Cheers @Burnwinter.

I'm Pep . I created the infrastructure for this forum back in 2010 and a lot of great people have spent more than a decade since making it a community that I'm very fond of. I'm a middle-aged tech worker from Dublin who lived in London for a while in the early noughties. Our CL run in 05/06 thus holds a special place in my heart, though I've followed the club since I was a kid. I was fortunate enough to get to Highbury a couple of times but the Emirates is really Arsenal's home for me now, though I haven't personally been in quite a few years. Hoping to remedy that soon and do a lot more travelling over the next while. In the meantime, I'm spending a lot more time here nowadays and would love it if we had a few extra posters to enhance the experience of basking in our victories/compulsively refreshing post-match threads... so don't be shy, sign up and say hi!

Gazza M here. born and raised in Sydney, Australia. most of my family are spurs scum, and me being ever the counter-cultural enigma decided to become a gooner in 1996 just to wind my family up. around that time I also saw one of the coolest pics of Ian Wright in world soccer magazine in the JVC home kit, and upon asking my dad who he played for, he answered with a huff 'arsenal'. it was sealed for life then and there.

greatest moment was winning the league at OT in 2002, which just pipped winning at WHL in 2004

used to post on Arsenal-mania during the 02/03 season up to about 2010, at which point a little birdie whispered of a great migration to the greener pastures of OMITT. haven't looked back ever since, as this is the best arsenal community I've found bar none.

Hello fellow tollyers, I'm Daz. I was born in UK but moved to Australia with my family as a young fella. I now live on the north coast of NSW and work as a lecturer.
My old man passed on a love of football, but it was my mum's connection to North London that saw me adopt Arsenal as my team in the late 80s. I have fond memories of early morning FA Cup games and weekly highlights shows before the EPL era, but my favourite memories as a fan would still have to be the 97-98 and 01-02 doubles. I've been a member here for a number of years after migrating over from AM. For me this is simply the best all-round forum for gooners, full of good people and interesting discussions (even though lack of time prevents me from contributing as much of late). I look forward to seeing some new peeps dropping in and sticking around. Oh, and I've not been back to the UK so have never seen us play in the flesh, but it's high on my bucket list!

Invisibleman18 here. Born in London but grew up in New Zealand, moving here in 1993 at age 7. Grew up in Auckland but have been in Wellington for 13 years now, working for a major Government department and now married to a Wellington girl. Still consider myself English and support England in all sports despite the more Kiwi sounding accent.

Like Gazza above my parents support Spurs - both going to games when they were young. My grandfather (Dad's father) was an Arsenal fan who attended games from the 1930s to 90s. He was at the record attendance against Sunderland in 1935.

My earliest football memory is Euro 96. I can remember watching the penalties against Germany with my parents and brother and crying when England lost. For whatever reason I didn't watch a full premier league match until a year later. Now we get every match live here but in those days we tended to get one a week and the first time I bothered to sit down with my Dad to watch it was supposed to be a Spurs game but turned out to be Arsenal vs Barnsley. Arsenal won 5-0 and I was mesmerised by Bergkamp much to my Dad's horror. Unlike him who just picked Spurs to go opposite to his Dad, I fell in love with the team in the first game I watched and possibly have a scheduling error to thank for not ending up a Spurs fan. Typically for a kid starting to watch in the late 90s my younger brother is a Man United fan so plenty of heated debates in our house growing up. Euros and World Cups have always been special because they are the only time we all support the same team.

Winning the double immediately in my first season as a fan and the subsequent success under Wenger probably got me accustomed to thinking that was something that just happened most seasons without having been through lean periods first. As I've grown up I've come to properly appreciate how special trophies are and treated the recent FA Cup wins as if they may not happen again in my lifetime.

First live game I got to was a CL game at Wembley on a trip back in 1999. My grandparents lived in Wembley, walking distance to the stadium (could see the arch of the new Wembley from their upstairs bedroom window) from in a street where people would park when going to an event so managed to get some tickets that had been offered to local residents. My grandfather was a bit too elderly to manage it so I went with my Uncle who was mainly a Barnet fan but a casual Arsenal fan. Even though we got knocked out by Fiorentina on the night I still went to bed over the moon at having seen the team for the first time and singing all the songs I'd learnt by being in the crowd. On the same trip I also got to go to Lee Dixon's testimonial for my first time at Highbury again with my Uncle and did the Highbury stadium tour with my grandfather.

Saw the outside of Emirates on the next trip back in 2006 before it opened and managed to make it inside in 2009 when I went travelling after finishing studying. Did the legends stadium tour with Charlie George and went to both days of the Emirates Cup. Haven't been back since so hoping to make it back to the UK again some day to go to a proper game. Wife has not been so we're talking about a possible UK/Ireland/Europe trip perhaps in a couple of years. I also went to Sydney in 2017 to see both games on that pre-season tour.

RocktheCasbah introducing myself. It's been a long and winding road to get to this point, but I'll start at the very beginning. Which, for me were Saturday afternoons listening to my uncle and my grandad berate me for my affection for the Super Hoops of west London - why them? My best mate from primary school supported them.

Luckily for me, a move to different secondary schools separated us and with my uncle keeping up the pressure, if you can't beat them join them... And so, following QPR being hammered by Manchester United in an FA Cup Replay, I did. Before you judge me too harshly for that, my actual best mate Luke did something similar at the same time, but he chose Everton. This was January 1989.

So the 26th May that year wasn't "mine" to enjoy in the same way it was my uncle's, or my granddad's, or any of the several thousand Gooners present at Anfield. Nonetheless, enjoy it I did.

1991 was obviously a big year for Arsenal, cantering to the title despite the two point deduction and a very good Liverpool side. It was also a big year for me as I got to visit Highbury for the first time just four months on from Tony Adams lifting the First Division trophy.

The first sighting of the East Stand will stay with me forever. We stood in the corner of the North Bank, the sun shone and Arsenal scored 4 in the first half hour.

Days later, we signed the great love of my Arsenal supporting life, Ian Wright Wright Wright!!!

For some reason, we got a bit shit after that first season of Wright, though still managing three trophies and as I was finishing my A-Levels (badly) we signed Dennis fucking Bergkamp.

Despite my badly finished A Levels, I squeaked into Uni at Leeds and therefore had the misfortune to be 200 miles away whilst Arsène Wenger brought home two doubles.

The climax of the 2002 season would prove too much for me and the girl I had stayed in Leeds beyond my allotted four years to be with. Six weeks after the joy of Old Trafford (actually, I went back to London for the last two games of that season), she finished with me (I realised far too late, I'd been asking for it) and three months after that, after watching Arsenal batter Leeds 4-1 at Elland Rd, my mate Harry drove us both back down the M1.

That Leeds got to end our title defence the following May was personally devastating to me, though we got our own back in a big way one year later. I managed a few games in that year, mostly cup games with a couple of League fixtures thrown in. I was at the nerve shredding Champions League fixtures against Dinamo Kyiv when Ashley Cole scored in the last minute to keep us alive. I had, of course, by then also discovered the "other place".

Which was actually pretty good to me tbf, I got money for the writing Jonathan & Jinn encouraged me to do, which then encouraged further musings elsewhere. I also made a few friends, one of whom was kind enough to invite me to his wedding a few years back and we still get to games whenever we can - hello James! I think we'll be friends for life.

The Emirates era, whilst not as overtly successful as the last ten years at Highbury, has enabled me to get to many more games than I would have at Highbury and encouraged, I think, a different relationship with the club.

It's also enabled me to get my cousins Josh & James involved - in fact Josh and I are going to the Newcastle game on Tuesday. My uncle, so keen to indoctrinate me 30+ years ago, has had quite a relaxed attitude to actual match attendance. But I'm happy to play big brother to them, and am able to do so with two silver memberships at home (my partner Jo also holds one).

We were all so lucky to watch the 2014 Cup Final together, with my grandad and see Arsenal, after 9 finally get their hands on another trophy. Grandad died in Feb 17, just three months before we beat Chelsea to win our 14th.

Hi All. This is 'Cannon' from New Delhi, India. Arsenal fan since 2004-5. Actually I am unable to log into my old account (Cannon) as I no longer have access to the email associated with it (don't remember my password, or at least it is not what i last remembered). Is this something the admins can help me with?
Thanks!