My Arsenal story starts here in Italy; I was with my parents in a shopping mall, some 13 years ago and while they were trying to buy a cd player, wasting two hours in the process, I sat on a sofa in front of which lay an impressive tv screen. A football match was being shown: Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur. That was my first contact with English football, and I still remember loads of details of that match: it was played at Highbury, the ball was that volleyball-shaped Mitre ball, Arsenal wore this classy Nike shirt, the crowd almost inside the pitch (in Italy fans can be really far away from the pitch in some places)... The tv commentator was conviced that that match was THE London derby, and fuelled his commentary with facts and anecdotes about the two teams rather than actually follow the match. I fell in love with Arsenal, and Ian Wright of course, on that particular day. But I lived (and I still do, even if it won't be for long) in Italy; 13 years ago, there was no internet, and not such wealth to have cable tv installed at home, so I couldn't follow Arsenal properly. I'm lucky enough though to have an English teacher as a mother, and she sent me over to London as many times as she could, officially to learn to speak English. I had always tried to get to Highbury, but every time I went to London, I wasn't able to do it.

One day I was at City University in London, during one of these English 'holidays', and as I felt Highbury was really near, I went to the bus stop, quickly had a look at the timetable, and got on the no. 4 bus. I stopped at the Arsenal Fish Bar as I was told by the driver, and I off I went to discover Arsenal stadium. It seemed huge to me, this incredible white thing emerging from the houses, bearing the glorious cannon (rightly pointing to the left) and the famous ARSENAL STADIUM words... I couldn't believe it. I had always watched matches played at Highbury on tv, and now I was there!!

I went to the Arsenal shop, bought my Arsenal shirt and tried to book a stadium tour, but to no avail as they were already booked for the entire week! I managed however to get a glimpse of the ground thanks to the groundsmen who were cutting the grass. They allowed me to stay in the corner between the East stand and the North Bank (at their risk) and left me there to pray and contemplate, as a pilgrim at Canterbury cathedral. And it was then, right in that moment, that I began to cry like a baby. It was heaven on earth. Incredible. It was too much when I had to get back to Angel, and the bus driver (imagine me as a chubby boy, crying with fish and chips in his hands) gently told me: "Are you f**king getting on the bus or what?". I went to Waterstones to buy Fever Pitch (I had read it in Italian previously) and I read it all at once during the following night.

My life had completely changed on that day in late July, and people around me, much to their desperation, thought I had gone crazy. From that day on, I had really began a Gooner.

I'm writing today, the Monday after the disappointing Old Trafford (DIABolical) tragedy. I watched the match with my girlfriend, (a recent Arsenal convert, after watching Arsenal v Atletico Madrid at the Grove with me, earlier in August). She was not really interested in Arsenal I suppose, she was rather interested in my mental and physical stability as she feared the worst (actually ranting during the whole match, throwing a rubber ball in the air during the whole match, hurling the ball out of the window screaming "ARSHAAAAAAAAVIN!!!!", talking about the virtues of Shrek boy's wife after the penalty is pretty normal for a football fan, isn't it?). Sometimes she argues that I put Arsenal on the same level as her: that's not true, darling. I really love you, I want you to stay with me all my life, but sometimes Arsenal is on a higher level than you (I'm joking!!!). 

My room has been for years now my Arsenal sanctuary. Memorabilia, scarves, photos (the 1971 FA Cup Charlie George one is my favourite), books, Fever Pitch among them, red and white everywhere. My friends came to accept my 'strange' football fanship and regard it now (years after) as 'normal' and every now and again, when it comes to birthday presents, I expect to receive some Arsenal-related item, as they know they won't fail doing this. Most of the people look at me as if I'm a bit weird, they don't see the sense of my being a far-away Gooner; they can't see it actually. Only people who have gone to Highbury, or the Grove (even if it does not have that particalar magic of Highbury) can understand me. And when people ask me: "Why Arsenal?", I answer telling them that what I saw on that particular day at Highbury was the real poetry of football, that I breathed football culture that we do not have here in Italy, and I fell in love with that, and with Arsenal Football Club.

I've sent this words to the Gooner fanzine, of which existence I wasn't aware I admit, because I got hold of issue 197 at the Grove during the Emirates Cup. And I really liked it, because the spirit in which it is written, is the same as mine, frustrations and little joys we live in the same way. Thanks for paying attention to my obsessiveness.