“If I didn’t support Arsenal, I’d choose Arsenal“: End of Season Review Part One (Positives Needs & Hopes)

If I didn’t support Arsenal, I’d choose Arsenal 

Season Review (Part One)

I fell in love with Arsenal before love had explained itself to me.

I was five. 

Alan’s magnificent Afro

At first I think I had a weird admiration of Alan Sunderland’s perm but looking back I think it was simpler than that. I think that when he scored at the back post in the spring of ‘79, I fell for the passion in his celebration more so than his perm. At least that is the story I’m sticking by. Surely a 5 year old doesn’t choose his first lifelong love based on an inadvisable hairstyle. 

So I’ve been a Gooner for 44 years. That’s a lot. Knowing how I feel now about Arsenal, I can’t say that I’ve ‘loved’ Arsenal for 44 years. Like many sports fans the moment that your heart lights up is when you first visit the stadium, and I’d say that this was my first romance. That was entering the West Stand in 1980-something. I’m not entirely convinced that this was the love moment though. It was my first big stadium visit and I was likely confusing the overwhelming experience. Seeing a green rectangle so very green that it looked like a new colour. It was surrounded by magnificence and an ever increasing hum of anticipation. I think my heart connected at this point. Much like the birth of a child. Do we love them instantly or is it when we get a grip of the revelation and enormity of who this is and who gave me such a perfect gift. 

I think love is often found when you are overwhelmed. It’s different than simply liking something a lot. It’s like being two thirds of the way up the ladder and jumping to the top. Seems impossible, but it just happened and is overwhelming. 

I don’t actually jump up ladders. Not often, anyway. 

When I signed up to being an Arsenal fan, I don’t think I considered what I was doing. In fact I know I didn’t. I haven’t ever doubted my choice but from 2009 for the next nine years, I realized that my love for Arsenal was negatively affecting the people around me. 

I think I at least figured out the power of love. It’s a shame I didn’t do it before Huey Lewis and the News because I wouldn’t be in Charleston, South Carolina staring out at a yacht as I wrote, I’d be on it.

This season I started to doubt when it was that I actually fell in love with Arsenal. The double years were quite epic but I wasn’t able to watch much beyond highlights of each game. This season I watched every game. And it was quite beautiful. I even found beauty in the fight and scramble to win but not lose at Anfield. Knowing how hard the players were trying to reverse the scoreline against City. 

Credit: Godfrey Pitt (Action Plus/ Shutterstock)

Most everything else was like watching an orchestra that had just been given a brand new elite conductor and everything else started to sound as beautiful as it was intended to. 

If beautiful is the word then Martin Odegaard is the reason. 

Equally, I loved the consistent warrior-like attitude to away games. The seriousness. The mentality that we are coming for three points, not one. 

If warrior was the word then Gabriel was the reason. 

I particularly liked seeing our goals spread around four players. It became clear very early that they had been challenged to step up. As impressive as Haaland was it’s less risky to spread it around.

If stepping up was the word, then Saka, Gabi, Gabby and Martin were the reason. 

I loved having a superhero. A gobby keeper who seemed as eccentric as the job description asked for. Not just a banter king but a keeper that could back it up with repeated match winning saves. Most keepers don’t wear a cape or even own one but Arsenal searched deeper. He was probably our riskiest signing in the recent past and this signing more than any other has given me faith in our recruiting. Many of the others were more about convincing big players to come rather than a dice roll. Well, we got our man and if superhero is the word then Ramsdale is the reason.

I think that the phrase ‘we’re good’ came from my mouth more than any other this season. I live in a land of extremes and most everything is ‘awesome’ or ‘sucks.’ It was a parent on my first club team that once looked at me with his eyes full of tears and said, “Coach Mike, you are a good coach.’ At first I didn’t know if I was supposed to be flattered or offended because I wasn’t awesome like the Macarena or the new iPod. I realized later that he was genuine to the point of tears and that I was being taught that ‘good’ is good enough, much like me being dumped twice as a teenager for being ‘too nice’ was actually a compliment. 

I wonder now what it was that made us ‘good.’ I think it was the superiority I felt watching a handful of our players dominate their space on such a regular basis.

If superiority is the word then Partey, Zinchenko, White and Saliba are the reason. 

Finally, it might be more simple than all this.

If you want to be good as a team then improve the individuals. That sounds rather obvious but if you look around the league, there are likely considerably more teams who have players who don’t seem to ever improve much, than ours do. Thankfully, our coach has the energy and desire to improve our players. I can tell you that I was better at improving players when I was a little younger. You need energy because there are so many pieces to coaching. To invest in players is to invest in people. As soon as you decide to open the door, and if you are a good person, it doesn’t close.

There was obviously an agreement with Xhaka to be able to leave on his terms. Arteta saw something in him that really nobody else did. A credit to the coach, and a credit to a player as most players in their prime don’t like change and aren’t very good at accomplishing it. They don’t want to waste their prime years trying to be good at something when they’ve spent most of their career trying to perfect something else.

If improvement is the word, then Granit Xhaka is the reason. For me, he sits at the top of the list as his task was harder. He sits on top of the list that is as long as the entire starting 11 so maybe improvement is actually the word. It’s certainly the word that Arteta uses as soon as the media try to tell him that he’s accomplished something.

Arsenal were good this season. Really good. Even though we didn’t get the glory, I feel like we tasted it. 

It makes me again question when I fell in love with Arsenal. Was it actually in 1989 when me and Dominic Ison were running down Station Rd in Tring randomly climbing the lampposts. Mickey Thomas had just scored and I don’t even think we stayed to watch the end. Unadulterated joy and perhaps, love.

When it was that I fell in love with Arsenal doesn’t matter. Not really to me and I’m sure it doesn’t alter your world.

In my job I frequently have middle school students come to me and ask me who I think they should support. My first thought is that they have given up telling Max McDonald to “shut up about soccer,” and decided that it’s worth loving like he does. Secondly, I tell them about Arsenal. Of course I would though. In the past I’ve been fishing for half baked, unconvincing reasons why they should choose a club that seems to always have nice kits but too often flatters to deceive.

This season has been different though. I can talk with a new passion. Off script. No deception. 

This season has been so good on so many levels that I know that I know that I know that if I was new to football and wanted to find a team to love, I’d pick Arsenal Football Club.

Thanks for reading Part One. 

Part two will happen as soon as my beautiful wife gets her Kindle out again. Good husband on vacation 

Former Highbury regular. Moved to TN, USA in ’99. Married with 3 kids. Coached in UK and US for 27 years.
Mike McDonald Soccer Academy in Morristown TN, Olympic Development coach, Regional Premier League Champion.

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