and intend to make a move.

Arsenal are interested in [Insert Player 1 Name], [Insert Player 2 Name], and  [Insert Player 3 Name], with  [Insert Player 4 Name] as a last-ditch contingency. However, If  [Insert Player 1 Name] and [Insert Player 2 Name] are beyond the team’s budget and [Insert Team  Name] won’t sell  [Insert Player 3 Name] then they do have a solid plan to pivot to [Insert Player 4 Name].

Have at it. 

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Arsenal Mad Libs 3.0

A LONG overdue update. The last time we did this we were just emerging from the Arsenal Dark Times. Transfer windows look different now, with CL money and very small holes to fill (if even holes – it’s more like foundations on which to build). Previously we supplied everyone with a set of “fill in the blank” tweet-sized missives, and then a second version in 2022, to be used throughout silly season. Those are all still useful (if feeling a bit dated and cynical), but we thought we ought to update and supplement the prior set. So, once again please find below a series of (free!) boilerplate texts, all under the Twitter 280 character limit, for your use in distributing hot information gleaned during the summer transfer window. 

With a second year of Champions League on offer, [Insert Player Name] has said he is interested in joining Arsenal – the team whose shirt he wore as a child.

If Arsenal cannot get [Insert Amount of Money] for [Insert Player Name] they will consider holding the player or even loaning him to [Insert Team Name].

While [Insert Player Name] played scant minutes last season and the potential for increased first team time in 24-25 looks far-fetched (even impossible), Arsenal hope to see multiple high-value (even team-record) offers on the table from clubs abroad, even if they have very little money.

Arsenal are interested in [Insert Player Name] though they fear any offer will bring a late bid from Chelsea at 5-6x whatever Arsenal are willing to pay.

[Insert Player Name] may garner interest from the Saudi league, but is weighing a comfy life in London against the appeal of a country with a non-extradition policy.

And these carry over, since they are always timely, relevant:

Arsenal is preparing to prepare a bid for [Insert Player Name], but first need to prepare for such preparations.

[Insert Player Name] will be staying at the club. [Insert Player Name] will be leaving the club. (Nah, just kidding. [Insert Player Name]‘s staying. Whether you like it or not).

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Chasing (Im)mortality

Earlier this year I posed a question that garnered a slight chuckle on an Arsecast Extra, about what feel like the rising stakes of title races as one gets older. I posited that as the years go by – and if you are inclined to focus on the days that remain for oneself in this mortal coil – the chase for top of the league takes on more import, there is more riding on such a pursuit. The days are numbered. 

My speculation is rooted in a personal response to this situation. I’m getting older. I’m in my mid-50s. I’ve been following all sorts of organized professional sports since I was basically able to walk, and some of my earliest memories and formative moments of my youth are sports-centric. Meeting Carl Yastrzemski on the field at Fenway Park when I was 5. Being there for a Brad Park OT game seven winner against the Buffalo Sabres at the old Boston Garden with my dad at 14. Blind, but rabid devotion to the Boston teams followed me through my young adulthood and then Arsenal, somewhat randomly, followed in 1998/1999. 

I watched every game of every team I supported that I could, whether broadcast on local cable or by trekking in on the T during high school to get a cheap bleacher seat at Fenway. I was lucky to see three Celtics titles by the time I was 18, though all my other teams were either capped in their ambition, pathetic, tragic, or a lethal combo of all three. Nonetheless I knew what it was like to go to a parade, to root for the best player on the planet – one who could also back up his braggadocio (Moses does eat shit, for those who may have forgotten). I was heartbroken by other failures but never felt deprived of that experience which we all crave: to feel the pride of rooting for the proven best, to have at least a year of bragging rights.

Last year and this year have thus been very interesting for me, as I start to think about what’s left. It’s not that I am consumed by my age or fatalistic or anything like that. I’m generally a pretty optimistic person who likes to enjoy myself and keeps what I think is a healthy perspective on many things – including not worrying about how it all ends. But then there’s the small issue of the math. 

When you are 18 if your team loses their shot at a championship they may have another 55 chances at it while you are around, on average. Even though I took losses hard at 18 there was a resilience and a youthful naïveté – we’ll just get them next year. When you are 55 that’s down to just 18 chances to get them next year. And each year that goes by without is an increasing percentage of what’s left. This year it’s 5.5% of the remaining seasons (again, just working of average mortality statistics…xD?). But next year it’s 5.9%. And if this goes on another few years we are talking about the 8% and greater range. It’s going to get dicey for the head if one keeps staring at the numbers. 

And then there’s this Arsenal team and the sheer pleasure they bring, and what that’s meant to me. Last season and this season have diverted me away from this maudlin math. The beauty of this team, the joy of watching this Arsenal squad play, has corrected a fair bit of that desperate outlook (not all of it: I still want us to win everything!). The knowledge that despite sports’ binary nature (win/lose, all or nothing), much of the reward of sports comes from moments (and from sharing those moments with other like-minded obsessives), that not winning it all doesn’t mean not winning anything at all. Saliba’s curling goal against Bournemouth last year. Reiss. Rice and United. Rice and Luton. The final glorious penalty against Porto. All these moments are mine/ours, whether Sunday happens or not. I now enjoy these moments differently. I don’t have to sweat that chase for immortality the same way. 

I don’t have to do the math. 

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The Best NLD

Yesterday was the best North London Derby for me, ever, and for a reason I don’t think anyone might expect.

Beating Tottenham? Great. Beating them with beautiful play from our sublime right wing and seeing him cup his ears in response to misguided (though predictably stupid) taunts? Super. Our goalkeeper making a terrible mistake but showing the mental strength to not let it impact the rest of his game? Excellent. And the online banter afterwards, the schadenfreuede and elation over winning another NLD? Welcome and so satisfying. All good, but nothing that would ever make it “the best”.

The real joy came from something that I didn’t even know happened when it happened. I was driving, on a 3+ hour return trip from seeing my parents, in the car with the family, endlessly tapping my left foot against the driver-side door, angst and nerves consuming me. Riding shotgun was my 19 year old son. My son is neurodivergent. He loves sports but cannot watch sports. The events of any given game make him anxious. He knows everything about Arsenal, world football, the Knicks, the Mets, etc. But bad, or unexpected results have, in previous spells, led to dysregulation and incredibly difficult circumstances for him and for all of us who were around him. For anyone who is neurotypical, who thinks a game not going their way is rough emotionally, I challenge you to watch someone on the spectrum have to deal with the psychic pain of that disappointment. During the pandemic it rendered Arsenal a non-option for me (hence I disappeared from social media and mostly had to cease watching the team I love so much). I gave that up willingly, with difficulty, for him. This disappearance was in solidarity with my son, who grafted a devotion of his own to Arsenal out of mine.

Yesterday in the car he gave me limited score updates. I asked him first if he wanted to follow the game and he said yeah, he’d be fine. “City are winning the league anyhow, so it’s no big deal”, he said. No details, though: his phone is restricted (by his own design) to sites that only offer scores but little in the way of details.

1-0. No idea how. 1-1, then back to 1-0 shortly thereafter and a high five. 2-0. 3-0. Halftime. Some perhaps too-confident proclamations. A deep breath, and a mid-Connecticut traffic-less interlude. While his ability to cope with stress has improved over the past two years we all have some trauma from the moments back in ‘20 through early ‘22 when he couldn’t hold it together. So the drive, which was uneventful, was still laced with my own nervousness – about the game and, more importantly, about what might happen if things went south.

As the time passed I made little milestones for myself, tinged with a kind of compulsive superstition. If we make it three miles and my son doesn’t give me bad news that’s good. If we make it three exits then all will be well and I can breathe. Then 3-1. No idea how, why, or what happened. Better that way. But still, it was 3-1, and late. And then silence. Nothing. No updates. I kept eyeing the clock. Counted the exits. Watched the odometer. I knew when the second half had started so I also new it was approaching stoppage time. But no info on how much there was. Or the status. Nothing. So, I presumed it was 3-1, and thankfully nothing was happening. 10:51, 10:52, 10:53, and still silence from the next seat over. Finally, around 10:58, I hear a “YES!” and my son tells me it’s over. We won! A little fist bump and a deep breath and he says “it was 3-2”. “3-2?”, I say? Yes, he answers. He says “Tottenham got a penalty and it was 3-2 but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get nervous”. I couldn’t believe it.

And THAT was the best result of the day, and that simple sheltering of information was what made it the best NLD I have ever had. This kind of act, this kind of response to stress, was unthinkable just 12-18 months ago. He protected *me*. He managed his own stress, actually engaged with it, while removing mine. My vulnerable son took care to shield his old, ostensibly mature father from the nerves of a late frenzy in a do-or-die NLD, and took the vulnerability on himself. That’s no small feat. It was incredibly brave, for him to risk his own emotions in that moment. I can’t describe what that means for him (way more than what it means for me) as an emotionally developing and neurodivergent teen.

It was the best NLD ever.