One Arsène Wenger

For anyone who read last week’s post, you’d be forgiven for assuming my posts are exclusively about older gentlemen with grey hair. I can assure you that that isn’t the case and that this weird quirk is purely coincidental. Anyway, this week is a Rob talking about Arsène Wenger.

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A little over two years ago, I was sat in my office – wow, remember what it was like to go into the office? – when I saw something that made me put my hands on my head and exclaim, “OH SHIT!”. I’d just seen the news that Arsène Wenger was to leave his 22-year stint as Arsenal manager at the end of the season…

I was eight years old when Arsène Wenger became Arsenal manager. It was around this time, rather coincidentally, that I really started to get into football. Now, if anyone asks me how long I’ve supported Arsenal for, I’ll always say since the age of about five. This is broadly true; this was when I first started watching Arsenal on the telly and when my Dad took me to my first game at Highbury (though I think I was six when I got my first shirt).

However, at this age, it was more like I was co-opting my Dad’s obsession, rather than it being my obsession. For example, if my Dad went to the pub to watch a game with his mates, I wouldn’t put the football on at home to watch it alone.

My own obsession can be neatly divided by two summer international tournaments: Euro ’96 and France ’98. As an eight year old during Euro ’96, it was clear that I enjoyed football, but wasn’t yet obsessed. I remember watching England’s game against Scotland and going mad when Gazza scored that goal. David Seaman also saved a penalty with his elbow if I’m remembering right, which was great! On the flip side of that, I missed one of England’s knockout games because there was a summer fete on which I went to instead. To this day, I don’t even know what knockout game it was. Was it the game we won on penalties, or the one we lost on penalties? Who knows? Fast forward to the summer of ’98 and it was a whole different ball game. I remember worrying that we wouldn’t be home from school on time to catch the start of one of the England group games. Every England game was viewed with that unique blend of excitement, anticipation, nerves, and a touch of nausea. Argentina was no different, except for the feeling of deflation after. An ill-advised kick out by Golden Balls before he was Golden Balls (Bronze Balls, maybe?), Argentinian theatrics, and some questionable refereeing meant we were on our way home. There were some tears that night.

But I digress. Wenger joined Arsenal a couple of months after Euro ’96 and transformed Arsenal and English football forever. Arsenal won their first Premier League title on my 10th birthday: 3rd May 1998. Tony Adams (of all people!) capping off a 4-0 win over Everton with a left-foot volley, played through by Steve Bould (of all people!!!). What a day.

Arsenal enjoyed plenty of domestic success over the next seven years or so. The crowning achievement being the Invincible season in 03/04. Arsenal became the first English side to go through a 38-game season unbeaten. An unbelievable achievement, you might think, but Arsène Wenger had predicted it a year before it happened. What a man.

I have two major regrets from this period. The first is that we didn’t do more in Europe. A run to the Champions League final in 2006 was as good as it got. The team that we had between 2001-2006 was definitely good enough to win the Champions League, but it just didn’t happen. My other regret was that I didn’t appreciate the good times quite enough. Given that we had pretty regular success from the time I was about nine until I was about 17, I naively thought that we’d always be successful. Adulthood as an Arsenal fan has been an altogether more difficult existence than my childhood years. Now don’t get me wrong, supporting a great team during my school years was no bad thing; it made the playground quarrels much more entertaining (for me anyway). But I wonder if the success would have been all the sweeter had I been emotionally mature enough to truly savour it and not take it for granted.

The success – or rather, the subsequent lack thereof – brought a divide to the Arsenal fanbase; you were either Wenger In, or you were Wenger Out. It was a subject that dominated every conversation with Arsenal fans. If someone found out you were an Arsenal fan, often the first question they’d ask would be something along the lines of, “So what do you reckon? Should Wenger go?” It became a bit of a running joke for a number of seasons, until the toxicity became too much. By that last season, I wanted Wenger out.

So, to that day in the office when the news broke. Given that I wanted a change, you might expect that I was happy, or relieved. But I didn’t feel those things. All I felt was sadness and shock. This man that had done so much for the team that I love – so much for the sport that I love – was leaving. This man who had always spoken so eloquently about football and wider societal issues was leaving. The only manager I had known during my football-obsessed years was leaving. It was a dark day.

I’m coming up to the end of this post now and one thing occurs to me: this post isn’t really about Arsène Wenger. This is more about enjoying good times while they last. It’s about not taking things for granted. It’s about acknowledging that there will be dark moments but, if you keep on keeping on, there will be good times again. I wonder if any of that is applicable to anything else going on in the world right now…

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Thanks again for reading. Be safe, be well and I’ll catch you next time.