Arsenal and age: How four different generations view the club in 2025

New York Times

03-03-2025

How much are football perceptions affected by age? To what extent is the football experience consumed and digested differently according to how new or old you are to the game?
These questions came up when one of our Arsenal writers, Art de Roché, had what he described as an 'existential' conversation with his friend in the wake of the week which virtually extinguished any hope of the club of winning the Premier League title this season.
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Art is in his mid-twenties. Arsenal last won the title when he was five, so there is no strong memory of such an achievement. It made him wonder to what extent this shapes his Arsenal world compared to older fans who were there to see major trophies and iconic eras from the club's story.
So, The Athletic decided to pull together a multi-generational gathering to compare notes and feelings, to establish what four generations share in their Arsenal experience, and what differs, based on when they happened to be thrust into this world.
The conversation flowed between four supporters whose first game ranged from the 1950s to the 2010s. The cast is Arthur, who represents the teenagers, Art, the twentysomethings, Amy in the middle-aged bracket and Richard, the veteran.
Richard: I was born a Gunner. Actually, all the people that I knew were Gunners, all my family were supporters, so it was only a question of how long to go to a game. A cousin of mine, who was probably 15 to 20 years older, took me to Arsenal vs Luton in the late 1950s.
Amy: My first game was in the late 70s — Arsenal against Forest, three-nil — and I was taken along by my best friend's dad.
Art: I fear this is going to make you and Richard feel sick, but mine wasn't at Highbury. It was an Emirates Cup game. My older cousin took me. He's about 11 years older than me, and it was against Paris Saint-Germain. I think it was the first Emirates Cup game ever, in 2007. Similar to Richard as well, it was more a time of when rather than if. So it was already a big deal. My first big memory, unfortunately, is the Champions League final of 2006.
Arthur: I think I was in Year Two, so 2016-17. One of my friends from school just told me that he supported Arsenal and I was just starting to get into football. He said he supported Arsenal, so I just sort of did a smile and then told my dad. He was fuming. But I'm happy.
Arthur: Well, what I look forward to the most is the actual match. Just watching and getting to see the players close up. But it didn't start well because my first game we drew 0-0 to Hull in the FA Cup (2016), so not the best start, but it's got a lot better now.
Art: Mine's just kick-off. I hate the wait between finding out the line-up until kick-off. I find that hour — or 75 minutes now — so hard to deal with because you're just sat there waiting for it all. Once everything's all started, I'm a bit calmer.
Richard: I have a large family, four or five grandsons, all of whom have become very keen on football and the Arsenal in particular. It's a very big deal because it will start at an early lunch before coming to the game, and it is about being together with that generation. Two of my sons come as well, but I'm much more interested in being with and sitting with grandsons.
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My two youngest grandsons came for only the second or third time against West Ham. It was the first time the youngest one actually understood quite what was at stake. And when we were walking back, he turned to me and he said, 'Well, at least it was a very nice afternoon and the sun was shining,' and I thought, 'Oh my God. What a life lies ahead for this young man.'
Amy: Well, that just chimes so much in the sense that when you've been going for a long time: it's that sense of family and friendship and you have to be able to enjoy the whole experience and not just the match. Obviously, everybody who's going is passionate about what happens on the pitch and what the result is. But for me, seeing old friends, having hugs with people, having a laugh, the chats that we have, the fun that we have, the being able to scream and shout and say things that I can't say in the street and let a bit of energy out that way, is as much a part of it as actually what's going on on the pitch. I think I couldn't have one without the other.
Art: No.
Richard: Against Leicester (in 2015-16), yes. I always felt that was the year where there were just no excuses.
Arthur: It's just the fact that they've just improved so much since I started watching. It still doesn't really seem like a bad season at all, but I think if it goes on it could start to seem more like failing. But it does still seem like a massive improvement from four or five seasons ago.
Arthur: No, not really, because I only really started watching when we were terrible in lockdown and finishing eighth season after season. So I'm still decently happy with the position we're in. I'm not annoyed that we haven't won the league. I mean, I am, but not as annoyed as you guys might be.
Amy: It's pretty much a procession anyway for Liverpool this season, but in the last two years nobody else could take it to Man City. Liverpool did it brilliantly under Klopp prior to that, but for Arsenal to show that another team could come along and have a go at the side who have all the money and have all the backing, it should give the whole of football some hope that if you try and do things the right way, it's possible — but it's not quite possible yet.
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Arsenal finished second three times between the titles of 1998 and 2002. With Henry and Vieira and Pires and Ljungberg and then Sol Campbell — immense players and although they weren't quite ready to be winners in between 98 and 02, you knew that they were really close, and it was a question of hanging on in there. If we were going to make any kind of comparison with what's going on now, look at the current team and Arsenal have got to hang on to those best players in this team and work around it, because to lose a Saliba or Saka or something like that now would be horrific.
But Arsenal didn't lose their very best players in that period of being second and so far Arteta's Arsenal haven't and it's really important.
Arthur: Not compensation for coming third or second for three years in a row. But it'd still be great to win it.
Art: The first trophy I remember Arsenal winning was the FA Cup against Hull in 2014. OK, this is a moment. Then we win it again in 2017. You've kind of checked that that objective off. Now let's do the next thing. So for me, I don't think it would be much of a consolation because although you'd love to win any trophy, you want to see that next step.
Richard: I think it would still mean more to me than almost any of you. Because I remember what a big deal it was. It was huge. Even the League Cup finals. I was at the Swindon game in 1969, where we lost 3-1 in extra time.
Arthur: No, not really. From my point of view, he's just got us from being terrible to so, so good again. And I think it just seems so unfair to him to just sack him after how far he's got and how far he's still getting us. I think we could have been in the level we were last season if we didn't have so many injuries, maybe even a bit better. I just think he's our best option.
Art: I can understand it through the landscape of what Arsenal fandom has become in the last 10 years. That sense of exhaustion and being tired. I personally don't see that happening.
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Richard: I grew up with the Arsenal way, and it was very much a point that used to be brought out in any criticism in the press or in any comments that, no, the Arsenal don't sack their manager. Arsenal live with their managers, work with their managers. The decisions that the managers made were everything. Nowadays, I'm never sure who's doing what.
With this recent disappointment of not buying anything in this window, Arteta's comments were like, 'I'm with you guys, I'm as disappointed as you are'. And I found that really strange because I thought to myself, 'Well, that's never been my experience.' You always felt, Arsene knows. Arsene brings them in. Arsene gets rid of them. But that's all gone. And Arteta clearly wanted somebody, didn't get anybody, and he's p***ed off by it. And so would I.
Amy: That's a brilliant point. Even towards the tail end of Arsene's time, I remember asking him about the differences between when he started and 23 years later when it was the end of his era. And he said quite passionately that the biggest factor is that when he started, he had a tiny staff of five. There was him, the physio, his assistant manager, the youth-team manager. It was a really minuscule staff of very closely trusted people.
And he said, 'Now I have a staff of 40.' There are whole divisions looking after data analysis and sports science and the medical side and the video side and everything that they do. And he said, 'My job now as a manager is not to watch and firsthand make my decisions, but it's to listen to all the experts in all the different fields and filter out what I think is the most important.'
Art: Arsene Wenger didn't have any links to Arsenal before he joined. He became like a father figure for a lot of Arsenal fans of a certain age. So he was all you knew. It just broke down a lot of thinking in terms of, 'OK, this person has to be from this part of the world, or this person has to have this link to the club before they join'.
Arthur: I don't think it really matters that much, but I understand what you mean about feeling it's in safe hands because of already caring a lot about the club if they've played for us. But just as long as they're good, that's what matters.
Richard: I just want to know that the people who are handling these things are 100 per cent above reproach. And I'm not sure about it. Does a connection with the club mean something? Well, I guess if you're Pat Rice or somebody from that generation, it hugely does. But some of the later players, it didn't feel like they had Arsenal deeply in their blood. So I regard those as business appointments.
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Arthur: I think we play quite methodical, planned-through football. It's normally the same sort of sequences — worked out wide or in high to Havertz or to Saka. I'm still coming to learn the way we play, though.
Art: I think that's interesting because 'methodical' probably would have been the last word I would have used. That's just a product of growing up in the early Emirates era. So you'd already transitioned away from a Patrick Vieira type of midfielder into a Cesc Fabregas type of midfielder. Those were the guys that I looked at as, OK, this is football: passing, moving and not really having to think about what the next pass is. It just happened. That was Wengerball and everyone spoke about how everything was about small creative players, diminutive players, which some people who maybe weren't within the Arsenal bubble looked down upon in a way. But I was actually quite happy.
Part of where this kind of conversation has come from is because, as Arthur has touched on, moving away from that in recent years — for a lot of people who are in my generation, or maybe even the generation before me — it's almost like that identity crisis of, OK, what is an Arsenal team? What is it actually supposed to look like?
Amy: We judge things in the moment, especially in today's world. I laugh sometimes when people talk, from certain clubs who haven't won a lot of stuff and are having a go because Arsenal are 'second again, olé, olé'. Well, hang on. I've seen Arsenal win the league five times. I've seen umpteen different types of football. You talk about Wengerball and I think about George Graham and one-nil to the Arsenal, which I love just as much, but differently.
Richard: My life has been governed by three great periods. Clearly, the original Double-winning side of 1970-71 which, because I was much younger, had a huge influence on how I saw other teams in relation to how we played. I've never seen a strikeforce like (John) Radford and (Ray) Kennedy. That's nothing to do with the quality of their football, but when you've got huge investment in what you're watching and they are actually performing incredibly well, it's the perfect combination.
And then we move on to the George Graham era and the Liverpool league win in 1989 and that team, where I probably feel more emotional. Maybe because of (David) Rocky (Rocastle), maybe because of that night. And then, of course, you've got the Wenger period where you saw incredible things. You saw things that you never thought you would see. I remember Henry scoring very early on in a massive game against Chelsea one evening. One of those ridiculous goals from way out wide which was completely unstoppable. And you think nothing's ever going to get any better. And it doesn't. Yes. There's huge disappointment when you don't win the European Cup, but it's never going to compete with the satisfaction from the great moment. Never.
Arthur: It might just have to be Saka because of how he's been there the entire time for me, and how consistently good he's been throughout every year. Second is Odegaard. He does so much and you see it so much more when you're actually there.
Art: Thankfully, I was conscious enough to catch Henry's last two seasons. So he's No 1. And I think into the Emirates era, you can pick any of those midfielders, and I love them all.
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Amy: One of the things I feel strongly about when you have these conversations is there's a really big distinction between a best player and a favourite player, and your best player is something that's it should be more easy to measure, but a favourite player is personal and can be based on just a feeling.
And if it's got to be about that, I will always find myself ending up with Ian Wright.
Richard: It's impossible — having been a supporter during Ian Wright's time playing at the Arsenal — not to have him very, very close. But if you're me, it's Frank McLintock. He's definitely not the best. But in terms of favourite, in terms of emotion, in terms of 'What will I think when I'm lying there just before I finally peg out? What is your favourite memory?' McClintock kissing Bertie Mee, that photograph. What's ever going to come close to that? And that's difficult to convey because it's so long ago.
(Header photos: Getty Images)