By Harrison
A broken-down car and a sprint to a packed main road as a six-year-old boy. Who would have thought that would be the start of my Arsenal story?
Well, how about if I told you my dad and I were running a bit late to the Invincibles parade? Does that make it acceptable to leave the car on the side of a backstreet?!
That is the first memory I have of going down the Arsenal, and not a bad one really as I got to see all my idols that day. Ever since that day it’s been Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal.
"Whenever someone mentions anything about Highbury it brings a tear to my eye"
Still to this day I remember the time I was told I was going to my first competitive Arsenal game.
My seventh birthday, April 2, 2005, Arsenal played Norwich at home and the moment I walked into Block 20 in the Clock End will stay with me forever.
Thierry Henry had been my idol from the moment I could say "football", so it couldn’t have been more necessary for him to get a hat-trick on my first game to help Arsenal to a 4-1 win.
I am really not someone to get emotional about anything but even as a 15-year-old who only went to Highbury four times, whenever someone mentions anything about Highbury it brings a tear to my eye and I remember how much it hurt me to watch that last game against Wigan, and seeing Thierry kiss the turf.
That seven-year-old boy is now 15 years old, a season ticket holder and in my first season on the away scheme. And I honestly don’t know where I would be without Arsenal.
I have met so many great people through Arsenal, some who I go to every game home and away with. I've met people from events ranging from a Junior Gunners Christmas party to being on the BSM Boat to Fulham.
It hasn’t been fun growing up recently in a community of West Ham and 'London’s finest' Manchester United supporters, but that family feeling and the nod of the head whenever you see another Gooner down the street is what keeps me going.
Up The Arsenal.
This first appeared on She Wore A Yellow Ribbon in November 2013
