Why Does the Arsenal Rivalry Still Mean so Much to Some Manchester United Fans?

The commonly held consensus is that the rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal has cooled off in recent years. This is, for the most part, true. After all, at its height, the two teams were competing directly with each other for the title every season, were led by two fearsome competitors on the pitch and managed by two men with clear antipathy for one another off it.

Only one of those three things is true now. The arrival of Jose Mourinho means Arsene Wenger is once again an enemy of the United manager, something that has not been true since Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson's rivalry was mellowed by age, experience and the fact that Arsenal stopped winning things.

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But neither team have won the league for a while, and in Arsenal's case, a long while. Neither team could field a Roy Keane- or Patrick Vieira-esque competitor on the pitch even if they could somehow extract, bottle and combine the collective competitive endeavour of their entire starting XIs and put it into one player.

But there is a generation of supporters for whom the rivalry is as real as ever. The reasons are varied—geography, the question of timing and personal antipathy for key figures on the other side, for example. We spoke to some United supporters to figure out what was at the heart of the off-pitch rivalry now that the two clubs were no longer each other's fiercest competitor on it.

The question of geography is an important one. United's support is global, and there are many places in the world where Arsenal also have a significant following.

It makes sense that away from the bonds of local rivalries, the other big teams in town are those with whom competition is most fierce. Above we see examples from South Africa, India and Kenya of people who were surrounded by supporters of the other team. And proximity to a rival team's fans always heightens the importance of victory.

Think of local United fans who live and work with Manchester City supporters. The wake of a derby defeat is particularly painful if you have to go to work the next day for a boss who supports City.

And then there's a more local geographical component. Though the stereotype that "all United fans are from London" is self-evidently nonsense, there are plenty of Red Devils who grew up within close proximity to Highbury. Chudi Onwuazor is one of those. A regular at Old Trafford, Onwuazor has strong feelings about the Gunners.

"I live five minutes from the Emirates, 10 from Highbury so I've always been surrounded by Arsenal fans. I found that as I was growing up and really starting to understand football, Arsenal were our main rivals and the fact that they could compete with us then made it both better and worse.

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"I could reel off the arguments and fights—more like handbags—I had around that time.

"Being embarrassed when they won the title at ours, the 3-1 with the gold kit when [Fabien] Barthez made the mistakes are some of the worst moments, but as time wore on and things started getting less competitive on the pitch I found that my dislike for their fans grew.

"It got to a stage where we moved on and they still clung to the rivalry, of course, my location played a part but whenever something bad happened to United, Arsenal fans would be the first to pipe up.

"It's remained like that. I've found as time has gone on I don't dislike Wenger anymore. They even have players that I like, whereas previously I couldn't bring myself to admit that any of their players were any good let alone that I liked them.

"I think now my dislike is firmly about their fanbase. You just have to look at things like ArsenalFanTV and some of their "Twitter Celebs" and how they act. They seem to have a perverse obsession with United. [Paul] Pogba is their new focus, 'We signed x,y and z for the price of Pogba.'"

"The fans," is a common complaint. Of course, while every fanbase has its quirks—United supporters have a reputation for arrogance and entitlement, for example—in general, fans have much more in common than separates them. However, it is not always perceived that way, and rivalries are driven by that kind of perception.

It feels important to stress at this point that the views shared here do not necessarily reflect the views of this article's author!

"

@UtdRantcast Don't see them as a rival however I hate them because of their unbearable fans. As a club they are irrelevant otherwise

— Denny Jasar (@dennyjasar) November 17, 2016"

As a good rule of thumb, no fanbase is ever as "good" as its own fans believe it to be, or as "bad" as rival fans do. Although that last one seems pretty fair. 

Just for some balance, though, here's an Arsenal fan poking fun at his own team's reputation.

Geography and perception of the fans are clearly two big reasons. But another oft-cited reason was that people grew up when this was a rivalry that really, really mattered. From the turn of the 1990s to the middle of the 2000s, there were so many incident-packed games between the two teams.

Pizza was thrown, arguments in tunnels were televised, titles were won and lost, and all of it was seared into the imaginations of a generation.

In football, rivalries might cool but memories are long. The image of Martin Keown screaming in Ruud van Nistelrooy's face is unforgettable if you saw it play out. As is the pain of losing the title at Old Trafford, or the joy at wresting the league back off them in 2002/03.

The memory of Keane's monologue in the Highbury tunnel is up there with any moment in United's collective folklore (Note: Video contains some NSFW language). It is these incidents that define the rivalry.

In the end, while it was hard-fought, and Arsenal won plenty of battles, United won the war. When Wenger was prepared to sell Robin van Persie to Sir Alex, you knew a permanent ceasefire had been declared.

Now, though, with Mourinho at the helm, the uneasy peace which never got a lot of buy-in from supporters threatens to shatter. It will take both teams finding their way back to the top table of domestic competition, but if they can, the ingredients are there for another flare-up of an old, old fight.