My name is Thomas Segrue and I have supported Arsenal Football Club since the late sixties. I stood on the North Bank at Highbury as man and boy, travelled away to every game I could afford to attend. Previously I had spent time at Chelsea, West Ham and Fulham.

These were the days when football was ingrained in a vast section of predominantly working class people, the days when you were a brave person if you strayed off your turf intentionally or by mistake. The days when the club you played for mattered, the fans mattered, and the players more than often shared the same background as the fans.

Watch any old games and you will see commitment from the likes of Georgie Armstrong, John Radford, Alan Ball etc leading up to (and far more rarely) the present day, with Ian Wright, Tony Adams and Thierry Henry.

And it was not only the Gunners who had such players, the game was played by those who lived it, who cared about it and who went on in a lot of instances to influence it long after their retirement - not for vast amounts of money but because they loved it.

To play football meant something deep within these people and the fans could see it, there was a pride in the fact that they had made it where so many had not and we loved them for it.

I have long realised that the game had been wrenched from its roots, dragged into commerciality, played by those whose only loyalty is to themselves. Played now for this club and numerous others by foreign imports, and supported by only those who can afford it.

My club was lost a long time ago as was football and it breaks my heart to see it under a regime that above all else craves success and ‘progress’ that allows those who - besides their assumed prowess - have no right to wear an Arsenal Football Club shirt to cheat the fans.

These corporate influences are not the sole blame, for we have allowed this to happen. Look at the wholesale adoption of foreign influence without question and in there you will find the death of something that was ours, no one else’s, right or wrong, good or bad it stemmed from the people of this country.

So I am finally saying goodbye to my Arsenal and to football in general, my absence will make little difference to the game, or to you, because we come from different worlds. It will however make a difference to me.