Twelve years. Twenty-two for some but all twelve years I’ve supported this football club. Arsenal. My club, your club, our club.
How does one choose a team to support in any sport? Is it a player, a coach, a brand or identity? Are you perennial winners, a serial underdog? A team with a rich history who lost its way in recent years? Is it where you’re born, who your parents or friends like?
Editor’s Note: What a way to welcome Max Mallow, SBN’s new soccer editor and fellow Gooner to the mothership and TSF.
Enjoy his Arsenal story!
For baseball and football, it was easy. Born in New York, the Mets and Jets were for me. My mother was a season ticket holder, but as she and my stepfather aged, their love for their teams dissipated as the fleeting successes of 1969 and 1986 faded into memory. It helped that I grew up with kids who also liked the same teams.
I was late to soccer in my life, 2014 to be exact. The World Cup was on, I had a sudden intention to care about my familial ties as Germany denied Lionel Messi and Argentina glory. He didn’t play the biggest role, but I was enamored with Mesut Ozil. The flair, the creativity. To this day the No. 10 remains my favorite position on the pitch.
“Who does he play for? Oh, Arsenal. Hm, maybe that should be my club team.”
A year later, Alexis Sanchez guided Chile to another international victory over Messi in the Copa America final. Another Arsenal player.
Some reading—Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, the Invincibles, Arsene Wenger—and I was sold. One of my best friends wanted me to support Manchester United because we both liked direct rivals in the two aforementioned sports, but why change that? I chose their historic rival and tried to quickly engage myself with everything about Arsenal.
A crash course history in a summer. “Finishing fourth is your trophy, the FA Cup is all you really can win.” It seemed like I was hopping on to what has been consistently described by more loyal content creators as a sleeping giant. Given the nature of my other two teams, at least the club had a rich history.
What a time to pick Arsenal football club, eh? Little did I know I’d joined up on the downslope, with the nadir of modern Arsenal around the corner. The slow march towards Wenger’s exit and the Unai Emery era. As fan channels entered the forefront, it was hard to avoid being swept into the turmoil Londoners and lifelong Gooners have dealt with since 2004. Yet, it was my team. I chose them, I wasn’t going to change. Henry and Bergkamp were my legends, I hated Tottenham despite having never been there and the rest from here would be history.
When Unai Emery came in, it felt like a new time to really engage with following the club. Even as modern fans go, playing FIFA with names like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and others in the past helped me become more adept with other leagues, players, the sport as a whole. I was truly falling in love with everything footy.
That first year is when I really bought in to following them each game, no matter the kick-off time. I met some great people who became good friends despite supporting other clubs, and my love for the sport was cemented.
Emery’s unbeaten run and transfer windows got me sort of excited, but the sting of Baku and missing out on Champions League qualification was the first real heartbreak I felt as a supporter. Then the real first hate watch was making sure Tottenham didn’t win the Champions League. How things change but stay the same.
My now wife surprised me with a trip to Washington D.C. a couple months later to watch Arsenal play a pre-season friendly against Real Madrid. I finally got to see my team play in person and as far as she knew I was this big Arsenal fan. I had a duty to uphold from there and my love for the club grew and grew.
Bukayo Saka came along. This young, exciting player from the academy and I started to try and learn about Hale End. More history to immerse myself in, almost to try and validate my fandom. I was still new to the team all things considered. Saka was going to be my guy.
Emery’s tenure rather toxically came to an end a couple months later and in comes Mikel Arteta. A former Arsenal player taking his first managerial job. Either this guy would restore Arsenal to where it belongs and I’d reap the benefits, or I’d get sucked into the neverending disappointment of what my Mets and Jets fandom had become.
Some attractive play and an FA Cup at the end of a Covid season when we as a world were isolated from each other meant the world to me. I was going to follow this club forever. Arsenal is now my family’s club and it will be from here on out. With that, I was the modern football fan for better or worse.
2020-21 was one of the worst seasons in the club’s history. Way to go, Max. Great pick.
Eighth again, early cup exits, a Europa League semifinal exit, to Unai Emery’s Villareal, no less. I truly felt what it was like to support a banter club. If you’ve never seen them, go look at some of the memes from that season. Kieran Tierney tripping over his legs, David Luiz’s defending and the Wolves penalty, Rob Holding somehow fouling Adama Traore and calling him a “Brick s***house” while asking how he’s gone down like that.
A big summer from a financial standpoint unfolded with justifiable doubt regarding Arteta’s future looming.
The season began with Gary Neville’s oft-replayed post-game comments about how soft we were at Brentford away. As that game unfolded, I was sitting at a supporters bar with my wife, agreeing with Gary. I was screaming “GET OUT OF MY CLUB ARTETA.”
Results somewhat turned, we clawed our way up the table. Looking back, that season was the Arteta project in miniature for me as a supporter. Every win, Arteta In. Every loss, Arteta Out. We nearly returned to what I was introduced to Arsenal as: a fourth place celebrating club. Horrible losses to Newcastle and Spurs derailed it and we were back in the Europa League.
Then, All or Nothing came along. An inside, in-depth look at the season. Some of the most infamous memes came from it, but what I took away was how matchgoing fans had started to believe again. And at Aston Villa, how Arteta’s song became so prominent.
“We’ve got Super Mik’ Arteta. He knows exactly what we need…” From my keyboard, cell phone or screen watching games all the way over here, signs started to emerge that we could play some of the great football that Wenger instilled. Maybe we could also be defensively resilient like George Graham. But 2022-23 was going to be the season to see if he was the real deal.
Another summer with big expenditures added some proven Premier League winners and… wait was this the same Arsenal I was screaming about at a bar a year ago? We were flying. We were eight points clear, oh my god could we win the Premier League? I thought Martin Odegaard was the second coming of Ozil, Real Madrid parallels and all, Granit Xhaka was reborn and got fans back on side, Gabriel Jesus was the perfect center forward to link with Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka. We had Gabriel and William Saliba forming the next great partnership at the back. We were a competent team who looked like we were going to challenge.
I was at a thrift festival in Rhode Island with my wife and her group of friends trying to contain my excitement when Reiss Nelson scored that game winner. The joy of winning the league was coming. I knew it would hit so much harder than winning the FA Cup. And then we bottled it. From burgeoning excitement to devastating pain. How did this happen? Stateside during that season, I had to watch my favorite pitcher in baseball history leave the Mets. Both teams. Right back in the mud. Why do we do this to ourselves?
I’m not going to recap in detail the other two second place finishes. We all lived them. We signed Declan Rice. That was going to do it. It was the big money move that would get us over the hump. It didn’t. We had our moments but the ephemeral joy of historic wins in the Champions League was cold comfort when another season ended trophy-less. It really is the hope that kills you as an Arsenal fan.
But it also keeps you coming back. After two years of taking Manchester City to the brink, we fell to Liverpool out of nowhere. Far off the pace we established, too. It felt like a step backwards. The trophy cabinet continued to pick up dust. “He has to win something this year,” many proclaimed, myself among them. Some might have felt a Carabao Cup was enough, but for me it had to be a big one: the Premier League or the Champions League.
Easy, right? Just win either a competition they haven’t won since 2004 or do what the club has never done and win the biggest club trophy in the world. Was Mikel Arteta to become Arsenal’s Brendan Rodgers? The guy who sets the club up for success, never to realize it on his own.
Hope brought us back. And that’s how you get to live days like Tuesday, May 19, 2026. They did it. We did it.
Arsenal are the 2025-26 Premier League champions.
I’m still processing it. At least I think I am. Honestly, I can’t know what it feels like to not be processing it because I’ve never experienced it. Not just with Arsenal, with any of my sports teams. This is a first for me. My team finally won their league.
Jumping around in my apartment, I watched on the internet as reportedly more than 100,000 people flocked to Emirates Stadium after Bournemouth drew with Manchester City. The beast was finally conquered in more ways than one. A team I loved finally won a major honor. The pride, the joy I felt for those players, the manager, the staff, and supporters. It all doesn’t feel real still. It’ll feel real once they lift the trophy in person, but how does one process seeing their team realize glory?
This is my first league title as an Arsenal supporter, and it might be the second, third, whatever for others. I’ve only been here for 12 years, but I’ll be here for the next 12 and the 12 after that. Because now I know what it means to see this wonderful club back where it belongs, long before I came along. Hopefully, we continue to know what this feels like moving forward for the generations to come and we get to experience it with them!
Whether it’s your first league win like me or 22 years of heartbreak coming to an end for you, we can all bask in the fact that we are Arsenal and we’re Premier League champions. It’s important to remember everything we’ve gone through no matter your entry point. I flip-flopped like I’m sure a lot of you have. That’s what it means to be a football fan, almost like a badge of honor in this modern landscape.
Those of you who backed Mikel Arteta the whole time, enjoy your vindication. For those of us that doubted at times, it is all part of the journey, isn’t it? Heck, if you want to backpedal a bit go right ahead. Who cares? We won. The rest? Minor details.
Your journey to this point is your journey. Take no shame on the road that got you here with us because we’ve finally made it! Champions of England.
I’m grateful if you read this supporter’s journey, and I encourage you to share yours. I’m going to end with this: No matter what we’ve gone through or how long we’ve supported this team up until this point, we’re here savoring it together. And it still might get even sweeter. Onward to Budapest.
Come on you Gunners. Forever.
