NZ Journalist's 30-year Wait to See The Arsenal

Colleagues were quick to rib when my mates at Speight’s invited me on the Great Beer Delivery to London in October, 2007.

‘‘Think of all that free beer,’’ they enthused.

Journalism is the Homer Simpson of professions.

For me, though, the trip meant only one thing: I was finally going to see Arsenal play live.

Passion is a funny thing. One of the crustiest sons of Central Otago I have ever met, who also happens to be the Otago Daily Times chief reporter, is absolutely mad about roses.

I know! Go figure.

So my Arsenal obsession is quite unextraordinary, really.

But, if I was lying on a pyschiatrist’s couch, I would have to admit to being a bit eccentric about Arsenal Football Club. 

Friends, family, girlfriends and workmates have all patiently tolerated my football fanaticism over the years.

The ODT editorial department is adorned with several ‘‘Arsenal Champions’’ posters on the walls.

If Arsenal has lost over the weekend, I spend most of Monday morning weakly fending off abuse from colleagues. 

‘‘How did Arsenal go in the weekend, Nige?’’ editor Murray Kirkness inquired with a chuckle when I tried to sneak past his office after a recent 1-2 loss to Middlesbrough.

ODT sports writer Hayden Meikle and online editor Sean Flaherty (Liverpool and Manchester United respectively, or the other way around; it’s really irrelevant) refuse to even speak to me about football because they reckon I’m too one-eyed.

Heh. They’re quite right.

Football is a very tribal passion. You love your team and loathe all others. It’s just the way it is.

The first thing I did on arriving in London was head straight to Arsenal’s old stadium at Highbury, which was vacated two years ago for the Emirates Stadium just around the corner.

 Highbury is being converted to flats and I got talking with the construction workers on site. They were all big, black West Indians with big, white smiles.

They thought I was hilarious—or tragic—and went and got a brick for me (for which I would later have to throw away a perfectly good pair of boots to make room in my luggage) from the old East Stand. That brick now sits on my desk at work and is the source of great amusement to my colleagues.

I wryly acknowledge their mirth. But it gets much worse. When my family built an extra room at our Middleton Rd house in the ’80s, I insisted we call it ‘‘Patrick’’, after the Arsenal goalkeeper (and my all-time hero) Pat Jennings. The room was henceforth known as Patrick until we sold the house 20 years later.

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