David Frimpon – known universally as Frimmy – joined as a permanent member of staff in February 2022. Here we find out how he became Host and Social Editor at the club he loves.
When I was really young, I loved watching the Netherlands. There were a few players I enjoyed watching but nobody got me out my seat like Dennis Bergkamp. He was at Inter Milan and then signed for Arsenal – and I remember then taking notice of players like Ian Wright. I fell in love with the club from then on. I grew up in Seven Sisters and my cousins are Tottenham fans. They tried to convince me to support them too but I wasn’t having any of it! Tottenham weren’t for me.
Whenever I had free time on a Saturday I used to go to Highbury and try to peer through a gap by some big red doors. You could never really see much – but the cheer would tell you when we’d scored.
The first game I went to was at Emirates Stadium. Remember the 5-0 win over Porto in 2010? That one! I remember actually missing Samir Nasri’s goal in that game – I couldn’t believe it when I got home and saw it on the telly.
I never thought back then that I’d ever have the chance to work for Arsenal. I started my career at a company called GiveMeSport, where I worked as a camera operator and video editor. I was there for a few years but was then made redundant. After that, I started doing some social media hype videos for the boys before matches.
I’d call them “Frimpon’s Team Talks” – it basically focused on me being really hyped up and encouraging the team to get the result. I did that for every game over the course of a whole season, even if I was running out of time before kick-off and had to record it in my car or on the train.
Because of all the social media stuff I was doing, I’d started to build a small following. Funnily enough, GiveMeSport got in touch again and said they’d seen my social video output and wanted me to go back and work there again, this time to be in front of camera as well as a video editor and my camera op work. I was back there for another two years and carried on with the hype videos on my own social media.
I’ve always been someone who tries to put a smile on the face of others and bring out their personalities
When we signed Thomas Partey, I did a welcome to Arsenal video for him. With us both being Ghanaian, I had my Ghana flag out and was dancing in my room to an artist called Daddy Lumba. I posted it, went to bed and when I woke up the next morning, my phone was almost overheating. Arsenal had found the video and embedded it on the club’s account.
Alex Hoffman, the video lead at Arsenal, messaged me and asked if I fancied working on a few episodes of the club’s Twitch content. I was always going to say yes to working for Arsenal in any capacity, so I did it for a while and then a job ad went out for a Twitch host. I decided to apply for it and found out a couple of months later that I had got the role.
It involved me going live four or five times a week to be the face of our streams on the platform. The content was varied – we’d focus on match watchalongs, get guests on, run
competitions and broadcast interviews. It was really interactive for viewers – we’d have players on and have fans ask them whatever they wanted.
I was in the Twitch role for a year before switching to a new job, which I’ve been in to this day. I’m now the club host, but in addition to that I’m also a video editor, and I’ll spend
a lot of the working week working on video content that goes out across the club. When I found out I’d become a permanent member of staff at Arsenal, I was so buzzing! It’s my dream job and when I found out I’d got it I was honestly so close to crying. I feel so blessed because this really is the best job ever. I’m lucky enough to edit content that is seen by millions of Arsenal supporters all over the world.
In addition to that, the host section of my job means I’ll occasionally interview the players. I’ve always been someone who tries to put a smile on the face of others and bring out their personalities. I’ve got to admit that I was really nervous the first time I spoke to one of the first team, though.
"I feel so blessed because this really is the best job ever"
It was when I was working on Twitch, I remember the club contacted me and asked me if I’d mind interviewing Sambi Lokonga right after he signed. I was very nervous because it was something I hadn’t previously done too much. I acted really confident and said yes when I was asked, but inside I was nervous. This was during the pandemic, when the regulations were still in place. I remember going over my questions over and over again. After that, I also interviewed Ben White and Martin Odegaard.
Nowadays I’m used to it. As a media team, we’re able to regularly capture content with the players, so we’ve become used to each other. It’s nowhere near as stressful as it was at the start.
I present a feature now called Colney Carpool, where I take the players for a ride around the training ground. It’s a really enjoyable one to work across. My aim is to try to relax the players and chat to them away from the normal interview environment, where they will have cameras and lights pointed at their faces. It’s just about having a good time and asking questions that most people wouldn’t ask so the team can showcase their personalities away from football.
See Frimmy in action in our Colney Carpool playlist:
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
