Life moves pretty fast

Yesterday was a good day. I went to Wembley to watch Arsenal win the FA Community Shield in an interesting game against very challenging opponents Manchester City. It gave me a massive uplift after a few weeks of, at times, feeling pretty poorly with a virus. I’ve written before about what a good crowd can do for my wellbeing. (See this post and this one).

Yesterday was no exception. From meeting a familiar face at the fan park, making some new acquaintances via him and sharing sing-alongs pre-game, to chanting until my throat was dry in the stadium and high fiving all and sundry when we secured the victory, I had fun!

Many people, particularly those I have worked with, have expressed a curiosity for how I behave at football. This has particularly been mentioned when I have had a croaky voice the next morning after a mid-week game. I maybe don’t come across as your typical football fan. Not quite one of the lads you might say or in-keeping with my Office Labrador identity. (See Companions). I do have something of a Big Bang Theory persona in many ways. But I’m a complicated individual and, like Pete Venkman’s washing, I have many subtle layers! (Bonus points to anyone who gets that reference!)

But back in the fan park, one of the things that occurs when you meet people who follow the same team as you, is that you inevitably share your football history. It is an exchange of information. A connection not a validation. Merely an understanding of where you are on your football journey. You talk of first games, best goals, favourite players, thoughts on the current squad, and, for days where the game is a little special for some reason, you talk of similar matches.

This was a point of reminiscence for me yesterday as it was twenty-five years previously in 1998 that I went to my only prior FA Charity Shield.

Twenty-five years is an interesting milestone. The inevitable thing was to think about what has changed, although my lucky scarf went to both games as it has to all Arsenal games for thirty years! When I think of what, just about to turn eighteen years old, me was thinking about in life in August 1998 compared to now as I am in my early forties, there is an incredible contrast.

Not least, had things been different in just one way, I could legitimately have a child of eighteen at this point. Jen and I had been married for nearly two years, eighteen years ago. But that wasn’t to be.

What was to be however, I have been thinking about today.

Firstly, in the football world, the name of the trophy is a good place to start. Football is far more community based and inclusive now than it ever was then. There is an active component to community where charity has more philanthropic tones. Not that charity is bad at all, just that community is where I believe football is far more powerful. Both my clubs, Arsenal and Enfield Town, are leaders in this field and I am proud of that.

Wembley itself was a very different place. The twin towers have gone, as has the ability to drive to the game. The idea of a fan zone in the Box Park, with its bars and world food options, is in of itself very different to the greasy burger vans and cans of lager on Wembley Way from the ‘90s.

For Arsenal, we were the double holders in 1998, facing a Manchester United side in the game who had been runners-up in the league the previous season. This time we were the runners-up playing against the other treble-winning Manchester side. When you consider where City were in 1998, just starting off in the third tier of English football, if you’d said to anyone that day how the Manchester clubs would have changed in stature respective to each other, and in the money behind them more importantly, you’d probably have been escorted off the premises for imbibing a little too much of the good stuff!

One thing that jumped out to me yesterday as I was taking photos and video on my mobile is that I don’t have a single picture from that game in 1998. I probably didn’t want to carry a film camera around all day, and I think my mobile was a Nokia 5110 that I had just got and mainly used for playing snake as I could never afford credit! Different world!

I do kind of appear in one photo from the day. That game was famously the first game David Beckham had played in England after his sending off against Argentina in the France 98 World Cup. He was receiving all sorts of abuse in the media for supposedly costing us that game and was booed relentlessly by other fans that season.

I don’t condone this, but some Arsenal fans took it upon themselves to create a “David Beckscum” banner on old wallpaper. An old school analogue tweet if you will! This was held aloft during the game and my cousin and I were a couple of rows behind it. As a result, the side of my head was on the back page of a few newspapers the next day! (See below).

Away from football, I couldn’t have imagined how my life would unfold in the following twenty-five years. That young man is very different to the person I am now in some ways and in others there is virtually no change. For example, we both watched as much football as we could and also an extraordinary amount of Red Dwarf and Star Trek!

Work is an interesting one. I was about to go into Year 13. We were being asked about university options and careers. I really had no idea what I wanted to do and, what I was doing, I wasn’t really enjoying. I think if I had told myself how I resolved these things to the extent that I have, I would have been excited for it, although quite surprised I suspect.

Am I doing my dream job? Probably not because, firstly I’m still not really sure what it is, and secondly my dream job I don’t think would have paid the bills or facilitated Jen and I’s life together over the years! I am good at what I do though and that is satisfying. Plus, I’ve worked with some excellent people and made some long-term friends as a result.

And what of Jen and I’s life together? We had met by then. In fact, we met a year before at a post-GCSE meal. Coincidently, we also worked together part time. But it would be nearly two years after this time that we eventually got together. Other people were in our lives, but a friendship was blossoming that eventually became the underpinning of our relationship and carried us through all the ups and downs of the twenty years we had together.

Would my younger self have imagined all that life with Jenni who I saw at the weekends from time to time? Very unlikely. However, Jen came to fulfil many of the things that that young man was looking for. A partner to settle down and live a life with. Someone to love singularly and to explore the world alongside. That is something I knew I wanted from quite young.

We grew into that life together and I am so grateful for everything that she did to help that teenager grow into the man I am today. I’m very proud of our marriage and everything it represented. It has also given me what I have needed to go forward in a world where I can’t hold her hand anymore, but she walks with me in my heart and mind.

To conclude these thoughts, one of the curiosities of being a football fan is that it is almost inevitable that games come to represent milestones in your life. It is true of any events that you are passionate about. They therefore become merged with other memories, thoughts and feelings that take you back to a place and time. I planted a new marker yesterday that will bring me back to my sabbatical. It will be interesting to look back on that marker in the time to come.