The annual Gooner Survey is now in it’s 25th year and has grown steadily in popularity during that time, helped in recent years by the shift to an online format for which I’m eternally grateful as it takes almost all the pain out of collating the results. Previously it used to involve me bribing various family members to sift through the hundreds of A4 sheets of paper we’d receive to decipher the wildly varying qualities of hand-writing and come up with a set of statistics which reflected the views of our readership.

The ease of access also enables us to reach a far wider audience than ever before. We launched this seasons survey on Monday morning and within a couple of hours had received responses from 30 different countries around the world (see map right) reflecting the true global nature of Arsenal in 2013. It’s fantastic to see and I hope the whole map is covered by the time we close the survey in a couple of weeks time.

It’s not only the popularity and spread of the survey which has grown, but also the number of questions posed. In the first one, way back in April 1989, there were just 18 whereas this year we have limited ourselves to a mere 67, many of which were suggested by our contributors. This does mean that you’ll probably need to set aside 10-15 minutes to complete the survey, but we hope you will think it’s worth the effort to partake in what we think is the most comprehensive insight into the thoughts of the Gooner family.

You will almost certainly find that you’ve already debated many of the questions with your friends and colleagues in the pub, in the ground, in workplaces, on internet forums and anywhere else Gooners gather together. However, we’ve tried to make it a little easier by making as many questions as possible multiple choice which means I had to try to second guess what people would put, so I’ll apologise now if I’ve missed off any obvious choices.

The upshot of this was that whilst Gooners the world over were getting increasingly nervous ahead of the game at Newcastle, I spent last Sunday morning re-watching every goal we’ve scored this season in order to come up with a shortlist of 12 for the goal of the season category. It was the perfect energizer as watching Arsenal score 104 goals without reply certainly put me in a positive frame of mind ahead of kick-off, although I’ll concede I was less positive in the final five minutes!

As well as making you relive the season just finished, from the lows of Bradford and Blackburn to the highs of another 5-2 win over our North London neighbours and all the goals and performances in between, we also have sections which ask your views on the squad and manager, the owner and the club’s business model, your experience of being an Arsenal supporter and your thoughts on The Gooner and Online Gooner.

This last section is particularly important to us as the answers we get will heavily influence how we try to run the fanzine and website going forwards. Even if you’re not a reader of the fanzine or a regular visitor to the website, your views are still important to us as we strive to provide the content which will make you want to buy the fanzine or return to the site again and again. As some of you will be aware, sales of the printed edition have been falling in recent seasons as we, along with the rest of the print industry, contemplate how best to survive alongside the ever increasing amount of digital material which is now available. However, we’ve been encouraged enough by the support we’ve had in recent months to keep going and hope fans will believe there is still a place for a printed fanzine in modern times.

It’s also worth highlighting again that we are very much an open church and regularly encourage fans to contribute articles and ideas for both the site and the fanzine. If you’ve ever thought about blogging, whether it’s on a regular or infrequent basis, why not get in touch with us and do it under the umbrella of The Gooner?

Everyone who completes the survey has the opportunity to be entered into a draw to win next seasons replica shirt (home or away) and one of three digital Gooner subscriptions by adding their contact details at the end.

The closing date for entries is not until Sunday 9th June so there is plenty of time to reflect on the last nine months and other aspects of our club.

We are planning to break with tradition slightly and reveal the results of the survey at regular intervals throughout the close season on the site rather than in the first issue of next season as we have always done in the past. We will no doubt publicise the results on Twitter as well, so if you don’t already, please give us a follow.